For many of the most effective authoritarian systems, controlling the thoughts of the ruled is secondary to shaping social cleavages in the population.
Ordinary humans do not choose their political positions out of rational thinking or even self-interest, but for social reasons: they want to believe the same stuff as their in-group, and the opposite of their out-group. And even in a supposed democracy, the ruling interests understand this and use it to control us.
From Ran Prieur’s 066.
The main social mechanism discussed in the referenced article is that if someone trusts a political candidate or political party, then he will go on to shift all his other positions to be in accordance with that view. In other words, humans prioritize belonging to a group over developing their own worldview, or even having a coherent view in general. This is quite obvious when it is pointed out, but it is difficult for me to say how unhealthy of a dynamic this actually is.
On one hand, the examples provided in the article are clearly problematic, as they all revolve around a sort of identity game that starts from a rather shallow connection. Let's say that someone (A) identifies as right-leaning because they benefit from focusing on their personal agency and individual freedom, but they don't feel too strongly about all the ideas related to genders that the left and the right love to argue about. But then, one of the person (B) he admires talks about how homosexuality is completely degenerate and such and such. Then A will feel compelled to follow that belief as well, because they get something from listening to B, and it feels like there is too much cognitive dissonance from holding two, seemingly, conflicting ideas. In truth A could have also listened to the personal advice from B, and discarded what he doesn't find useful, but that is not the usual path that tribe-seeking humans tend to go down.
On the other hand, picking individual beliefs because they suit you has a way of making you ignore what you actually need in the moment. Let's say you are someone who tends to avoid commitment because you're utterly afraid of it, then you will tend to “magically” resonate with ideas of open relationships. Which is not to say that anyone who is in, or considering one, necessarily tends to be avoidant, but I merely wish to point out that the dynamic of picking what suits your ego the most is very tempting when you have the freedom to do so.
At the end of the day, the name of the game is discernment, not something we can prescribe in every situation. But it is worth noting that most collectives do not want you to think clearly.
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2024-08-25