Imagine you are presented with evidence of some sort, maybe pictures of a crime scene or some sort of accident. You see all of the physical evidence and you are given three stories to explain what you see. Each version is presented by a person who comes into the room to give their theory of the event. What we know about human nature tells us that you will agree with the best storyteller. Even if his story requires some leaps of logic.
Humans have been telling each other stories since we acquired language. Much of our social activity is story telling. When you go to a party, everyone there tells each other stories about their lives, their experiences, current events and so on. Some people are better at storytelling than others. These people tend to get invited to more social events, because they are entertaining and therefore pleasing. Even if they polish the apple a bit, people still like a good storyteller.
This is most obvious in politics. Ronald Reagan was famous for his short, pithy stories he would tell audiences on the stump. Sometimes they were just funny and other times they had a point. In the latter case, that point had something to do with some larger political point he was making. In the former case the story relaxed the audience and made them more open to his pitch. A man who can tell a good story is always someone we feel we can trust, even if we disagree with him.
Storytelling can be a highly effective form of logic. A persuasive storyteller will start with a set of objective facts. These are things that even a skeptical audience will accept as being true. Then the speaker provides a narrative to explain those facts and tie them to some cause, like a person or group of people. The narrative is presented in such a way that it appears to be the simplest and most likely explanation. For the listener, there is not obvious reason to dispute the conclusion.
This is a form of abductive reasoning. The conclusion is not proven in the sense that all other explanations have been eliminated. It is not proven in a scientific sense in that the causes are demonstrated to result in the stated conclusion. There is some doubt that the causal relationship is true, but it seems to be true and there is no obvious proof that it is not true. If the narrative is presented by a persuasive and charismatic speaker, then the listener is disinclined to question the conclusion.
The writer Ben Novak wrote a book explaining how Adolf Hitler was able to use the power of narrative to persuade the German people. For those looking for the short version, Greg Johnson reviews it here. The key to Hitler’s success as a politician was his ability to reframe events in such a way that changed how people viewed those events and the people involved in those events. Hitler changed the way in which people interacted with their world through his speeches.
Getting back to the example of three people trying to explain images from what looks like a crime scene, the reason you will go with “the best explanation” is that your brain has an idea of what the best answer is before you hear the stories. If you hear three dry presentations, then you will pick the one that matches the one in your head. On the other hand, if one is presented by a great storyteller and he takes you on a journey to an entirely new conclusion, your mental model will change.
Take a step back and the three great ideologies of the last century were basically narratives that framed how people experienced politics. The communist narrative was a story of class struggle. The workers versus the capitalists. The liberal democratic narrative was the story of political struggle. The people versus the powerful interests that rule every society. Fascism was the story of national struggle, the people versus the internationalists who run the global economy.
The point of all this is that human beings have evolved to understand the world through a mental framework. We have a conception of how the world works and we process information through that framework. That framework is the product of our upbringing, our experiences and the culture in which we live. It is not a permanent part of our consciousness that forms and remains static. It evolves and therefore it can be altered by new experiences, like a great story from a great speaker.
We see this in the current election cycle. Gavin Newsome, the governor of California, says his party is in trouble because they are “getting crushed on narrative.” It is not the economy or culture; their problem is they have not presented a “compelling alternative narrative” to the Republicans. No one can tell you what the Republican narrative is, but he is sure it must be better. How else can one explain why voters appear to be moving against the Democrats next week?
This incredible op-ed in the Financial Times lays the blame for inflation at the feet of the storytellers, rather than economic policy. You see, corporations are taking advantage of inflation to raise prices higher than necessary. They can do this because “the power of storytelling has conditioned consumers to accept price rises.” You see, “consumers seem to be buying stories that seem to justify price increases, but which really serve as cover for profit margin expansion.”
What those two examples suggest is that the great promoters of liberal democracy think the tenets of liberal democracy are nonsense. The politicians think people are morons who will fall for a good story, rather than vote their interests. The economists think consumers are not swayed by prices but by irrational beliefs. The premise of liberal democracy is that people understand their interests. If given the chance in a democratic system or a market economy, they will express those interests.
In reality, people will go along with that which keeps them in good standing with their fellows, even if it is against their interests. It is why a good storyteller can be so effective in liberal politics. He can get the crowd nodding along. Each member sees those around him agreeing to the pleasing story. Even if the story is clearly against his interests, he will justify nodding along with it. After all, every human brain has a narrative of sacrifice built into it at a young age.
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It seems to me that the first person to use the word “democracy” more than usual was Hillary – right after the 2016 election. Perhaps it was actually a subconscious slip – in that the 2016 election caught the ruling class with their pants down. They truly thought they were going to slide past 3rd base into home without the white population noticing they had become the majority minority. It could have all proceeded on the down low if only Hillary hadn’t been interrupted! Remember all the happy chin wagging about “browning” of the population and endless discussions about what… Read more »
BRILLIANT comment. I had forgotten this:
“Also, remember all the emphasis on Spanish and bilingual everything?”
Yes, that’s really been dialed back. Maybe because Juan likes to hunt Shanneeka and Shitavious for sport and has decided to get a big game stamp ro go after the Tribe? I would say that is karma and should be encouraged but it also illustrates the future perfectly, Heritage Americans surrounded by warring clans, often targeted, sometimes allied, always on edge
I don’t know about others, but I’ve had a rare afternoon getting the diversity tax thrown in my face.
On top of that, I have normie management that can’t even begin to process why the delivery dates for products built in Germany keep slipping into the future.
This country is doomed.
It’s a race to the finish line between their insane Narratives and Reality. My money is on Reality winning this race.
I would dissent on this storytelling. The bad man with the small mustache never polled over a third of the electorate. And that only because the Conservative party totally blew it with austerity to combat the Depression. Had they offered any patronage/support the bad man with the small mustache would not have cracked 10%. He was installed because the industrialists and other power brokers thought he was a lunatic (correct) and they could control him (incorrect). He was once in power able to become Dictator because he had a powerful direct network of young and no so young men willing… Read more »
This is as falce narrative as they come .The “bad ” man with the small mustache predicted all that you mention here in negative light exactly 100 years ago .Its written in black and white in his book .No one else in last 100 years is even one percent good as him in predictions. He was right about everything.
“In reality, people will go along with that which keeps them in good standing with their fellows, even if it is against their interests.”
Not this fella. Not once, not ever. To do otherwise I equate with being dishonorable. I’m a geezer (76), that was the honor code when I learned it young and I plan to abide by it. Those who fail to do so, those who “compromise” for social standing, well, in Spanish we call that a “mariconada”, as in faggotry.
That’s why you’re here, you’re one of the contrarian outsiders.
Yep. Imagine how all the vaxxtards are starting to feel right now about going along with the narrative
I’m a bit surprised they haven’t made a renewed push for mandates.
I have to wonder if their current lack of interest in doing so is an indication that, on some level, they realize what they’ve done to themselves with the jabs.
I’m not that emotionally sensitive or empathetic, but as I wandered around the plant to day Naomi Wolf’s point that jabbed people are shuffling around like zombies struck home. It’s incredible how meek and drained of life the jabbed have become.
How about if you were a young man whose family would suffer after you were heroically liquidated?
That’s a serious question. There have been millions of such incidents under tyrannical regimes in the past.
[…] ZMan tells us a story. […]
Re: “Imagine you are presented with evidence of some sort, maybe pictures of a crime scene or some sort of accident. You see all of the physical evidence and you are given three stories to explain what you see. Each version is presented by a person who comes into the room to give their theory of the event. What we know about human nature tells us that you will agree with the best storyteller. Even if his story requires some leaps of logic.“ Yes and no. Your gifted storyteller is unlikely to persuade people in your example above that space… Read more »
Which reality is that?
A cold is going to kill millions of people?
Blacks can found a functioning society?
Butchering children is normal?
sexual perversion is normal?
Having no borders and importing millions of foreigners to replace their own population is normal for a country?
Destroying your own culture is normal?
You are mistaking the time before saturated electronic media as being equivalent to now.
Reality demonstrably cannot compete with the NPC programming while such media control exists.
He’s still right in that your examples can be tethered, however tenuously, to reality. The intended audience for blank slate arguments can be shown a Walter Williams, a Thomas Sowell, or that hard-working negro down at the plant and think, “yeah, I guess it’s possible if throw enough money at the problem”. Importing cultural aliens isn’t much different as every normie KAGO, and of course muh restaurants.
A gifted storyteller focuses his fable on the exceptions and convinces you to miss the forest for the trees.
I see some are starting to mask back up now that cold and flu season are upon us–I equate masking with thumbsucking, it’s just a self-comforting action designed to allay anxiety and fear in situations over which they feel they have no control. It’s fun to imagine them carrying teddy bears.
In some parts of the country they never stopped. Lots of little Midwestern college towns are inhabited mostly by very angry people who still wear theirs even when driving alone in a vehicle, and glare furiously at anyone who dares to walk down a street without putting on the symbolic obedience muzzle. None of this, of course, ever had anything to do with medicine or public health. The same people who still want to shut the economy down forever and put everyone everywhere on house arrest forever over the common cold just made it legal in California to give people… Read more »
“A persuasive storyteller will start with a set of objective facts.” The best “lie” is one sandwiched between two half truths. In this case, the half truths can be replaced with “narratives”. I agree with the basic premise Z-man presents, but I forgive the people who buy into narrative falsehoods. Actually, I consider such a point in their favor, although it still results inevitably in error. The question to me is, given I am only a person of limited knowledge and understanding, how do I evaluate arguments made requiring understanding and knowledge beyond my current ability/state? Somehow I must use… Read more »
… what I do is apply common sense, which, the older you get, makes more and more sense (add smiley). When the Berlin wall came down everyone rejoiced; common sense told me a lot of new problems would arise and of course they did. When COVID came on the scene common sense reminded me of the many previous such viral pandemics that had arisen with none of the concomitant hysteria that COVID generated AND the fact that the media were in the fear porn business AND the fact that for every scientific opinion there was a different equally scientific opinion.… Read more »
Common sense is acquired in the School of Hard Knocks. Some graduate, many do not.
Hear, hear! I congratulate you on your years of accumulated wisdom!
“Drop everything…”
There you are! That’s the Zen approach. Just let it all drop, because in the final accounting, that’s all that’s required. “Self-realization”? Inside job. Neither you nor I will change the gestalt, nor should we concern ourselves overmuch with it. It certainly doesn’t concern itself with us.
The more bits of truth the narrative has, the more believable it will be and the more people who will believe it. The press is very good at this. You can find stories where the whole story is a lie where everything in the story is true. In fact, if you detect a narrative, especially an emotional one, it is probably to deceive you in some way.
your fourth option is to get angry and riot burn and loot because you are not smart enough to whatever, and you know it. One question I have always longed to ask a politician is “why is it that the darker people always want to come to where the white people are?”
“why is it that the darker people always want to come to where the white people are?”
You tend to forget that it was the white colonizers who were the first to go where the dark people lived. The dark people merely followed them back after being told how wonderful “democracy back home” was.
And the same democracy and belief in “equality” put dark people like Kamala Harris and Rishi Sunak in power.
The Novak book is great and I really recommend it. He explains how the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce first identified this form of reasoning. Since most of the reasoning that we do is abductive, it was almost too obvious for anyone to call out and analyze. Almost all explanations of history are abductive, for example.
Novak also loves the history of detective novels and shows how Sherlock Holmes and Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin were masters of abductive reasoning and people responded by making the Sherlock Holmes novels some of the most popular books of their time.
When I was a kid, I added the word deductive to my vocabulary from reading Sherlock Holmes. To this day when I hear the word deduce, I think of Holmes.
To deduct means to take out. To abduct means to take away.
Subtle difference. So subtle I can’t see it.
That’s a great point. Holmes said that he was employing deductive logic but Novak says that it’s abductive.
Novak’s argument is that deductive logic only really exists when we are drawing conclusions from indubitable assumptions, like in math or logic. Indubitable assumptions do not exist when we reason about events in the physical world. Seems like an argument about the purview of the term “deductive logic.” Still a really good book.
Narrative spinning, story telling and cloud castles in the sky are not the mere province of politics. Lately I’ve been “debunking” parts of the medical establishment and unhappily have come to the conclusion that large parts of it are mostly bunk. This isn’t to say that medicine (or politics) for that matter is all illusion and never provides any real-world positive benefits. Medicine can and does cure or at least treat many illnesses, ranging from the most trivial complaint to the most life-threatening. As with any institution, alas it is vulnerable to manipulation for at least two reasons that should… Read more »
Ben: Excellent comment and reasoning. This, in particular: ” One could even make the argument that science not only progresses slowly, but it SHOULD do so, because new ideas should be required to prove themselves and that is not done overnight. Just because wisdom is old doesn’t mean it’s wrong. And just because an idea is novel doesn’t mean it’s true or better.”
Governments too should progress glacially. Never take seriously anyone who complains about a “do nothing” legislative body.
For one example: The chemical imbalance theory, a core tenet of the mental health regime, has been essentially utterly destroyed. For even severe cases like schizophrenia, western medicine has been woefully inadequate. The only solution they have to these sorts of problems in living is to zombify the patient. The patient’s quality of life might be crap, but at least he’s not going to hurt himself or other, even though even that mileage varies. Robert Whittaker has done a lot of research into methods that gave far better outcomes that are ignored simply because there’s not enough money or power… Read more »
When I first began spending time in the Far East I scoffed at the Chinese pharmacies and what I believed to be their quackery. I’m far more circumspect now.
I stopped taking Statins, Ben.
Cholesterol count is only part of the equation. What KIND of cholesterol is what’s important.
There is treasure chest of money made in regularly selling Statins…just saying…more than a drug that prevents heart disease.
Amend that.
…more than a one time magic drug that cures heart disease.
There is a blog—not very active lately—from a Swedish MD that was very good making the points brought out here. This good doctor is quite a skeptic wrt the medical and pharmaceutical industry. https://sebastianrushworth.com/ This blog has a lot of older posts which were quite good. Some good insights into Covid and the Swedish response. There is also a lot of study analysis wrt to medical treatment and prevention with important points made—such as the distinction between relative and absolute benefit of drugs. I would note—and bet—that Rushworth was the *first* to take a look at the all cause death… Read more »
Z is a good storyteller. I mean that as a compliment.
Off topic, yet dealing with quality of storytelling, I watched about five minutes of Biden’s speech yesterday (I was playing music on youtube, and saw the live broadcast being advertised). Besides the nauseating use of “democracy” over and over, it was funny how they are trying to make him look like a better speaker. If you watched, you can tell that he now has three teleprompters to read from, so it makes it look as if you are watching someone making eye contact with a crowd. What was particularly funny is he struggled when he read the one on the… Read more »
Eloi: “the one on the left caused him to staccato his speech”
Okay, we got any resident neurological experts here chez Z?
What’s the armchair diagnosis from afar?
PS: On Biden’s left, or on the viewer’s left?
Biden’s left. He certainly stammered throughout (but, honestly, it was a well-delivered speech FOR HIM at this day and age), but I absolutely noticed decreased fluency when looking to his left.
I will say I don’t necessarily think this is neurological ailment (besides his clear dementia, I mean). I read material aloud to people for a good part of my work day, and I am much, much more comfortable reading in front (printed out) or to my left (if it is projected). When reading projections, I always prefer to stand, from the audience’s perspective, to the left of the projection. I just point it out because I was laughing at the way the puppeteers’ strings are visible- vis a vis the three teleprompters in an attempt to make him look like… Read more »
I assumed there must have been something more important to the left that caught his eye, like…say a prepubescent girl and that interrupted his focus on speaking about the loss of Our Democracy should the evil ‘R’s get elected.
Most likely a similar case to that of Derek Zoolander, he simply never was able to master turning left.
If I understand him correctly, the eccentric Semiogogue argues that narrative came before language. That story was before the teller. Or if you like: “In the beginning was the Word…”
All good stories need a villain. The problem with the story we tell about conservatives is that it makes potential converts feel like fools at best, or villains. Which is fine… if you are about demoralization.
But if the aim is education, motivation and activation, then the bad guys are clearly the anti-Yemites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjK0_6hBqkU
[Advisory: this cartoon is “PG” safe, but site’s disclaimer applies if you go exloring.]
https://www.oglaf.com/delusionist/
If I’m veering off topic then let me know. But I feel everyone tells themselves a narrative or origin story. I come from a liberal background and the story I told myself was that in the way before times you had these people who could only operate in the shadows like the kind of civil liberties and labor movement that you would find in places like NY or in a few singers like Pete seeger and the weavers. Eventually said movement was able to slowly gain confidence and create the unending string of victories from roughly 1965-1975. But then came… Read more »
> “Then 2010 happened”
What happened in 2010?
Lois Lerner didn’t become an household name until about 2013.
Her hard drive crashed circa 2014.
The tea party election. Near total wipeout for Dems.
I dropped leftism around 2010 as well. It was a slow process, but accelerated by Obama being hailed as black Jesus then accomplishing nothing while blacks continued to whine and claim to be oppressed. That really broke my Star Trek notion that you could reach a colorblind society, and on top of that you had the far left start screaming that not obsessing over a person’s race was now racist. At that point it no longer made sense to be anti-racist, simply because the other races will eternally peck at you and call you a racist no matter what you… Read more »
Sorry, but GWB wasn’t “selected”. The SC simply shut down the shenanigans that the Dems were able to get away with in 2020. This doesn’t mean GWB wasn’t a brain dead clown. He just had the good fortune to run against one of the dullest people ever nominated. The country needed to a break from the Clinton’s(AG) and it’s unfortunate that GWB went so far off-track.
Maybe you want to take a look at
http://www.odessahistory.com/clintyng.jpg
Or maybe do some reading on the bush/clinton cooperation for iran/contra and mena drug running.
They are cooperating crime orgs that select the front man to put in to switch things up, not opponents.
As George Carlin famously said, “It’s one big club—and you ain’t in it!”
There’s a reason we call it the Uniparty. And that’s why everyone freaked out in 2016. Whatever else you may think about Trump, he exposed our political system for the Kabuki Theater it was. It was around 2010 when I started noticing something off, when people on both sides began pointing out that Obama wasn’t doing anything different than Bush: expanding the surveillance state, decreasing transparency, and bombing kids in the middle east. It was just a game the two parties played, making us think that we had a choice when they just collaborated to gain ever more wealth and… Read more »
Anybody who has been to court same thing. It’s not some wise judge up there making a decision on the facts. The Judge decides whose narrative he’s gonna believe in the first 2 hours, after that he ignores anything that goes against the narrative he believes, and only listens to the things that support the narrative he believes.
TomC: The sole time I was forced into jury duty that is what I witnessed – who told a better story, as well as which story better echoed the listener’s private beliefs. The stereotypical juice lawyer was a better liar/rhetorician trying to manipulate feelings, whereas the opposing female gentile lawyer was more direct and common sense. But ultimately the juice’s oriental grifter client was so unlikable and unbelievable that the jury delivered a rare victory for common sense. No doubt the grifter team appealed and will continue to do so until they prevail – AINO justice rah rah rah.
But that is the essence of the jury process. The jury listens to the presentation of two sides of the story (narrative). It has an advantage in that it has the legal ability to exclude “facts”, which may or may not discredit one of the narratives in their minds. They then render their verdict. Truth or falsity really is not the issue. If the “facts” are permitted in the trial, then they are deemed to have passed an initial level of scrutiny, the final scrutiny reserved to the jury as they judge both the fact *and* its logical inclusion into… Read more »
The one time I made it to jury selection I noticed right away that the lawyers were actively selecting for, let’s say, the most amenable to abductive reasoning. The ideal juror was apparently a nitwit middle-aged woman who, when questioned about her understanding of beyond reasonable doubt, responded by prattling on about her niece. I got booted immediately when I said I only regarded physical evidence as compelling, which makes sense given that the prosecution’s plan as far as I could glean was going to be to call up a series of crying women to give hearsay in order to… Read more »
Jury selection is a problem. And of course, jury selection is in the end a product of a corrupt/broken process. Whenever I was selected, or rejected, from jury duty, I remember two levels of questioning. The first level was the questioning by the judge. Such questions as, “This case is estimated to take 10 days, can any of you not commit that length of time?” Or “Do any of you know the defendant?” “This case entails money damages. Does anyone object to awarding monetary compensation?” “The charge against the defendant involves…has anyone been a victim of such a crime?” Etc.… Read more »
It is almost as if pro wrestling is merely a synedoche for the human condition.
My dtr was an international producer of WWE and her anecdotes were a marvelous source of laughs. Your comment is spot on! Man, am I glad that I expatriated 24 years ago! How did my native country fall so far? Rhetorical question at the end of the day. All here almost certainly know the answer.
Storytelling can also explain the regime media’s strategy on news or events that are unflattering to progressive ideology or goals. Think about the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco. The Narrative of our brave leader Uncle Joe overseeing the US military leaving the country. Of course, the reality is that untold billions worth of equipment was simply left there. This ensures more defense contracts to manufacture the gear left behind. But that doesn’t matter as long as the story of triumph is repeated enough. Telling a continuous story like a soap opera is what the 24/7 news cycle does today. Facts or logic… Read more »
A lot of things, like pushing an iffy narrative, will work at the margins, making the presenter think that they should work in aggregate. That seems be what we’re running into here with the regime spin doctors wondering why people aren’t sponging up their inflation tales like college students sponged up their abortion tales.
We still live in an age of affluence here in the USA, which as been ongoing for at least a half century and resulted in a widespread addiction known as the Comfort First Imperative. And when people are comfortable, they are amenable to storytelling narratives because the risk of hardship seems remote or is easily ignored. But because of high inflation (which cannot be ignored), many people are now fearful of hardship coming on like a freight train. And this fear is palpable and serious because most of the soft fat asses know in their heart of hearts that they… Read more »
The chattering classes are pretty delusional…Most of the working class people I know, which includes most of the former middle class, are extremely sensitive to price vs value..i.e. They’ll get the takeout meal if they think it can be turned into two meals, and they are cancelling or cutting back vacations…
The chattering classes are delusional because they can afford to be.
They’re all making at least six figures to spin their yarns.
I’m still willing to *pay* for value as I can afford it, however given the demographics here we can not find value very easily—particularly in the trades as they are filled with White “frontmen” and Hispanic workers.
TomA: “…most of the soft fat asses know in their heart of hearts that they will not survive severe hardship because they lack basic fitness and robustness…”
The Frankfurt School played that fiddle to a “T”, with their psychological warfare storytelling narrative which terrorized the goyische cattle into submitting to the V@xxines of Death.
anatevka, anatevka,
overfed underworked anatevka,
where else could shabbat be so sweet?
When the Covid sham started, inflation was low and the Democrat Congress had not yet passed several trillion dollars in boondoogle spending. That was then, this is now. The sheeple can no longer keep their head in the sand when groceries and gas have doubled in price in 2 years time. So no, they are not buying into the current narrative like they did before. No one trusts the MSM and the RINO wave next week will prove that most folks are not willing to be fooled anymore.
” No one trusts the MSM and the RINO wave next week will prove that most folks are not willing to be fooled anymore.”
We’ll soon see. If they aren’t “willing to be fooled anymore”, it’ll take more than a vote to prove it. “Res no verbo” (and the vote is “verbo”) requires ACTION, not bla-bla. I ain’t holdin’ my breath.
“No one trusts the MSM and the RINO wave next week will prove that most folks are not willing to be fooled anymore.”
TomA, you have my respect….but all that will show is that most folks continue to be fooled! 😉
“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”
Lysander Spooner
“Do you think they are going to vote next week when their life consists of shitting in a filthy porto-potty?”
Lucky for you, the dems aggressively ballot harvest in the tent cities. The voter’s pamphlet in Oregon repeatedly mentions how you don’t need to have a home to vote on their very important ballot measure to save our parks by giving lots of money to the city to embezzle.
I would submit moral vanity plays a larger role than persuasion. While someone better capable of presenting a moral argument through a well-crafted story will one-up someone making the same case with a weaker narrative, this usually will not hold if the stronger storyteller has less appeal to the listener’s moral vanity. Constant propaganda makes people almost exclusively receptive only to that which comports with their conditioned morality. While economics drives communism, fascism, and liberal democracy and in fact undergirds all politics, each appeals in their own way to the morality they inculcate into individuals through a lifetime of propaganda.… Read more »
The left has done an incredible job of substituting moralizing for morality. Nearly every narrative they have is coercive and uses moralizing that manipulates shame as the coercive force. * Anti-Poverty Programs: Left: You hate the poor. You are evil and want people to be poor. Selfish! * Pro-Black and now Anti-white Racial Preferences: Left: Racist! You are opposed to this program and thus you are opposed to black people! Racist! Racist! Racist! Same for immigration. Same for crime. Same for every last thing. Moreover, notice the constant offensive posture of The Left and the constant defensive posture of the… Read more »
Aaagh! I use html characters and don’t know escapes.
I said:
* Anti-Poverty Programs: (Insert argument using morality of theft and property and reasoning for incentive structures increasing poverty) Left: You hate the poor. You are evil and want people to be poor. Selfish!
* Pro-Black and now Anti-white Racial Preferences: (Insert argument using morality and reasoning illustrating degeneration of merit and incentives and the increase of strife and conflict and resentment …) Left: Racist! You are opposed to this program and thus you are opposed to black people! Racist! Racist! Racist!
Also, the British castration of the monarch and ascendency of Parliament was a mistake as bad as the American revolution.
Western civilization’s future depends on our ability to correct that mistake, IMHO.
PeriheliusLux: “the British castration of the monarch and ascendency of Parliament was a mistake as bad as the American revolution…” I could write a 1,000,000 word magnum opus on this topic, which of course would never see the light of day, but, here goes the tl;dr… There is not a mind but that Rome assassinated the Christian Prince, Henry Stuart, via typhoid fever poisoning, in order to prevent him from ascending to the throne, and thereby to allow his younger brother, Charles I, the roman legalist, to re-institute the mass in England. Furthermore, Oliver Cromwell was only five years old… Read more »
You are stinking up this comments section. Please shower or else go away
BTP-Catholicism maybe appealing to you..
If you are so confident in your beliefs why are you so nervous about criticism?
Was supposed to have read as…
There is not a DOUBT IN MY mind but that Rome assassinated the Christian Prince, Henry Stuart…
Aaagh!! again. “Morality is confused with moralizing.”
Peihelius Lux: Excellent point re moralizing versus morality. Point being, however, that most churches today do the same – moralizing about ‘brotherhood’ or ‘helping the poor’ rather than causing listeners to look at and judge their own lives based on biblical Christian morality, in opposition to social justice pseudo biblical moralizing. Same thing underlies standard leftist tropes such as “Christians only care about forcing women to have unwanted babies; they don’t help feed the hungry children.” What you term the British ‘middle way’ (in comparison with the French aristocracy) was more a result of the English expulsion of the juice… Read more »
“American ‘commerce to a point of moral degeneracy’ was not necessarily an organic or original feature of the nation, to the best of my knowledge. Lots of smaller landholders and craftsmen as well as the wealthy and the influx of fortune seekers. I would argue that the rise of excessive commercialism coincided with not merely the rise of industrialization but also modern banking, which of course coincided with mass immigration. So a different kettle of fish altogether.” I agree on the whole with this. I think this happened, because there were no strong hands whose orientation was to balance commercial… Read more »
Longshank’s expulsion was reversed by Cromwell. He was promised money to pay his War debts. Britain had it’s first Central Bank 40 years later. I believe it was second in the world after the Netherlands which had been culturally enriched by a certain tribe after the Alhamvra Declaration of 1492.
The inevitable typo. of course: Alhambra.
My historical knowledge lacks great depth. What I know of Cromwell is that we was the bane of England.
Bane as in he and his reforms and corrupt dealings were the great deal of ruin in England. It took 300 years, but man did he do a good demolition job.
More educated folks stand to correct me or give me good sources?
Bilejones: Spot on. George Washington wrote his infamous missal to the Rhode Island juice for the same reason – money.
“The British way was the middle way. I think it is the correct way. The aristocracy preserved the higher learning that includes Western morality, … I am convinced that the American Revolution was a grave mistake.” The points you make are easily refuted or not related. I can agree that the AR can now be viewed as in error. But how is GB fairing any better? We had a Revolution and here we are. GB had no Revolution and we can clearly see they are further down the progressive rabbit hole than we. Every degradation of society we decry, they… Read more »
CompSci –
I addressed that in an addendum. I contend that the neutering of the monarchy and the ascendancy of Parliament had the same effect on top of the inevitable decay and problems wrought by empire. The problem is the same. Low time preference democracy (mob rule), came to Britain in a slightly different guise.
Britain is farther down its circle of the drain than us, because their empire failed before ours. Given that they are tied to us, we held them up for a bit, but now, we are going down together.
We are in agreement. Sorry for my error. Wish the comment software had a cancellation button.
Disagree-the US is further down the drain. The US is the source of political correctness,CRT, paedo worship,affirmative action etc.
On most social metrics from suicide to drug addiction, to mental health problems ,to violent crime,to STD infections the US is worse than Britain.
THe US has mediated its degeneracy through language. English is the great disease vector and countries where English is commonly spoken are much more affected by the American disease. See Ireland,New Zealand,the Netherlands ,Scandinavia, or Germany.
NB The US is also much more diverse than the Uk or any European country
PeriheliusLux you don’t cite sources for your dismissal of Britain post Cromwell. More than willing to compare Britain in the 17th,18th and 19th centuries in terms of military,economic,scientific,artistic achievement with any country you care to name.
I’ll assume you’re one of those charming ethnics still seething over an incident that happened centuries ago.
Jack Dobson: “I would submit moral vanity plays a larger role than persuasion.”
You must run with the brie & chardonnay crowd.
You in NoVa, or in Prince George’s County, or up around Fort Meade?
Down here in Dirtland, that dawg don’t hunt.
You might want to re-read that. I live where you live. Every Normie around me is convinced he is on the moral highground because he doesn’t see color, whatever. Quality storytelling will not shake him.
Considering that the left controls most of the cultural propaganda machine, it is somewhat surprising that their story tellers are as horrible as they currently are. I suppose it is possible that I have gotten better at seeing the liar. Normie may still like the actors, the tears and the drama. We all know some otherwise smart people that still believe the lie. At best, these “otherwise smart” people may sense there’s something wrong but will they just default to their previously held beliefs when push comes to shove? Probably, unfortunately.
If you are a bad storyteller and have a monopoly on the public megaphone, which the Left does, it really doesn’t matter. Once a morality is inculcated it is hard to overcome. As I responded to someone else, total control of social media is infinitely more important than the clowns elected next week.
The EU is already threatening Musk with penalties if he doesn’t reign in free speech on rebooted Twitter. Sheesh, he hasn’t even been in charge of the company a week…
This surprises you? Little terrifies the Power Structure more then general awareness of their exactions, and a liberated Twitter would help produce just that.
They have enough people whose identities are permanently tied to the left’s truth regime, so they can tell them anything they want because “I was wrong about my opinions for the last ten years, I’m a bad person and now I understand that I’m going to hell” is something no one in the history of the world has ever said.
There is no such eternal condition known as “hell”, or so say I. “Panta Rhea”: Heraclitus. Everything flows. Indeed it does. Do what you believe is right and if you’re in error, well, so it goes. Stay true to yourself and let the chips fall where they may. Man up!
“Even if the story is clearly against his interests, he will justify nodding along with it. After all, every human brain has a narrative of sacrifice built into it at a young age”.
I suppose that explains why in 2020 there were 85 mil who went along with a negative story, as told by a moronic story teller and poorly delivered.
Seriously folks?
Seriously: the story is that FJB beat Cheeto Hitler in the cleanest election in human history and anyone who doesn’t agree is a violent insurrectionist who deserves to rot in prison.
Also, we’re all gonna die from Covid.
Even though I’ve vowed to sit this election out, the narrative here is infuriating. I can only refer to Theodore Dalrymple who concluded the purpose of such propaganda (narrative) was to demoralize, not convince one of a position.
It’s working…:-(
The nuclear war terror op is the replacement for the Covid terror op.
if one is presented by a great storyteller and he takes you on a journey to an entirely new conclusion, your mental model will change.
No, it won’t, if the message contained in the story is contrary to what the listener already believes and wants to believe. Rational criticisms of AGW, Covid-19, the merit of renewable power, etc. aren’t accepted by those intellectually invested in the belief that the man-made apocalypse is nigh and no story seems to be able to change their minds.
You are making the error conservatives always make. You think facts are better than a good story. Rational criticism will never beat a good story well told.
Morality > messaging, though. While facts indeed do not matter at all, inculcating the morality first does. A good story about AGW usually cannot overcome a religious belief about it, for example. That may seem like a chicken and the egg thing but it isn’t. People are receptive to good storytelling if it comports with the morality that was inculcated into them by, yes, often good storytelling.
Morality tales precede morality though. The Christian Bible is nothing but a collection of stories with a moral message. That is what a good story does in the political context. He reframes the morality of the listener. The regime’s obsession with Emmitt Till is because they think it is a compelling story with a sympathetic protagonist that supports their moral claims.
I really think quantity has its own quality here, though, and primacy wins. The Left can tell wretched stories and as long as it monopolizes the megaphone it triumphs. If it shapes the morality at an early age in the educational system and through the pop culture, and it mostly does, good storytelling usually will not get through. Who controls Twitter is far more important than who controls the Senate. Telling a good story from the well of the Senate has far less impact than telling a lame one on social media. Good storytelling can make propaganda more effective, but… Read more »
Exactly. I have a friend who is an angelical conservative with a very high IQ – probably 150 range. He is a data scientist and he is a massive “facts and data” guy. He loves to engage leftist acquaintances on FakeBook and argue with them. He posts long, well thought out dissertations on the issue at hand along with loads of data and facts to support his position. Every time, this is dismissed, and the leftist will even call out the “facts and graphs”. They will sometimes even acknowledge the information is correct, but it is MORALLY INCORRECT. Literally, the… Read more »
*blax not flax.
“…because that makes one a good person.”
There’s that “nodding along” thing, right there.
We are looking for a guideline to a role we can play. Seeing if we can fit into the story somehow.
We have thousands of stories to tell about victimization at the hands of black criminals. They are not told. Why? It is immoral to tell them. Heck you could make a movie about Till’s dad that might call into question the Till narrative. You could tell an entirely different story of Tulsa’s, “Black Wall St.”, that is not the fiction that the general population believes. Every story is one where we are a caricatured villain. It is because we are no longer the story teller. As you always say, it is who, not how. I think how is pretty important,… Read more »
Zman, morality tales may well precede morality, as you argue. But that further reinforces Jack’s point about inculcating morality via messaging. That is why western children’s education included both reasoning based on natural observation and later added Christian morality. Aesop’s fables and local legends/myths/folk tales on through biblical children’s stories. This is why early American readers were based on Christian morality and many children learned to read using the Bible. The family inculcated basic morality and a shared culture. The past 125 years has been a sustained attack on that morality and family and culture. That is the entire rationale… Read more »
For those who care: from earlier statistics (prior to the 2020 boom): In the USA each year there are around 1,000 [fatail?] police shootings of civilians per year. Blacks number about 400. This rate is about triple their share of the population, which seems suspicious. However, Blacks’ share of serious crime is far more than 40%, closer to 50-60% depending upon what source you consult. If that is true, it argues that police exercise more restraint with Blacks than with other suspects. Virtually all those shootings are justified*. In the majority of poice shootings, the suspect was armed. There are… Read more »
@Ben The real number is probably upwards of 70-80% of all violent crime is committed by the criminal race. The FBI numbers showed that it is up to 60% officially, but that is only KNOWN perps. Think of all of the ones they never catch. What’s even more alarming is that nearly all of these violent crimes are committed by black males (roughly 6% of the entire population) and even further, between a certain age group which would narrow it down closer to 3-4%. 3 to 4% of 350m (probably even more) commit nearly all violent crime. Try explaining those… Read more »
I agree, the ’92 election was a perfect example of this. Everyone remembers the Clinton campaigns “Man from Hope” made-for-TV-story and how it portrayed him as a
charming, every man bumpkin, who grew up in a single-parent household and made good.
You contrast that with Perot’s infomercial about how Clinton took a fairly poor southern state and once he became governor, took it to the bottom of the list of the fifty states in almost every conceivable category – especially education – and it should have been slam dunk in Perot’s favor. However the rose-colored story won.
As long as the story being told has artifacts from reality that support it, and as long as there is a single story teller at the fire pit, this is true. The reason why the fire pit is now being closed to alternative story tellers, is because too many artifacts from reality do not support the premises that the stories are built upon. I find the comment section on this AmGreatness article to be very encouraging. Here is a story teller getting boo’d from the fireside pulpit. https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/30/we-cant-all-run-to-florida/ (apologies for the out link) Another example is now gone. Dennis Prager… Read more »
Grew up not far from the Windy City and recall the days of daaaa Bears, and da coach (and da Bulls).
See if you can sing or hum these lyrics without laughing (or crying, or barfing)
My kind of town, Chicago is my kind of people, too
People who smile at you
and each time I roam, Chicago is calling me home,
Chicago is why I just grin like a clown It’s my kind of town
Stranger, you might have found yourself humming that “My Kind of Town” song if you attended the St. Paddy’s Day Parade in Chicago last March when Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot were greeted with relentless boos, profanity, and things thrown at them. They both had to leave the parade after 20 minutes.
Long since moved South and was not in attendance, however, I do recall reading something about that event – which I’m sure made my day.
When it comes to storytelling, progressives tend to be way better at it than conservatives are. Progressives know how to tell a tale that pulls dramatically on the ol’ heartstrings. They know how to maximally leverage the theme of Good versus Evil that humans find so compelling. They intuitively grasp the desperate urge of people to align themselves with the angels and think that anybody who disagrees with them must be in cahoots the demons. Meanwhile, since conservatives typically suck at storytelling — or rarely even realize the need for and effectiveness of storytelling — they yammer on about abstract… Read more »
I have read that the people who pushed for gay “marriage” give significant weight to the TV show Will and Grace for getting mainstreamed with the public. The people behind it knew what kind of story would work to push their issue.
“Will & Grace” is an excellent example. That type of propaganda masquerading as entertainment works miraculously well with the undiscerning masses. Say what you will about the Rainbow Flag Cult, I can’t think of any other group in recent times that has done a more magnificent job brainwashing the public. Though it becomes increasingly clear that the Alphabet Soup crowd (LGBTQLMNOP-whatever) has the potential to do great harm to society, especially to young people, a high percentage of us boring cis-heteros continues to view that crowd as benign and with sympathy. One wonders how much damage the LGBTQers will have… Read more »
Wkathman: Read an excellent book about the entire campaign for homosexual acceptance-to marriage-to adoption norming. Can never recall the title, but it very clearly documented that it was a specifically targeted and heavily financed marketing campaign. Turning deviant sexual behavior, which traditionally made even average Joes recoil in disgust, into Just Another Neighbor was a carefully plotted strategy.
Of course. Homosexuals pervade Hollywood and compose an inordinate number of the script writers. All portrayals must be positive and not intimidating.
Here’s a challenge. Waaay back when, just before the *ascendency* a realistic story wrt homo’s made its way to the screen. Try to find the movie, “Boy’s in the Band”. Near as I can tell in has been cast into the void.
Making normies accept homosexuality as normal, fun and incredibly witty was indeed one of the greatest marketing successes in modern history. As was adopting the colors of the rainbow to represent a physical act which involves a very different color. The gulf between the image of homosexuality and its reality is enormous, but normies don’t see that.
While good storytelling can enhance propaganda, its constant repetition and prevalence inculcates the moral framework. Once that moral framework is established, the best story on Earth will fall flat.
WILL AND GRACE did as you wrote, but it built on propaganda that had been ongoing for years and helped shape a diffuse morality. This isn’t a chicken and eggs thing, either. Quality really does matter more than quantity in this sphere. It is why control of social media is far more important to the Left than who wins the beauty pageant next week.
One didn’t mind them as long as they were well mannered charming and talented and “knew their place”, but once they became obnoxious demanding and gross looking, it was game over.
p: But they weren’t well mannered and charming and talented – that is part of the public campaign most people swallowed. Part of the faux-benign face of evil is redefining deviancy.
Exactly. When AIDS hit, there was a full court press to label it a general population disease. Then we were treated to blaming druggies and Haitians. When it could not be hidden that it was a sexually transmitted disease, it was portrayed as equally dangerous to heterosexuals. But of course the numbers could not be denied. Finally, it was rightfully labeled a “gay” disease (in the USA and Western world in general) and then the dirty secret was out regarding the sexual habits of gay men. I lost interest about then with the antics of the gay men protesting for… Read more »
Compsci-
The goodthinkers beat us relentlessly with the Ryan White story when I was in elementary and middle school.
There is a video of Biden pre-President in which he is addressing some j3wish group. He congratulated them on persuading the country to accept hom0 marriage and he specifically cited “Will and Grace.”
Granted, it doesn’t hurt that they have the microphone, but they were smart enough to understand that controlling the microphone was key and worked to own it. As Z likes to emphasize, politics is a morality tale. Conservatives think that graphs and charts will win the day. They’re morons. That’s why identity politics is so important. Once you have a people, they become the hero of the story. You can craft a narrative around them for any issue. This is why TPTB are so terrified of whites joining the identity politics game. We’d have our own story with our own… Read more »
I don’t think we should give conservatives a pass for allowing the destroyers of civilization to monopolize the microphone. Action could have been taken to prevent that from happening, but it would have required a boldness and a resoluteness of purpose that conservatives rarely have. “They’re morons,” you say of them; I could not agree more. And you’re dead-on correct about identity politics as well. If we can get “Euro-Americans” (there’s a term I’d like to see come into vogue) to start seeing themselves as a people, we will have grounds for developing a compelling narrative centered on that people.… Read more »
To steal a line from the masters, “Is it good for our people?”
That’s the only question we need to ask.
“That’s why identity politics is so important. Once you have a people, they become the hero of the story.”
GREAT point.
Charts and graphs and facts. Ben Shapiro likes to say “facts don’t care about your feelings.” The new people piling into the West don’t care about Shapiro’s facts or Steve Sailer’s charts and graphs. It’s all primal tribal instincts with them.
As it should be.
Ben Shapiro is another in a long line of allegedly conservative pundits who only teaches conservatives how to lose respectably. So-called conservatism is more of a career for him than it is anything else. Plus, his last name should tip us off that he is not likely to be one of our own (in fairness, Takimag’s David Cole, a co-ethnic of Shapiro’s, does appear to be genuinely on our side). As for Steve Sailer, he’s a particularly lamentable case. Given that Sailer has delved into much of the taboo knowledge that we’re not supposed to notice, his advocacy of what… Read more »
Shapiro is no worse an example than some I’ve known from Leftist families whose offspring decide from an early age to enter government “service” and perhaps spring board to politics. I still remember Shapiro’s progress through UCLA and his posturing as a student Conservative/Republican. He was publishing pieces in those days in lessor publications online. He of course, brushed up his credentials by going to law school upon graduation and then made to jump to radio. I still like his early visits to the Universities and talks to the students, but that is long over as he is now making… Read more »
“facts don’t care about your feelings” is such a rich line coming from a guy like Shapiro who motormouths rhetoric in a stereotypical Jewish shyster manner.
“The politicians think people are morons who will fall for a good story, rather than vote their interests.” That’s because it’s true. How many morons reflexively believe they “live in the freest country on the world” at the same time they can get fired from their jobs for making a politically incorrect statement or jailed for a “hate crime”? How many people think the cops are the “good guys” while the cops outright steal cash under “civil forfeiture” and the FBI spies on presidential candidates and entraps drunken morons as “domestic terrorists”? How many middle American farmboys have been willing… Read more »
Read Stephen King’s “The Myst”. It is a story about the human condition much more than about hellish monsters attacking from another dimension. At one point in the story when the people are all trapped in the grocery store for a while, a religious fanatic woman starts to gather the attention of about half of the people. She begins telling them that the horrors they are experiencing are from the wrath of God brought upon by the sins of the people NOT in their group. One of the army soldiers confesses that he had heard rumors about a secret government… Read more »
Did that Stephen King book include a wise black person? Most of them do. Sometimes played by Morgan Freeman.
Yes! One of his better short stories. A minor correction: “The Mist.” Myst was a series of innovative (at the time) PC games in 1990s. The Mist was released as a fairly good dramatized audio version, on real cassettes, around that time. For Wolf: During the pursuit of my useless literary degree, we surveyed the idea of recurring themes in myth and legend. Although I didn’t deep dive into it, this is a specialized area of literature, sociology, etc. interest. You are right on the Freeman comment. This is an example of the trope “officially” dubbed Magical Negro. As with… Read more »
In the adapted movie version, the negro is a well spoken on who is a NYC lawyer. He is the perfect character because he is always angry at everyone and he is constantly making the case that he is the victim and that all of the white folks are lying to him to try to trick him. He refuses to believe the monster is real and he proceeds to lead a flock of followers out of the store, into the mist, and ultimately to their death.
Sounds about right…
The ending of the movie version of The Mist is absolutely soul-crushing.
Reporter: “Mr Stevenson, all thinking people are on your side (in the upcoming US election)
Adlai Stevenson: “That’s not enough. I need a majority”
“The writer Ben Novak wrote a book explaining how Adolf Hitler was able to use the power of narrative to persuade the German people. For those looking for the short version, Greg Johnson reviews it here. The key to Hitler’s success as a politician was his ability to reframe events in such a way that changed how people viewed those events and the people involved in those events. Hitler changed the way in which people interacted with their world through his speeches.” Sure. You can see Kanye West spinning the same Hitlerian Narrative Voodoo in real time. Unless, I dunno,… Read more »
The most dominant narrative of our time is “it’s White people’s fault.”
At their core, even the normiest normie knows what their real interests are. They have kept quiet and “nodded along,” but narrative collapse is upon us and it remains to be seen what emerges from the dissonance.
That’s the key phrase, “narrative collapse”.
“…he takes you on a journey to an entirely new conclusion, your mental model will change.”
So people aren’t morons.
They are listening for clues, as in: “how do I join the good guys?”
I think that’s thing besides the two racial groups with a big grudge that story just can’t carry the day.
Regime: “It’s whities fault!”
Kanye: “You sure?”
Regime: “In to the void with you!”
“What those two examples suggest is that the great promoters of liberal democracy think the tenets of liberal democracy are nonsense. The politicians think people are morons who will fall for a good story, rather than vote their interests.”
Worse is that the pols might be right.
The left has always relied on storytelling, but has relied more upon crushing dissenting narratives. Even with Social Media being almost completely in enemy hands, they are still having a terrible time whacking down all the counternarratives. I would argue how factual the narrative is isn’t even important as long as you can smash any dissenting stories. I remember in High School watching a movie about integration, complete with white bullies and the brave integrated black student who stood up for himself. If you knew nothing about what really happened in the 60’s, this sounds reasonable. You also have books… Read more »
“The politicians think people are morons who will fall for a good story, rather than vote their interests”
They are not entirely wrong
See “President Gavin Newsome” from California in 2024. He has good hair, athletic build, straight teeth, pretty wife.
After he wins all 57 states with 50 gorillion votes, the story will be, “The Return of Regan in the 21st Century”.
Give me George Clooney. He has all the attributes you mentioned, except his wife is prettier. I liked his dad as a host on AMC back in the day, and he isn’t the stone cold psychopath that Newsome is.
If it’s what we have come to, what the hell?
What I want is an American Pu Yi who, installed as the puppet monarch of Machukuo, got it into his head that he was a real leader of his people until the situation was explained to him in stark detail by his chief “advisor”. (I am thinking of the movie here, sorry).
Newsome would need no clarifications. He’d gladly wear the purple and party down in the palace, signing every document, including the laundry bills, without reading anything.
For what its worth, a lot of the Republicans have stuck with a message of the Democrats are indifferent to run away inflation, are doing nothing to stop the historically high numbers of illegal immigrants coming across our border and don’t care if you are a victim of violent crime. They will also enable people who want to recruit your kids into deviant lifestyles and take your kids from you if you object.
That is a fairly compelling narrative, Gavin Newsom doesn’t have anything he could say that would be credible to most voters to refute it.
Newsome doesn’t need to refute anything: good hair, straight teeth, athletic build, pretty wife, total media control.
C.f.: John F. Kennedy
Crime? Inflation? Invasion? His wife’s a Hollywood slut who slept with Harvey Weinstein? Fake news.
Social media didn’t start the fire (put that in your pipe and smoke it, Billy Joel), but it’s one hell of an accelerant. At this point, the alternative story simply can’t break through, because we’ve valorized ignorance to the point where people take positive glee in listing all the things they don’t know. It’s SOP, for instance, for “reviewers” on Amazon to start their one-star “reviews” of badthinkers’ books with “I refuse to read this!” And with Twatter, Faceborg et al, they not only don’t have to hear anything they disagree with, they get lauded for the extremity of the… Read more »
My standard reply to “I cannot understand…” is “We can spend eternity listing the things you do not understand, but your ignorance is not an argument…”
It is the weird effect of democracy. Every man becomes a king in his own mind.
One saw that exact thing play out in the recent parade trial in Waukesha. Try as she might, the judge could not get across the point that ignorance is not an acceptable counter argument to facts and law.
What’s the quote? You gave them eyes to see and ears to hear but they will not do either.
I’d add, a mind to use, but so often, lose.
Look, 50% of the folk have IQ’s below normal or average. I have the same problem with my wife. She is a smart woman, arguably smarter (test-wise) than I. She of course, is a women and that affects her judgement in many cases, but that aside the point. What she can never understand is what a subpar intellect looks like and acts like and what the effects to be expected are. She simply has a blind spot. Therefore her expectations are not meet and she get’s disappointed in many interactions in life because she thinks she is dealing with her… Read more »
Ha, reminds me of my mother trying to get her friends interested in all the fancy pants art and literature stuff she was into. I told her that most people react to that stuff like the Emperor in Amadeus: “too many notes”.
I don’t have the link, but I remember there being an article with descriptions of what people are like at various IQ levels: such as the thresholds where things like writing a check or operating a doorknob become serious life challenges. It really hammers in just how bad 100 IQ really is, and that’s the average.
Plopped, unfortunately at my age I’m beginning to understand what it’s like. Look, everyone declines with age. I am at that age. I do stupid shit all the time, only to “figure it out” later. It is at a point where I no longer make decisions for fear of such. Can’t tell you how many times I get back to something after a night’s sleep and get to the correct solution—instantly. This never was part of my life before. Is now a constant concern. Some day even “sleeping on it” won’t help. Sigh….
“I can explain it for you. I can’t understand it for you.”
All I can say is anyone who nods along and agrees with a story telling politician these days is a dope. If it isn’t obvious by now that everyone of those SOBs lies through their teeth six ways from Sunday, I don’t know what’ll convince the crowds. Further, most of the pols are so pathetic, they couldn’t rise to the occasion of a good story if their life depended on it.
I was having a conversation at work recently with a guy who really wanted me to know that he had tried to get the latest clot shot. He knows I refuse to get the boosters, and I am very open about the fact that I only got the initial jab because the government threatened my family. Live to fight another day. He also knows that I think the jabs are quackery and that I got COVID and missed 2 weeks of work AFTER getting the “vaccine”. I rattled off all the lies of the past 2 years. That the lockdowns… Read more »
I was directed to Neil Foard through an AmericanDigest posting. He is a great storyteller. Videos are usually no longer than three minutes. Like the old commercial I couldn’t stop viewing at just one.
Check him out:
https://www.youtube.com/user/nealfoard
I’m glad I did. Thanks for the link. At the end of the day, we humans are wired to tell stories; and a good one registers. This guy has mastered the short form.