Log Thots 1: Culture Wars
This is an analysis of a blog by ThotRevulsion(a nickname I have for someone with many sock accounts). Source material is linked for context.
https://www.minds.com/ThoughtRevolution/blog/there-are-no-winners-of-culture-wars-895858061553360896
So, this is a relatively short blog about culture wars. I’ve never cared much for the idea of a culture war, to be honest. It seems silly. Advocate for things you support and against things you don’t. Make the case, but beyond some truly dire situations, I don’t think an organized movement where lines are drawn is necessary, or even useful. Tribalism for its own sake is self defeating, as a movement unwilling to tolerate dissent will likely just implode from a purity spiral.
But let’s see what Thot has to say about it.
“There really are no "winners" of a culture War. It was never a game for anybody to win at anyway. There never really were any separate groups. #Divideandconquer #weaponizedpsychology ”
No, there very much are separate groups. What is a culture but a group of people who think and act in similar ways? American culture is very much different than Japanese culture. You would have a hard time arguing with anyone that they are fundamentally the same. This doesn’t mean that all groups are against each other by necessity, but to argue that there are not different groups is just bizarre.
And winning? I think when own subculture grows in support and acceptance while another recedes and loses prominence, that’s considered a victory. A culture war is not a traditional war, it is more a euphemism for advocacy towards social change on a large scale. And I’m not sure even that’s a properly nuanced description of a culture war, but it’s certainly more correct than claiming it simply doesn’t exist because there are no different groups.
“Pretending that anybody's culture, beliefs or opinions matter is doing nothing but being an enabler. A more prudent way to handle the zealots of these religious wars is to tell them that you're not going to argue with them, that their opinions don't matter, that they have no value in an intellectual capacity and that you're not going to pretend otherwise. It would be asinine and irresponsible of you to enable them to believe anything else and you would be manipulating them through omission or as a honeydicker by either staying silent or agreeing to entertain their horseshit ignorance and logical fallacies. ”
So, ThotRevulsion’s tactic for dealing with the culture war that doesn’t exist is to tell the participants that they are wrong, plugging your ears, and yelling at them while they try to respond. Which is odd, because it seems that trying to interact with culture warriors at any level with a predetermined response is, itself, an attempt to engage in the culture war. Because that’s what the culture war is; trying to change public sentiment, a.k.a. a facet of culture, on a macro scale by using predetermined tactics. Am I missing something here? It sounds like Thot is suggesting engagement in the culture war in order to not enable people engaging in the culture war.
“The majority are #delusional and too afraid to admit it. Delusional to the point that they're arguing over whose delusions less wrong.
80-99% of the population have no idea what they're talking about 80-99% of the time.”
What kinds of percentages are these? If I had to guess, they aren’t based on anything factual. To me, it seems rather delusional to make assertions about other people’s delusions while speaking in such vagaries.
“The best most people achieve is to know a hell of a lot, about 1% of what there is to know, just to fill a niche in a capitalistic jungle. All the while, in all actuality, they're about as ignorant as a mountain hillbilly in regards to the lateral scope of our oceans of understanding. they wallow in the trough of awareness instead of Surfing the crest of the wave of consciousness. One way or the other these examples of mass psychosis drive mass awareness into the dead end of mountain hollows. This state of perception restricts the ability for projecting consciousness into the future in order to be aware enough to compensate to the changes that are coming.”
What an absolute train wreck of a paragraph. Thot is quite gifted at writing a slew of purple prose without even saying something that appears to be profound. He appears to suggest that technical specialization is a problem, and not the very practice that enabled our modern world in which we can now order virtually anything from the comfort of our homes and have it delivered directly to our doorstep. And what is “surfing the crest of the wave of consciousness”, exactly? Sounds like new age, postmodern, pseudo-religious nonsense. Thot certainly doesn’t care enough to elaborate, so I won’t speculate further, and just leave it at that.
“I have observed that some are so focused on very specific and detailed facets that they can't see beyond their specs on a petri dish. Even if they are presented with a wide range of other compelling information that demands their perception of reality and motives change, they don't really allow it to be a factor that affects them because they immediately go back to being distracted by their previous goals and focus. It doesn't even matter if they know they are delusional, they'll admit it, say oh well and then try not to think about it. That's some fucked up shit there. They basically have become mentally lazy and they go back to where there were comfortable because change is difficult. If they aren't around other people who refuse to conform then there will be no constant motives for the complacent to emulate to a more advanced, productive, accurate and efficient paradigm in regards to any particular systems of thought or perception. ”
No… no, Thot… details are actually of crucial importance. You can’t say you have a “wide range of other compelling information”, but not actually present it. It sounds more like this is the popularity fallacy in action, where because you can hypothetically pull up a lot of different studies that all agree with your assertions, you are therefore correct and all dissent is necessarily incorrect. Because all of this language is so vague and filled with buzzwords, it ends up saying nothing at all. If someone who needed to change read this, what could they intelligently change? Nothing, there just isn’t enough information. In fact, there are no attributes of a person that must change listed in this blog, so a person could easily read this and conclude it just doesn’t apply to them.
Here’s a rough example of what exactly I’m talking about. If you write a blog stating that the culture war doesn’t exist because there are no different groups while actively engaging in it as a representative of your own group, you might be suffering from a startling lack of self awareness. If your primary concern is that other people don’t think like you, and your best tactic for resolving that is to shout at them while not listening to their response, you might not find too many people convinced by your rhetoric.
Oh, and if you use a list of irrelevant hashtags at the end of your article, it comes off as more pathetically desperate for exposure rather than scientific and logical.
“#culturewars #politics #religion #speciesism #taxonomy #beliefs #pretenders #fake #constructs #TheMatrix #simulations #shimmeryveneer #paradigmshift #PsychologicalSecurityBlankets #bebrave #KnowWhereYourTowelis #manipulations ”
Same post on Minds