- Conceptual ceiling and conservatives;
- Thoughts about how humanity might survive, via deliberate cognitive dissonance: “One mindset to maintain the tribe and ensure near-term survival; another to solve problems that threaten long-term survival.” Which one is right? Both are, in different contexts.
- Can people thrive in a secular society?;
- Items about the anti-vaxx playbook; Trump and the Smithsonian; Trump and heaven; Gavin Newsom’s trolls; and several others.
I’ve written before about how maybe humanity may have hit a sort of conceptual ceiling, where not enough of us are able, or willing, to understand the complexities of the modern world and would prefer to turn the clock back to simpler ways of life, or reject reality entirely in favor of the local mythology or religion.
But today’s thought, distilling dozens of examples of political behavior every day, is that — of course, since humanity is a spectrum along many dimensions and not everyone is the same — is that many people have already hit this ceiling. Everything old and simple is better than anything new and complex. Raw milk, good. mRNA vaccine, or any vaccines at all, bad. The Nazis were the good guys after all, because they hated the same icky people, more or less, that MAGA and ICE hate. Our authoritarian president is preferred by millions who claim to follow the principles of the Constitution, but don’t. The flat earth is intuitive–just look out the window. Don’t believe anything you can’t see with your own eyes. Climate change is unreal, because the evidence is too complex to understand, and anyway, father god will take care of us.
These are the conservatives.
Conservatives have decided, through their churches and parents and perhaps home-schooling, or perhaps through conservative inculcation (as noted in previous post), that they already know everything they need to know, refuse to learn anything new, and will never change their minds.
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That said, it’s not all or nothing, which may be how humanity ekes out our continued existence. There’s a vast culture of clear-thinking people out there, in America and all the other nations as well who, to one degree or another, understand how the real world works, including why the nationalistic and religious myths came to exist and why they endure. These people may not be the majority, but they are more than the religionists realize. They’re the smart people who invented the world by coming to understand it, despite religious opposition, and who keep it running. They’re too polite when speaking to the conservatives to point this out, but they understand them, more than the conservatives understand the smart people. Conservative explanations of people who challenge their fixed beliefs invoke demons, and Satan; no explanation at all. The smart peoples’ explanation of the world, despite the conservatives, are in universities and books (which conservatives would defund or ban), such as the many books discussed on this blog.
It’s not all or nothing even within an individual. This is a striking feature about human nature. One can work a job building bridges and go home at night and cast spells against candles and diagrams on the floor. Or be a leading biologist and think a waterfall demonstrates proof of the trinity of God.
Perhaps the survival of the race depends on us being of two minds. A maintenance of cognitive dissonance. One mindset to maintain the tribe and ensure near-term survival; another to solve problems that threaten long-term survival.
So which mindset is “right”? Both, depending on circumstances and context. It’s never black and white. That’s the key to wisdom.
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Brief posts of other items from the past few days. Though this first one may directly apply to my discussion above.
OnlySky, Bruce Ledewitz, 20 Aug 2025: Can people thrive in a secular society?, subtitled “Are secular values the cause of our malaise?”
This responds to a David Brooks NYT column, which I likely have linked. I will follow up on this.
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Mostly predictable, since it’s been done before, with tobacco, etc. I’ll try to look at this more closely too.
NY Times, Jessica Steier, 19 Aug 2025: The Playbook Used to ‘Prove’ Vaccines Cause Autism [gift link via Morning Heresy]
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Real history: bad. Nationalistic history: good. If your goal is to solidify the tribe, against history and reality.
CNN, 20 Aug 2025: Trump escalates attacks against Smithsonian museums, says there’s too much focus on ‘how bad slavery was’
Because some conservatives don’t think slavery was so bad.
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I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but it’s perfectly consistent with my general thesis.
NY Times, Shawn McCreesh, 19 Aug 2025: ‘I Want to Try and Get to Heaven’: Trump Gets Reflective on ‘Fox & Friends’, subtitled “President Trump cast his effort to broker peace in Ukraine in existential terms.”
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More about Gavin Newsoms’ social media troll. Goose, gander.
NY Times, 20 Aug 2025: Gavin Newsom’s Latest Role: Social Media Troll, subtitled “The California governor’s press office is mimicking President Trump’s distinctive Truth Social style on X. Liberals love it. The White House says it’s ‘just getting weird at this point.'”
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The Atlantic, Eliot A. Cohen, 19 Aug 2025: The Sword and the Book, subtitled “Pete Hegseth is wrong to think that civilians have little role to play in military education.”
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Politico, 17 Aug 2025: Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news
Subtitled: A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation — and they’re spoofing reputable news outlets to do it.
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Slate, Andrew Koppelman, 20 Aug 2025: Trump Has Found a Cruel New Way to Attack Trans Veterans
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PolitiFact, 20 Aug 2025: Donald Trump: The Smithsonian Institution includes “nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future.”
Rating: Pants on Fire.
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How to say you’re an ignoramus.
JMG, 20 Aug 2025: Trump: “Days Of Wind And Solar Stupidity Are Over”
JMG provides some context:
A simple fact check: “According to a recent analysis by Energy Innovation, states that have leaned heavily into wind and solar — like Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico — have actually seen slower electricity price growth compared to the national average. Iowa, which now gets nearly 60% of its electricity from wind, saw its rates increase more slowly than 42 other states over the past decade.”
