The Dark Tetrad
Ye Olde Blogge has written about the Dark Tetrad on numerous occasions. One of the clearest succinctest descriptions could be found in the The Coming Psychopathocracy: How the Dark Tetrad has taken over the Republican Party.
- Psychopathy is characterized by a callous disregard for the well-being of others, an inability to feel empathy or guilt.
- Machiavellianism is the willingness to use deception and manipulation to achieve your goals without regard to the harms they may cause on others. These people frequently use ends justify the means type reasoning.
- Narcissism is the overwhelming concern for one’s own self, needs, and well-being without acknowledging the needs of others or understanding that they exist.
- Sadism is the enjoyment of pain in others this can be physical or psychological pain, it can be large amounts of pain or minor discomforts that people feel.
In an amazing coincidence that can only be seen as proof of Jungian synchronicity or the Hand of God in my life, a week or so ago during our school trip Biden gave his State of the Union speech. In both, the amazing destructive, chaotic, contrarian nature of the dark tetrad personality characteristics were on display for all to see — all who were watching, that is — much to my and Kevin McCarthy’s discomfort.
Before we get to the psysplainer part of the post, I must mention the secondary level of synchronicity. Of course, I haven’t posted in nigh on a month and haven’t announced a hiatus of posting, either, as a respectable blog would. Instead, I’ve done what I normally do: ignore the blog until the anxiety and guilt get to be so overwhelming that I post a mea culpa in the hopes of forgiving myself my transgressions, which never actually happens. Luckily, my half-dozen or so of loyal readers and my dear mother’s spirit do seem to forgive and accept and, perhaps, even understand my erratic blogging.
The synchronicity part is that my mea culpa blog post and a new political psychology post overlap so significantly, they are one and the same! Isn’t Jung wonderful?!?
Of course, over the past three weeks, RL has sunk its teeth into my ass and won’t let go until a clap of thunder sounds like a veritable snapping turtle. We had our reports deadline moved up by a week, which created a serious time crunch because of getting final assessments done and graded as well as writing a personal, insightful, and positive comment for the eighty students I teach. Then we had a week-without-walls thing for fifty twelve year olds, which means you work twenty-four hours a day, even while you’re sleeping, and intense planning and preparation as you’re producing your report cards. Then, we had parent-teacher conferences with people like high-ranking government officials, members of the school board, and ambassadors of several countries, not to mention people wealthy enough to have bodyguards for their children. And, then my brother-in-law and his wife came for a visit necessitating a trip to Siem Reap and Ankor Wat for our five-day weekend. It has been busy and intense.
The Political Implications of the Dark Tetrad Personality Characteristics
Mea culpa, check. Now for the political psychology of the role and function or perhaps dysfunction of the dark tetrad of personality characteristics. See the sidebar for a quick summary of each of the characteristics and link to an explanatory post. The sidebar was shamelessly taken from Dark Tetrad Personality Traits: The ONE Weird Thing tying Racism, Anti-Vax and Mask, and Authoritarianism Together.
Is there any possible question that the likes of Mad Dog Greene, Half-Loaded Boebert, Teenage Trafficker Gates, My-Siblings-Hate-Me Gosar, and Gym Jordan are card carrying members of the I’ve-failed-the-Dark-Tetrad personality test with their varying combinations of psychopathy, narcissism, sadism, and Machiavellianism as well as the ubiquitous prerequisite of racism?
During the State of the Union speech, they insisted on booing and cat-calling Biden, which the wily Team Biden had clearly game planned for and “tricked” them into “promising” before God and the nation to not cutting Medicare or Social Security. So powerful was Biden’s voodoo that the vilenerable Rick Scott was forced to exempt them from his sun setting legislative machinations, much to Mitch McConnell’s relief and grudging gratitude.
Why couldn’t the MAGA caucus contain their anti-Biden enthusiasm? Because they are too narcissistic to meet anyone’s needs but their own. They feel no shame, guilt, remorse, or obligation to anyone else. The role of shame, guilt, and remorse are to curb and limit the destructiveness of single-mindedly pursuing self-serving needs to the harm of everyone else. If a significant number of people in our politics have these characteristics, then the cooperation necessary for a functional democracy and nation is impossible to achieve.
Cooperation and the Dark Tetrad Personality Characteristics
The dark tetrad personality characteristics have infected the Rebubelican Party and, consequently, our national politics. It is so destructive because it is do antithetical to the cooperation necessary for democracy and even human societies to exist.
The Repubelican Party is desperate for some modicum of respectability and confidence that they’ve worked so hard to destroy for our government institutions, including Congress. The irony is rich, is it not? McCarthy’s plan was to be all decorum and bliss in the speech so they could claim their politically-driven revenge-focused “investigations” were due to what a horrible affront the Biden administration and Democrats are to God, country, and the American way of life. Instead, he got the Keystone Kops go to Washington.
Cooperation and Human Evolution
The key to the success of human evolution is our ability to cooperate. The larger our numbers grow, the more important it is. One good and easily accessible example of this is our transportation infrastructure. To coordinate the movement of hundreds of millions of people at a time is an extremely complex problem that literally takes thousands of people with hundreds of skills to solve and maintain. Gridlock in Washington means that a good chunk of those thousands of people cannot perform their role.
We’ve already seen the destruction that the dithering over funding for roads and bridges (and railways) can cause. A House of Representatives solely focused on politically-driven revenge politics will be incapable of responding to the score of pressing needs and outright emergencies that the nation will face over the next two years.
Worse, though, is that a significant minority of the electorate will be energized and motivated by this self-serving madness. Hopefully, the bare majority that has rejected this style of nihilistic politics that saved us in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections will stay engaged and continue to grow.
Now that I’ve said my piece on our political situation, I’m feeling the need to detail how these exact same personality characteristics affected our school trip. In fact, it is probably prudent for me not to. Suffice it to say that these people, albeit a distinct minority, are everywhere and have an outsized influence on those around them.
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Categories: Dark Tetrad, Personality
The Psy of Life 
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack is back.
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“You know, that might be the answer – to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail.” – Joseph Heller
You forgot the increasing number (now up to 3) of serial fabricators (AKA, shameless liars and frauds) among the GOP Freshmen in the House. They may be forgiven since they follow in emulation of the Great Orange Illusion himself. And, because the party’s majority is so small.
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Howdy Bob!
I thought about including the pathological liars that the GOP has attracted, but it just seemed to overwhelm the post. Since there are now three of them, I’ve been thinking about doing a post on them.
That level of dishonesty is a clear challenge to the foundation and fabric of society, which makes them very anti-social and firmly within the dark tetrad. This year both my personal and blogging life have been caught up in the destructive nature of the dark tetrad personality characteristics. The more I study these folks both from afar as politicians and up close as students, the clearer their destructiveness becomes to me. The promotion of these folks is a very troubling trend to see in our politics.
Huzzah!
Jack
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These aren’t simple liars, nor are they examples of Munchhausen’s Syndrome. They are more like characters on “reality” TV in creating a context in which the voter need not care who the candidate really is, or whether he/she actually believes what they are saying. All they need to pay attention to is the character played on TV and the campaign trail. This is evident in the defense offered by George Santos. When called out on his lies, he does not attempt to claim that it is all true, or, at least not very hard. Instead, he takes the position that it is no big deal, and people are being unfair and rather silly being bothered by it. This is the “post fact” world, and far more corrosive than sticking to the lie as Trump and others do about the “stolen” election.
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Howdy Bob!
One of the things that came out of the studies that Turchin reported on in his Ultrasociety book was the role that wealth played in the demise of empires and countries. Seemingly, as a society develops, its GDP rises, the lifestyles of its people become more leisurely, and the wealth-gap grows, the people at the very top become increasingly concerned with increasing their own wealth and less concerned with the well-being of the society — either that, or they conflate the two or otherwise rationalize their self-absorption. When the very wealthy quit contributing to the society and are only concerned with themselves, the social infrastructure begins to crumble and the society becomes vulnerable to its enemies. The internal strife created by the wealth-gap weakens its government and the end becomes inevitable.
It occurs to me that George Santos, Marjorie Taylor Greene, et al. are but symptoms of this process created in the chaotic wake of the super yacht flotilla as the uberrich further separate themselves from the rest of us. When we no longer deal with reality, which is what the acceptance of a lie is because lying is considered normal, unimportant, or a clever way to pwn the libs, our society can no longer function. Truth is fundamental to ultrasocieties. We are just too interdependent. As many of the poor souls who were sleeping in substandard apartment buildings found out in Turkey recently.
Huzzah!
Jack
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It is even worse, or at least the disintegration accelerates when the rich come to think of the wealth gap as not merely not a serious problem, not a bug, but a feature, a good and necessary thing, the natural order. Then, they have to produce characters like those mentioned, and issues (abortion, trans care, drag shows, etc.) that keep a sufficient number focused on anything but the real problem.
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Howdy Bob!
Most of us believe that we are the heroes in our stories and that what we are doing is good and justified, even if it is causing widespread harm. I guess cognitive dissonance is part and parcel of the human condition. Almost foundational to it. Kind of like endorphins canceling the pain of physical existence, cognitive dissonance diminishes the pain of mental existence.
Luckily, though, we have members of our political class who recognize the harm that such a wealth gap causes and are working to close it. Unfortunately, we also have members of the elite who recognize the harm that it causes but are working to maintain and widen it anyway.
We also have about a quarter of the country who are willing accomplices in maintaining and widening the wealth gap and willing living lives of stagnation and poverty just so they can feed their reward and liking systems.
Huzzah!
Jack
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And, the strategists, the professional propagandists, working for each side, are constantly trying to calculate the critical mass they have and how much more they need, and how to get it.
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Given the primary system, it drives candidates to the extremes. Luckily, that’s been working more for us than against us.
Jack
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Extremists do have a tendency to get too honest about their ideas and scare away the voters in the middle range.
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Howdy Bob!
That tendency to get too honest is that bias that says I’m average and when everyone around me shares a belief of mine, I believe acceptance and agreement is more widespread than it actually is. There is a word for that, but I’m just not remembering it at the moment. In some ways, it is lucky to have that bias.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The process will be exaggerated as we approach and get into the GOP primary season. Thee will be many of those overly confident of universal agreement and therefore too ready to say their worst ideas competing with each other and having to look even more radical and scary. Even without that factor, when you base your appeal on keeping the amygdalas of the audience constantly aroused, you have to keep getting farther out and more apocalyptic. Once the addiction to the arousal is established, as with any addiction, tolerance becomes a factor and the stimuli and dosage have to be increased to get the same effect. I think we can expect to see some combination of clown show, food fight, mud wrestling in a manure pit, and MMA free for all.
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Howdy Bob!
The combination clown show, food fight, mud wrestling in a manure pit, and MMA free-for-all accurately describes Florida right now. I don’t know that Trump will put up much of a fight with DeSantis. I think he’s looking to grab money and make excuses. While Trump was feeling his way along and just riding the wave, DeSantis is steering his craft. Should he succeed in getting elected, we will all be in trouble.
The Overton Window for outrage keeps moving in the wrong direction. Luckily, though, the reward system does get exhausted, as do people’s bodies. Eventually, there just won’t be much energy for it. However, the wanting system never gets exhausted and always wants just one more. That can carry the exhausted baggy eyed husks of human beings that MAGA is going to become pretty far down the road.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I think it is possible that DeSantis and others are too sure that the time has come to achieve all their desires and they are moving far too fast to bring the non-fanatics with them. The majority of humans have a limited tolerance for disruptive change even in direction they might approve if the steps are small.
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The latest bill in Florida would outlaw the Democratic Party for its nineteenth century support for slavery. An incredibly disingenuous attempt at completely eliminating an opposition party and creating a one-party system. Unfortunately, the Florida legislature has a super-majority of Republicans. We’ll see if it passes and stands up in court.
Jack
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It will be that, and various state legislators seem to be just writing up whatever they think of after the third beer.
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Florida and Texas seem to have just lost their ever-loving minds with Tennessee and select others not far behind. It’s funny how Brownback broke Kansas of their delusion with what was to become MAGA by bankrupting the state, but Jindal didn’t break Louisiana with similar mismanagement. Florida is so badly gerrymandered now, though, that I doubt there is anything the voters can really do to stop them.
Jack
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I suspect that there’s a good chance that the new board of incompetent and corrupt ideologues DeSantis has put in charge of the Disney realm will manage to kill the goose that’s been laying all those golden eggs for the economy of central Florida all the years. That might make a difference.
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I think that with the outrageous laws that the supermajority is proposing and DeSantis will likely sign will drive business and people out of Florida. That’s the problem with a decentralized state-based system like we have. You can always move to a friendlier more agreeable state, and there are states that are willing to be friendlier and more agreeable.
An individual state cannot impose fascism even if the federal courts let them. The people and businesses of means will leave them.
Jack
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And there is the root understanding that drives the would-be fascist rulers to also try to impose their will on the whole nation.
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Yeah. I don’t think DeSantis is doing any of it because he actually believes in anything one way or the other. I don’t think he was ever very ideologically driven. I think he’s just feeding red meat to MAGA and this is the path it takes.
Jack
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In a recent speech, DeSantis delivered a chink of that red meat by saying the goal is to turn the whole country into Florida.
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Given the cherrypicking of “freedoms” and evidence, it makes for a frighteningly effective campaign strategy. The next dog whistle to seduce the white middle class middle of the road sometimes voter.
Jack
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And those dog whistles are easy to find if someone is willing to throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
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I think DeSantis has a whole chorus of whistlers out figuring out which message creates the most racial angst.
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I think he does, and he’s not the only one.
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There’s a thing about that “It was all consensual.” defense that we hear so often. Many, if not most of those guys are actually able to believe it because they don’t know or don’t care about the difference between consent and compliance, including compliance with a presumed demand with implicit consequences for refusal. For the woman or girl in a situation of a power imbalance (real or perceived) the question of what will happen if they say “no” cannot be avoided, and the answer can be anything from losing the relationship to death.
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Howdy Bob!
Every woman has a man who has more power than she has in her life, and every man has more power than some woman in his life has. And as with minority populations, women know more about the inequality of the power dynamic than men do because it directly influences how they navigate their lives.
The corrosive effects of coming face-to-face with your lack of choices and independence cannot be overstated. Most of the time white men are able to avoid it (cognitive dissonance, again) and many white women can, too, but for PoC and many women their lack of power is evident to them and unavoidable. No amount of cognitive dissonance can prevent them from confronting it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Black parents have “The Talk” with their boys. There’s one for girls too, although not enough get it, and we have politicians who want none of them to get it.
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The world that the evangelical, fundamentalist, Christian nationalists want is a very frightening oppressive place. Funnily enough, it isn’t that different from the one the Pilgrims built in Boston. These folks would gladly hang Quakers, burn heretics and witches, and burn anyone who doesn’t love Jesus right.
Huzzah!
Jack
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It is all too evident that some people simply cannot difference in religious belief and practice, and when that tendency is combined with state power and authority (Which the fundamentalists see as essential) the result is horrible.
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Howdy Bob!
That was one of the most frightening questions in the survey on White Christian Nationalism, Should US laws be based on the Bible, or how ever it was worded, especially when coupled with the question about whether Jesus meant that being charitable was directed at individuals or society. The percentage of skeptics that thought it was directed at individuals was way too damn high for my tastes.
The rest of the report about authoritarianism, anti-black racism, and other areas was disturbing, interesting, and in line with findings from other surveys and studies and predictions based on understanding of the authoritarian personality.
Huzzah!
Jack
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That part about the direction of charity fits right in with much of the discussion about the deliberate conflation of free market capitalism with ideas of freedom in this episode from On The Media: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-who-profits
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Howdy Bob!
It always amazed me that people could not disentangle communism from totalitarian dictatorship or capitalism from democracy. Economics and politics often overlap, but they can be mixed and matched. The capitalists looking to make an extra buck will always do the conflating, though. What’s the old saying, never get between a capitalist and their profits?
Huzzah!
Jack
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The conflation has been largely deliberate, and once established became the conventional wisdom. What the Soviet Union and China (once past the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution) had was and is authoritarian state capitalism. The key weakness that took down the USSR was not socialism, but the combination of a “shoot the messenger” system that forced managers to lie, and the oligarchic corruption that went with it.
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The problem that the USSR had is the same problem that we have and Russia has and China is developing, people work harder for their self-interest which is the root cause of all corruption and the basis of all oligarchies. Once you let the oligarchs start making the decisions unfettered and unchecked, the system quickly breaks down.
Jack
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Exactly, and that process usually includes their having unrestricted use of resources that rightly belong in the commons. I recently heard in an author interview the description of the climate crisis as the greatest failure of the free market system.
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That’s a good point: the commons. It is a notion that has fallen out of favor and understanding in the US. But, thinking of the climate as the commons and if Adam Smith’s hand has anything to do it would be keeping the climate livable.
Jack
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Yep. It is the Tragedy Of The Commons at global scale. And the list of other things that are, must be to function well, part of the commons, like education, health care, and other services the conservatives have or are trying to privatize just keeps growing.
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If conservatives haver their way, we’ll be paying for every breath we take.
That is the flaw in capitalism, isn’t it? The only way to increase your profits is to increase your sales. As long as your sales increase, you income will outpace your expenditures. Unfortunately, we live in a finite world with a finite number of customers and a finite number of resources. We cannot increase our sales infinitely. Eventually, the capitalist system becomes unsustainable.
Everyone was hoping that it would reach unsustainability in a future generation. I think we’ve arrived. Few capitalists want to admit it, though.
Jack
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“Anyone who thinks consumption can expand forever on a finite planet is either insane or an economist.” E. F. Schumacher
There are two ways to continuously increase profits. One is to sell ever more at the same cost of production. The other is to sell the same amount of stuff (or, things that are not physical stuff) at ever lower costs of production, such as labor costs. It also helps to externalize costs into the commons, like being ale to pollute the environment without paying. None of that is ultimately sustainable.
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Howdy Bob!
Thank you for reminding me of E. F. Schumacher. It has been a long time since I had thought of him and “Small is Beautiful.” As a young man, about the time of its publication, it was greatly influential.
Capitalism helps motivate individuals to work hard and to be productive, but it does not help us think of the collective. Missing from our current mix is concern with community and collective needs. If we succeed in incorporating our planetary needs into our endeavors, we might survive our climate crisis. If we fail, we’ll probably be reduced to a rump population while the planet recovers.
Huzzah!
Jack
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We are beset by a definition of “freedom” convenient for the oligarchs which denies any community or collective need or value, making all goods and values individual.
That rump population could well be very small. According to the best estimates, just before the wide spread shift to agriculture from hunting and gathering about 12,000 years ago the human population was between 4 and 10 million. Unpredictable weather is very hard on farmers who, by the nature of the activity are stuck in one place, and we are only beginning to experience what that will mean.
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Howdy Bob!
I remember the hullabaloo when Obama said, “You didn’t build that [by yourself].” The mere suggestion that corporations benefit from common goods sent people into paroxyms. It is the same for corporations extorting communities and states for infrastructure and tax benefits that never produce the number or quality of jobs promised. It is analogous to white privilege when white people.are indignant that you’re suggesting they didn’t work hard and earn what they have. And, fundamental attribution error in which we blame our errors on the situation and everyone else’s on their personalities.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Then, there is the implicit judgement that people who have less didn’t work as hard, and the implied character faults that go with it. We do have a national myth that everybody has equal opportunity and hard work will bring success regardless of beginning resources.
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Howdy Bob!
Back to the old Puritan belief that god shows his love by worldly riches, so the poor must be dirty filthy sinners that god hates. That belief got sanitized by the meritocracy myth. There may have been a brief moment in our recent history when meritocracy was actually possible at least for white people, which kind of completely negates the whole meritocracy thing, doesn’t it? That would’ve been in the late ’60’s and 70’s. My mother worked federal civil service for her entire career. She rose from being a secretary-typist to being on the base commander’s advisory council in charge of the transportation on the base. That was on merit and hard work alone — as far as I know. She took university courses, never got a degree. She just worked hard. So, maybe, just maybe, during those halcyon days just after the Civil Rights movement and Women’s Liberation in the 70’s, there was a sense of merit alone at work that carried into the 80’s. Maybe.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Actual meritocracy has always run up against systems of class, caste, nepotism, and multi-generational wealth accumulation, all of which underlay belief habits of racism and sexism. And, people who are comfortable find it easy to believe they have earned what they have.
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Promoting the belief in meritocracy is just another way of keeping the poor and middle class on the hook. If you just work hard enough, you’ll be deserving of success. And, justifying the widening economic gap that will surely be our downfall if we don’t curtail it.
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It is one of our most pernicious fantasies.
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When you have the myth that anyone can succeed, achieve upward mobility, power, wealth, even beauty with enough hard work, then if they don’t, it is their fault. They didn’t work hard enough, they are lacking in character, ambition, discipline, etc. The exception to that rule is if they are victims. As we know, some, many, really are victims of various systems, structural barriers. But, those of supposed and actual structural privilege (non-rich white people) are not supposed to see their real barriers. A politician can easily alleviate their guilt and shame for their lack of success by explaining that they are victims of some evil conspiracy among the “real” masters of the world, not the oligarchs who are paying him.
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Howdy Bob!
Divvying up victimhood has been one of the most divisive tactics that Trump and those manipulating MAGA have come up with. Seeing victimhood as the “get out of jail free” card to absolve you of all responsibility and to justify your actions and to pwn the libs is causing real harm to our social structure.
The belief that social and economic standing reflects your character and that poor character causes poor social and economic standing has damaged many people as well. Now that we can add “woke” and cancel culture to the causes of failure, we can diminish the risk of middle class whites making an alliance with middle class Blacks and Browns against the oligarch-class at the polls. It was one of the things that scared upper class whites most during MLK’s time. He was talking economic justice. Probably the real reason he was assassinated.
Huzzah!
Jack
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MLK did have a target on his back for a long time, but when he got to talking against the war and for economic justice it became flashing neon. An alliance between poor and middle class whites and blacks was the exact cause of the Wilmington Coup in 1898.
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If it hurts Black folks first and worst, then any damage done to whites is worth it.
Jack
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Seeing it as a war means that casualties are acceptable and inevitable.
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Howdy Bob!
In another example of Jungian synchronicity, I’ve just stumbled across a relatively new area of psychological study called primal world beliefs, which explores the most basic world views of individuals and how they affect behavior. Most of the research is coming out of UPenn. They have established 26 basic primals as they call them. They aren’t quite personality characteristics, and they aren’t points-of-view. Anywho, I’ll be posting about them and their affects on our political decisions over the next couple of weeks.
If you want a preview, though, I’d strongly recommend checking out the University of Pennsylvania website, https://myprimals.com/
Huzzah!
Jack
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Thanks. That sounds like an approach that can fill a gap between the personality level and ideology level. I’ll check it out.
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I was happy to see it make its way into your daily scrapings. It is an interesting area of study. One that may explain some of the changes we see in behavior depending on the situation in spite of personality traits.
Jack
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Yes, there are answers to be found there to questions like how many ordinarily nice people can turn into monsters given the right context and subject.
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That belief in hierarchies and a rigid order to the world can justify the genocidal behavior of the few that find themselves at the top. Hopefully, understanding the role that primals play in these situations and how to minimize them.
Jack
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Once the conflation was successfully established as conventional wisdom, it became nearly impossible to see the Soviet, current Russian, or the Chinese system since 1980 or so as authoritarian state capitalism, after all, when somebody says they are Communists it must be true.
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But, as an example of follow-the-leader politics, the current GOP and MAGA support for Russia shows how fickle our “beliefs” are. It is more important to support the individual than it is the belief. One is a difficult question, what do I belief and how to apply those beliefs to this situation?” and one is an easier question, “What does so-and-so believe? Then, I do to.”
Jack
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And, the more that beliefs are reduced to memes and slogans, the easier that becomes. Then there’s the “Owning The Libs” factor and simplicity of being contrary. “Whatever they are for, we are against it.” No actual thinking is required.
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Howdy Bob!
Social media seems to exacerbate the problem because it is so easy to get your contrariness reinforced. Post a slogan or meme that owns the libs and you get likes and shares. The things that go viral are the most virulent and simplistic attacks on the other side.
I’ve not seen any evidence of this reported, but it is easy for me to imagine that the activation of the wanting-liking system deactivates the rational-thinking system since the nervous system frequently uses this type of organizational structure for diametrically opposed responses.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Well, that would explain a lot of impulsive behavior, especially the risky kinds, and also addictive types. There’s also an element there of the Fast Thinking v. Slow Thinking model.
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I’m big on behavioral economics. I think it explains and predicts a lot of human behavior. Right now, MAGA is akin to Old’s rats who only hung out in the area of the maze that would give them dopamine only leaving to eat when absolutely necessary. And MAGA politicians are only too happy to cynically abuse them and the rest of us.
Jack
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Behavioral economics does have the possibility of finally freeing economics from the delusion of purely rational, well informed actors in a fully transparent market.
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They introduced the radical idea of studying real live people and how they actually make decisions. Imagine.
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How “WOKE” of them.
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The results of this survey are interesting: https://www.prri.org/research/a-christian-nation-understanding-the-threat-of-christian-nationalism-to-american-democracy-and-culture/
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Howdy Bob!
Thanks for sharing that survey. It was interesting. One of the things that I found heartening is that Americans generally reject the tenets of White Christian Nationalism. Unfortunately, there are too many still who support their beliefs and goals or who are swayed by them. But, in general, it seems to suggest that if we can survive this latest onslaught of the racist misogynist authoritarians, we have a good shot at creating a more just and equitable society.
Huzzah!
Jack
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There do seem to be a possibly sufficient portion of the population resistant to the authoritarian pitch to make it through.
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It’s all those established democratic norms and institutions that we carry with us. Luckily, it will take more than what they’ve thrown at us to tear them down.
Jack
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Humans do tend to have an attraction to the tried and true and traditional, and “Better the devil I know than one I don’t.”
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