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This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in

by gfodor 15y ago

This is an insightful post. I think a stellar example of what you get when you run with this concept and try to use it as a tool to influence others is seen in the right wing propaganda machine in the U.S. Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. At least part of the reason for this is because those in power who want to enact these policies have mastered the art of making them portable outside their own extremist spheres. They do this by "attaching" these ideas to more innocent, pure, and (generally) positive beliefs that are universally held by many conservatives, if not all Americans: love of country, love of God, the fear of harm to your children, belief in fairness, belief that hard work begets success, belief in the benefits of family and community, and so on. The magic that makes it possible for decent, loving, hard working people to support things like torture is by making the idea of torture "portable" into their worldview, by hanging it onto one or more of these core beliefs. If you don't support torture, you're not protecting your children. If you support gay marriage, you're laying the groundwork for families to unravel. It's all bullshit, of course, but these are the root things people are being convinced of: not that torture is good, or that gay marriage is evil (though it often morphs into that), but that these things are natural conclusions based upon beliefs you already have. It takes the work of an evil genius to figure out how to connect these two things together and make them portable towards groups of people who have otherwise innocent and positive beliefs, but we see it happening every day.

raganwald 15y ago
V. insightful: One way to make an idea portable is to attach it to another idea that is strongly held in another “bubble."
- gfodor 15y ago
  Thanks. One thing I forgot to mention is that this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle by turning those holding the opposing viewpoint into enemies: if you're against torture, you are putting my children in harms way, if you are for gay marriage, you are destroying my family and community, etc.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    Of course the real test of whether or not an individual learns anything from this concept is if you can identify how it's been used to affect your views. Identifying it in those you disagree with is easy. How about how it affects you?
moldbug 15y ago
Bear in mind that whatever it is the enlightened citizens of your enlightened country (presumably European) believe today, that country was far more right-wing than America until (approximately) 1945. Indeed for approximately the last millennium, these horrible right-wing ideas were considered normal and only a few people doubted them. I can't be sure whether your country's mind was changed by our Eighth Air Force, or by our allies in the Red Army. Perhaps the first seeds of "change" were planted even earlier, by the British Navy. And of course we can't forget about Napoleon, now, can we? What's certain, however, is that with the right application of military force, this same enlightened populace could be compelled to either return to its old views, or adopt new ones even more enlightened. You should read more old books. It would teach you to be less confident in condemning people who disagree with you - as just about everyone born before the 20th century, in any country, did. Do you hate them all, and consider yourself morally superior? Really?
- gfodor 15y ago
  Whoa there. I'm just a (American) liberal who hates seeing Fox News et al manipulate and divide people by compelling them to believe fervently in things not by making convincing arguments, but by appealing to their higher ideals of fairness, safety, and justice, and painting those who oppose them as opposed to those ideals. It's almost as if you didn't read my post at all. You claim that I hate the people who disagree with me, when the entire point of my post is that I can sympathize with those who disagree with me if their basic assumption is that their viewpoints say, on torture, are grounded in the (misguided, force-fed) belief that torture is necessary to protect family and country.
  - moldbug 15y ago
    You certainly sound like a citizen of the world to me. Are you sure you wouldn't rather consider yourself a citizen of the world? One of the strange things you might discover, if as an American communist ("liberal" being, of course, a euphemism) you try living abroad, is the number of cultural tropes you share with American fundamentalists and don't share with European communists. (This discovery is forced on all Foreign Service brats by the fact that our embassies, while staffed by State Department communists, still have to be guarded by Marine fundamentalists.) Your sympathy could be quite easily mistaken for contempt. And you don't think NPR is ever manipulative, at all, ever? When you try watching Fox News, you're eating very, very low off the hog. Try reading, say, the Claremont Review of Books. Or here - test your open-mindedness in one step. Read a book by a Confederate: http://archive.org/details/serviceafloatwar00semmrich http://archive.org/details/serviceafloatwar00semmrich Nyah nyah nyah, I dare you.
kika 15y ago
s/right wing propaganda/propaganda/gn this is a basic principle of all propaganda, right wing, left wing, anti gay, pro gay, white suprematism, black power, the list goes on. Let's give these banks just a little trillion dollars or our country would suffer. Let's burn just a few Jews in the furnace or they would sell our country. Let's take all the money from the rich and kill them and make everyone equal(ly poor). Let's bomb these Muslims into the Stone Age because they threat our children. Let's help those Muslims kill Serbs or World Democracy is in danger. Let's allow these morons squeeze our balls and tits or our airplanes would fall from the skies. It's just marketing, a way to sell the bad idea to people and make them feel happy. It has nothing to do with right and left.
- jkn 15y ago
  It's true this pattern of "Accept <wrong> to prevent <worse>" has nothing to do with left or right. However I don't think it applies to pro-gay propaganda, because the whole point of the left-wing stance on this issue is that there is nothing wrong with being gay in the first place. Side note: the pattern "accept <wrong> to prevent <worse>" is of course not bad in itself, but rather when false assumptions are used to connect <wrong> and <worse>...
  - kika 15y ago
    I stand corrected - being a liberal (in the original sense, not a leftist) I used to consider all propaganda as bad. But there's indeed a 'good' propaganda. Or at least 'not bad'.
anamax 15y ago
> Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. What definition of "torture" are we using? For example, suppose someone comes from a culture that stones gay men. Is it "torture" to force them to witness a gay marriage? How about two men kissing? How about two men making love? If said "torturee" is male, how about having him be kissed by a man? I note that some folks have serious problems with menstrual blood. How about wiping fake blood on them, telling them that it is MB?

by gfodor 15y ago

raganwald 15y ago

V. insightful: One way to make an idea portable is to attach it to another idea that is strongly held in another “bubble."

gfodor 15y ago
Thanks. One thing I forgot to mention is that this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle by turning those holding the opposing viewpoint into enemies: if you're against torture, you are putting my children in harms way, if you are for gay marriage, you are destroying my family and community, etc.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  Of course the real test of whether or not an individual learns anything from this concept is if you can identify how it's been used to affect your views. Identifying it in those you disagree with is easy. How about how it affects you?

moldbug 15y ago

Bear in mind that whatever it is the enlightened citizens of your enlightened country (presumably European) believe today, that country was far more right-wing than America until (approximately) 1945. Indeed for approximately the last millennium, these horrible right-wing ideas were considered normal and only a few people doubted them. I can't be sure whether your country's mind was changed by our Eighth Air Force, or by our allies in the Red Army. Perhaps the first seeds of "change" were planted even earlier, by the British Navy. And of course we can't forget about Napoleon, now, can we? What's certain, however, is that with the right application of military force, this same enlightened populace could be compelled to either return to its old views, or adopt new ones even more enlightened. You should read more old books. It would teach you to be less confident in condemning people who disagree with you - as just about everyone born before the 20th century, in any country, did. Do you hate them all, and consider yourself morally superior? Really?

gfodor 15y ago
Whoa there. I'm just a (American) liberal who hates seeing Fox News et al manipulate and divide people by compelling them to believe fervently in things not by making convincing arguments, but by appealing to their higher ideals of fairness, safety, and justice, and painting those who oppose them as opposed to those ideals. It's almost as if you didn't read my post at all. You claim that I hate the people who disagree with me, when the entire point of my post is that I can sympathize with those who disagree with me if their basic assumption is that their viewpoints say, on torture, are grounded in the (misguided, force-fed) belief that torture is necessary to protect family and country.
- moldbug 15y ago
  You certainly sound like a citizen of the world to me. Are you sure you wouldn't rather consider yourself a citizen of the world? One of the strange things you might discover, if as an American communist ("liberal" being, of course, a euphemism) you try living abroad, is the number of cultural tropes you share with American fundamentalists and don't share with European communists. (This discovery is forced on all Foreign Service brats by the fact that our embassies, while staffed by State Department communists, still have to be guarded by Marine fundamentalists.) Your sympathy could be quite easily mistaken for contempt. And you don't think NPR is ever manipulative, at all, ever? When you try watching Fox News, you're eating very, very low off the hog. Try reading, say, the Claremont Review of Books. Or here - test your open-mindedness in one step. Read a book by a Confederate: http://archive.org/details/serviceafloatwar00semmrich http://archive.org/details/serviceafloatwar00semmrich Nyah nyah nyah, I dare you.

kika 15y ago

s/right wing propaganda/propaganda/gn this is a basic principle of all propaganda, right wing, left wing, anti gay, pro gay, white suprematism, black power, the list goes on. Let's give these banks just a little trillion dollars or our country would suffer. Let's burn just a few Jews in the furnace or they would sell our country. Let's take all the money from the rich and kill them and make everyone equal(ly poor). Let's bomb these Muslims into the Stone Age because they threat our children. Let's help those Muslims kill Serbs or World Democracy is in danger. Let's allow these morons squeeze our balls and tits or our airplanes would fall from the skies. It's just marketing, a way to sell the bad idea to people and make them feel happy. It has nothing to do with right and left.

jkn 15y ago
It's true this pattern of "Accept <wrong> to prevent <worse>" has nothing to do with left or right. However I don't think it applies to pro-gay propaganda, because the whole point of the left-wing stance on this issue is that there is nothing wrong with being gay in the first place. Side note: the pattern "accept <wrong> to prevent <worse>" is of course not bad in itself, but rather when false assumptions are used to connect <wrong> and <worse>...
- kika 15y ago
  I stand corrected - being a liberal (in the original sense, not a leftist) I used to consider all propaganda as bad. But there's indeed a 'good' propaganda. Or at least 'not bad'.

anamax 15y ago

> Often one has to sit back and wonder how reasonable, decent people can support horrible policies such as banning gay marriage, torture, and so on. What definition of "torture" are we using? For example, suppose someone comes from a culture that stones gay men. Is it "torture" to force them to witness a gay marriage? How about two men kissing? How about two men making love? If said "torturee" is male, how about having him be kissed by a man? I note that some folks have serious problems with menstrual blood. How about wiping fake blood on them, telling them that it is MB?