- Recalling how conservative motivations echo Hutson’s 7 laws of magical thinking;
- Examples of banning flag burning, removing the rainbow crosswalk in Orland, and French Gallic culture;
- Hemant Mehta examines why the Jehovah’s Witnesses have relaxed their prohibition against higher education;
- And Frank Bruni and why Trump is bleeding American campuses dry;
My discussions the past two or three days about what really motivates conservatives, especially the MAGA folks, not being principles like the Constitution or even every day law and order, made me recall a nonfiction book I read several years ago, Matthew Hutson’s THE 7 LAWS OF MAGICAL THINKING (review here). As I’ve noted before, many of these books about psychology and human nature overlap in topics even if they use different terminology. Thus the protocols of tribal thinking are analogous to the naive ways of perceiving the world (Bering) and to the intuitive ways of perceiving the world that Hutson calls “magical thinking.” Recalling his seven:
- Objects carry essences;
- Symbols have power;
- Actions have distant consequences;
- The mind knows no bounds;
- The soul lives on;
- The world is alive;
- Everything happens for a reason.
The conservatives mindset essentially incorporates these elements of “magical thinking,” in that these elements are prioritized over secular principles. Examples from today:
AP News, 25 Aug 2025: Trump moves to ban flag burning despite Supreme Court ruling that Constitution allows it
Because symbols have power, and maybe even a flag carries an essence of America’s greatness. And those are more important than any quibbling court opinion about the First Amendment.
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NBC News, 25 Aug 2025: Florida paints Pulse crosswalk black again after protesters colored it rainbow, subtitled “Protesters have used multicolored chalk to fill in the crosswalk repeatedly since the state Transportation Department initially painted over the rainbow colors last week.”
This is a crosswalk near the site of the Pulse nightclub shooting [Wikipedia] in Orlando in 2016, where at a gay nightclub 49 were killed and 53 wounded.
But those people are irrelevant to MAGA, and I suspect most conservatives. And so they erase the symbols of people who existed, and died, but were unlike themselves.
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And how every culture has its nationalistic myths that must be preserved.
Washington Post, opinion by Tom Tugendhat, 25 Aug 2025: A faith-and-flag theme park in Europe is sending a clear message, subtitled “France’s Puy du Fou draws millions with an unabashed celebration of Gallic and Christian pride.”
Because that’s what culture *is*, right?
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OK, what about this? The stronger the faith, whatever the religion, the more likely one would resist any education that might undermine religious myths. So why the change?
Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, 25 Aug 2025: The Jehovah’s Witnesses now say college is OK… after decades of saying the opposite, subtitled “Former members are furious as they recall their wasted scholarships, lost careers, and lifelong poverty”
Setting the stage:
Even if you don’t know a lot about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, there are a few rules that they’ve historically been very strict about. For example, you can’t receive blood transfusions, you can’t celebrate birthdays, and you’re discouraged from obtaining a higher education.
That last one has been a major problem for a lot of JWs over the years because, without a college degree, many of them have struggled to find higher-paying jobs and support their families. Trade schools and religious schools are generally not an issue, but a secular university is almost always out of the question. In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that only 9% of Witnesses had an undergraduate degree, the lowest of any religious group.
The JWs treat higher education the same way as a lot of Christian fundamentalists: They see it as spiritually dangerous—a distraction from worshipping God. They worry that learning science—or having non-JW friends on campus—will steer people away from faith. They also think it’s a waste of time because the end of the world will happen any minute now—just you wait!—so you’re better off spending your time going door-to-door and winning converts.
The last two sentences. Well of *course* learning science will undermine the religious myths required of faith. And despite the long history of failed prophecies of the imminent end of the world, apparently JW are still anticipating it.
The sad part of this story is how many JWs now feel robbed of an education and career due to this prohibition against going to a secular university. And Mehta quotes ex-JW commentators on their subreddit about their anger over this.
But what’s the rationale for this change? Quote from Governing Body member David Splane:
Is it appropriate for Christians to pursue additional education? With this update, we’d like to clarify our understanding. While there are dangers involved in pursuing certain forms of education, basically, whether to obtain additional education or not is a matter for personal decision.
…
And while an elder or a mature friend may discuss with us the pros and cons about obtaining additional education, no Christian—including the elders—should judge a fellow Christian’s personal decision on this matter.
Mehta:
So… no apologies? No explanation for why they made this sudden u-turn? Going to college is now just a “personal choice” that no one should judge negatively?!
I’m afraid I’m not sympathetic to all those ex-JWs who now feel robbed. All they had to do was grow up and leave the cult.
Mehta concludes:
But this is what the organization has always been: a machine that feeds on the devotion of its members, indifferent to the wreckage it leaves behind. They were opposed to education, because education might lead to independence, and independence might get in the way of their need for control. They preferred to keep their flock undereducated, underpaid, and dependent, all while preaching that it was Jehovah’s will. Now—perhaps out of desperation more than anything else—they’re pivoting. They don’t give a damn about the people wondering where this advice was back when they actually needed it.
None of this is spiritual guidance. It’s spiritual exploitation.
Big picture: this has happened over and over again, throughout history, as the myths of religion encounter the reality of modern society, and the religions have to give way, lest they lose so many adherents that they go extinct. As has happened in history too. And that’s why the JW has shifted its position.
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This items fits today too.
NY Times, Frank Bruni, 25 Aug 2025: Trump Isn’t Fixing America’s Campuses. He’s Bleeding Them Dry.
When I went back to my office at Duke last week to prepare for the fall semester, I confronted danger signs, police-style tape and other obstacles outside the entrance to the building. I had to weave my way in. And while the impediments reflected humdrum structural maintenance, I couldn’t help but see a metaphor in them, one so on the nose that a novelist writing about higher education under President Trump would probably be ashamed to use it.
Those of us in academia are on newly threatening terrain. Will the Trump administration take away yet more of our funding? How closely is it watching us? Those questions dog me, but no more so than a larger one: What sense, if any, does the administration’s attack on many of the country’s leading colleges and universities make?
…
With debatable authority and without any consultation with Congress, Trump is using the suspension of federal grants, threats of further cuts and demands that schools essentially pay fines for their supposed transgressions to get them to do as he pleases. That’s not a discussion; it’s intimidation. That’s not accountability; it’s extortion. He extracted $200 million from Columbia. He’s reportedly looking for $500 million from Harvard and more than $1 billion from U.C.L.A. Why these targets? They’re politically juicy. These sums? They’re attention-grabbing. He’s staging a show of force. A spectacle of punishment.
He cites the Steven Pinker essay from May that I discussed here. Then he asks, is there any honest criticism of academia? No.
What I do hear is a caricature of elite schools. I’ve been on the Duke faculty for more than four years, and I’ve certainly seen evidence of what right-wing critics of higher education are furious about. But I’ve also seen this: one student’s paper about how Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are merchants of grievance too ready to assign various Americans the labels of villain or victim; another student’s presentation on the overreach of some schools’ and organizations’ harmful language glossaries (“blind study,” “homeless,” “hardworking,” “brown bag”); all my students’ receptiveness and respectfulness when I’ve invited conservative guest speakers to talk with them and take their questions; my fellow faculty members’ delight that I brought those speakers in.
Despite the warning signs around my Duke building, the danger as I begin my fifth year of teaching here isn’t from within. It’s from without, and it’s chilling.
Again. So many nuanced essays like this one. But it boils down to conservatives’ antipathy toward education, because education would undermine tribal myths and the rationale for an authoritarian government.
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Hovhaness: The 50th isn’t bad. My impression has been that the overly prolific Hovhaness has been regarded as…. almost the elevator music of classical music. Pleasant, but bland. I’ll keep listening.
