Tribal Human Nature Fights Back

Posted on 26 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Thomas L. Friedman asks Trump and Vance: What is wrong with you people?
  • Republican attacks against Kamala Harris as being childless reveal base tribal motivations for how society ought to be run;
  • And who’s brainwashing whom?
  • Do children ‘belong’ to their parents? Or to society?
  • Meanwhile, in reality, the economy is doing quite well: three items, one of which claims “The US economy is pulling off something historic”

Conservatives, who have very firm ideas about the Way Things Ought To Be, have a new Person They Disapprove Of. Never mind evidence or competence or policies, about which further down.

Let’s begin with this. This is about the Republican response to Biden stepping down.

Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, 25 Jul 2024: Just One Question for Trump and Vance: What Is Wrong With You People?

Ever since President Biden’s Sunday announcement that he would not seek re-election, clearly because of age, I keep thinking about Donald Trump’s and JD Vance’s contemptuous reactions to one of the most difficult personal decisions a president has ever made, and what it says about their character.

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Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 5

Posted on 24 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

After being distracted by Texas affairs, politics, Riven, and reading Brian Greene and others, let’s get back to this book and try to finish summarizing it and capturing key points. This and one more post.

Earlier posts about this book: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4.

– – –

Part IV: Know Thyself

How does human nature influence our public and private lives? Most of what people know is “based on gut feelings, folk theories, and archaic versions of biology.”

–Ch12, In Touch with Reality

This chapter concerns whether or not reality is socially constructed, or whether we accurately perceive reality. Neither is totally correct. Naive realism is refuted by visual illusions (examples). Again: the brain evolved to prioritize survival and reproduction of the species. Relativists, on the other hand, are concerned with how we categorize things, suggesting that everything is a social construct, even the facts of science and history. But categorization, like stereotypes, can be dangerous: not necessarily false in every respect, but with many ways they can go wrong. Beware identity politics. Some condemn even language as constraining thought. [[ To the extent these are equivalent might lead to some sf speculation. ]] But cognitive scientists and linguists reject such ideas for several reasons. Both images and words are inherently ambiguous; these confusions are reflected in contemporary art.

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Posted in Book Notes, MInd, Morality, Science, Steven Pinker | Comments Off on Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 5

Life carries on and on and on and on

Posted on 23 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Heather Cox Richardson taking a future historian’s perspective on recent political events;
  • The irony of Republicans accusing Democrats of staging a coup;
  • Paul Krugman on how Republican accusation of immigrants taking away “black jobs” is wrong in so many ways;
  • Short items about garbage immigrants, lies and disinformation, them vs us, and the Christian concept of race.
  • And a Peter Gabriel song, “I Grieve”.

A few more items about recent events. Then, I promise to switch topics in the next day or two.

Heather Cox Richardson summarizes events of the past few days, in her detailed, historian-looking-back-from-the-future manner.

Letters from an American, 23 Jul 2024: July 22, 2024

Thus it begins: Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Politics | Comments Off on Life carries on and on and on and on

Far, Far Better Thing?

Posted on 22 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

So this is the week that President Joe Biden, under fire by everyone since his lame debate performance last month (which I wrote about here), stepped down from his candidacy for a second term as president. This is virtually unprecedented in American history. It was an historic day. He endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, and remarkably, virtually all Democrats have endorsed her too, with no one emerging to challenge her nomination for, now, president; in fact, Biden’s abdication is regarded as a sacrifice for the greater good, putting principle before personal glory.

In contrast are the Republicans, who are undergoing hissy fits, upset that their plans to run against a doddering incumbent have been thwarted. You’d think a contract had been signed or something; some of them are threatening lawsuits to keep Biden on the ticket. And of course they’re engaging in their usual hyperbole and calumny, misogyny and racism. That’s what conservatives do.

Items today:

  • Tom Nichols and Robert Reich think this is a good thing, that it illustrates the difference between Democrats and Republicans, that Democrats should unite behind Harris, and maybe Mark Kelly should be VP;
  • Reactions, compiled by Slate, Salon, The Atlantic, and others, include accusations of a coup, the usual attacks against Harris, and yet another threat of civil war;
  • And even-handed commentary from John Scalzi.

Tom Nichols takes the high road.

Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 21 Jul 2024: A Candidate, Not a Cult Leader, subtitled “After Biden’s decision to leave the race, the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans could not be clearer.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, progress | Comments Off on Far, Far Better Thing?

Subjective Worlds

Posted on 21 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

First of all, I updated yesterday’s post to include the initial list of falsehoods in Trump’s RNC acceptance speech as compiled by CNN, and read off on TV by its fact-checker in the minutes after the speech ended.

For today, I’ll set aside the news today about Biden stepping down, and catch up on a few more items about this past week. Beginning with the subject of Republican lies.

NY Times, David French, 21 July 2024: One of the Republican Convention’s Weirdest Lies [shared link]

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Posted in conservatives, Politics, Psychology, The Gays | Comments Off on Subjective Worlds

Lies and More Lies, and Fans Who Don’t Care

Posted on 20 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Many many comments about Trumps RNC speech on Thursday, accepting his third nomination to become president. He had promised — after his near-death experience the week before — to throw out his earlier combative speech, and instead give one that would be more conciliatory and uniting. The general consensus, even among Republicans, is that his speech began well, for the first 20 minutes, as he recounted that attempted assassination event. And then, for over an hour more, he went off-script to rant about all his usual grievances and false claims, and ruined his opportunity. He just couldn’t help himself. He is who he is.

Response was swift, starting with the CNN fact checker who read back his notes in the minutes following the speech (as we watched the show on TV). He had to rush through them, there were so many to read in his limited time slot. They were online later that evening.

CNN, updated 19 Jul 2024: Fact check: Trump makes more than 20 false claims in RNC acceptance speech

No, there isn’t record inflation under Biden; No, Trump didn’t stop missile launches from North Korea; No, Trump didn’t defeat ISIS in a couple months; No, the Florida judge didn’t rule that the case against him was ‘unconstitutional’; No, Democrats are not going to destroy Social Security and Medicare; No, Trump didn’t cinch a $50 billion trade deal with China; No, gas prices aren’t up 60%; No, the government didn’t recently hire 88,000 IRS agents; No, the Biden administration isn’t going to raise Americans’ taxes by four times; and so on, and on. Right Try, Russian warships, Afghanistan. No, the world was not at peace during his administration; No, Venezuela is not purposely sending their criminals to the US, nor are other countries doing so; and No, the US crime rate is not going up. No great invasion, no 57% rise in grocery prices, no the US wasn’t energy independent under his administration. Trump’s claims about his tax cuts were false. Yes, there was some inflation under Trump. His claim about domestic oil and gas prices is misleading. And on and on, with other false claims from Eric Trump, Mike Pompeo, and Trump’s biographical video.

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The Incoherency of Religious Rationales

Posted on 20 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s generally considered impolite to point out the irrationality and incoherency of religious faith, but sometimes the examples are so blatant, you wonder if they aren’t signs of some mental disorder. Like those cases where brain damage causes one side of the brain to perceive one thing, the other half, something different. (See Oliver Sacks and others.)

CBS News, 19 Jul 2024: In RNC speech, Trump recounts surviving assassination attempt: “I’m not supposed to be here”

So here for example is Trump (with that absurd ear ‘bandage’) saying, near the beginning of his RNC speech the other night, “I’m not supposed to be here tonight” in one breath, then a moment later, “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God.”

Well, which is it? Continue reading →

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Never Mind Policy or Principles, Conservatives Need Only Stories

Posted on 18 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Politics and the Narrative Drive converge in items today.

  • Robert Reich about how the GOP is courting unions;
  • How J.D. Vance emphasizes his personal story rather than conservative principles;
  • How Republicans cling to the myth of migrant crime;
  • And how people on the right think, nonsensically, that the left is “godless.”

We’ve been watching the Republican National Convention the past few evenings because, well, there’s nothing else on. We’re not in the midst of watching any particular show on cable, or DVD, and it’s easiest just to turn on one network or another and watch the show. What struck me on the first night was that a union leader (!) was speaking to Republicans, as if Republicans support unions. They never have; they’re pro-big business, and thus anti-union.

Robert Reich, 16 Jul 2024: The GOP pretends its pro-union, subtitled “How the anti-union party courts working-class voters”

The strategy here, apparently, is if you say black is actually white, some people will believe you.

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We tell ourselves stories in order to live

Posted on 17 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Yes, recalling Joan Didion, captured here. I’m not the only one who suspects this is true.

Facebook, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, friends-only post, 16 Jul 2024: I have spent…

…a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what is inspiring the rabid hatreds of the MAGA right. I entertained the “justified resentment of the rural left-behinds” hypothesis. I entertained the “fear of racial and gender replacement” hypothesis. I entertained the “cult group hypnosis” hypothesis. And others. None of them seemed adequate. Now, after a decade of watching this bloodthirtsy, hypocritical political sadism I’ve come to believe that underlying it all is something I’ve never allowed myself to entertain before about any group. Here it is: the MAGA movement is driven by the need of a large population of Americans to hide their own actually-existing depravity — from others and themselves. Not the spiritual kind, but real crimes. How else explain that MAGATs attribute every crime, perversion, abuse of power, act of bad faith, lying, cheating, and sadistic violence to their “enemies,” while the police records, court filings, and neutral investigations show that the vast majority of the actual instances of those things is on right-wing “conservatives.” Pedophilia — compare the instances of sexual predation, sexual abuse of children, and child porn. Voter fraud – the vast majority of cases have been by Republicans. Sadistic misogyny. Persecution of gays by closeted preachers and politicians. Stigmatization of sexual freedom by swingers behind closed doors. Theft by churches, wage-thieving businesses, sweetheart deals and kickbacks. Violence against pro-choice people by killers. Hatred of laws and norms as conspiratorial oppression by the “deep” state, by people who have enjoyed breaking laws and getting away with it and by harming other people with impunity. Hostility to taxes by people who cheat others habitually, to social justice by people who enjoy seeing harm done. The old evangelicalism of Jonathan Edwards stressed the sin of the people, sinners in the hands of an angry God. The new evangelicalism sees sin only in others. So I can’t help an almost reflexive response when I hear someone spewing MAGA hatred: “you’ve got bodies in your basement and my fondest wish is for your crimes to come to light.” That’s not a healthy political attitude, but I don’t feel like I have a choice. And I guess that’s my answer to my old question about what’s the benefit of projection for the projectors. On the political level they’re not just deflecting bad thoughts, but actual, concrete, bona fide crimes.

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Posted in Conservative Resistance, Human Nature, Politics | Comments Off on We tell ourselves stories in order to live

Perhaps There Is Only Story

Posted on 16 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Now right-wingers are blaming the Trump assassination attempt on women;
  • Those who come out and say that want to impose Christian Nationalism on the nation;
  • Paul Krugman on Project 2025, and it would reverse measures established in the 19th century to prevent cronyism and corruption;
  • Trump buys into RFK Jr.’s vaccine conspiracy theories; Charlie Kirk think there must be something wrong with men who don’t vote for Trump;
  • And on a contrasting note, how Richard Dawkins admires the courage of atheists.

There must be a reason, right? Things just don’t happen for no reason, do they? That would be such a waste of an opportunity for a new conspiracy theory — a new story to explain the world! Any story will do!

Salon, Tatyana Tandanpolie, 16 Jul 2024: “Very clever effort”: Right-wingers find new group to blame over Trump assassination attempt — women, subtitled “Right-wingers claim ‘DEI got someone killed’ because there were women on Trump’s Secret Service detail”

Better yet, impose your preferred story on everyone else. By hook or by crook. Like getting rid of voters who aren’t going to vote your way. Never mind democracy — but we’ve already established that, whatever they say, conservatives don’t believe in democracy.

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