Laura - Reply #538 said:
I've been watching, thinking, taking onboard what others are noticing and yeah, I think we just had a "splitting reality" event again. I swear, I've had to review and re-think everything my liberal heart ever held dear after observing where the liberals have actually gone. Doesn't mean I subscribe to everything the conservatives represent either. I find myself agreeing with some things on one side and some things on the other. But MOSTLY, I see that the whole progressive/liberal movement has been totally co-opted and ponerized and I'm trying to see where the seeds of this lay. Was the corruptibility there at the beginning?
Meanwhile, watching and listening to other people: so many of them divide sharply to one ideology or the other with no nuanced thinking at all. It's like some of them are saying "I'm a progressive liberal and since our side has advanced to take the position that pedophilia is okay, it's okay with me, too!" It's like, what the heck? Have you lost your freaking mind? You agitated for years against child abuse of all kinds and now you are advocating it? And they just can't see how covertly everything was changed. The same rhetoric now conceals different contents.
Also, watching this "women's march" has been very revealing. I can hardly articulate my astonishment and revulsion for where liberalism has led these pathetic dupes.
But still, I have liberal values in many respects... original liberal values, not the ponerized version.
So, yeah, I feel like I'm in a totally different reality and I'm just astonished at the people who cannot see the bait and switch game that has been executed here.
Yes. I've been thinking along similar lines. Like you, and possibly many members of this Forum, I've considered myself Liberal Left and certainly Progressive. On certain issues, I even considered myself outright 'Radical Left'. Starting with those Jordan Peterson videos which you (Laura) posted, and then this amazing meltdown of the Left after Hillary lost and Trump won the 2016 election has been a shocking awakening for me. I, too, am examining the great possibility that I've been duped by this philosophy. Was it always this way? Did it change somewhere along the time line? Was I just unaware of the basic tenets of Leftist rhetoric? So many questions I am now asking myself. So, in that regard, this entire SJW (Social Justice Warrior) manifestation has been a loud alarm going off for me.
Like you, I think the Left has been ponerized to such an extent it doesn't even resemble what I thought it originally meant. But, according to Jordan Peterson's research, it's always been this way? Well, I have my own questions about Professor Peterson's points of view - which I think are just as biased and intransigent as most other thinkers and ideologues. I don't see that he's any more open minded about entertaining the possibility of there being any positive elements in other POV's. He strikes me as open for debating various POV's, but only because he believes his arguments are so solid they can't be reasonably trounced. Personally, I think he's as entrenched in his own POV's as the people he opposes. But, that's not pertinent to this particular thread.
And, like others here, I too have family members & friends who are dismayed over Trump's win. We've been exchanging more e-mails this past few weeks than in any one entire year. But I can see by their statements, that they are resolutely aligned with entrenching and doubling down in their views, so I am not arguing or debating or countering them so much as thanking them for being willing to discuss and exchange information with me in order to fill in the picture so I can more accurately assess the facts of this situation. I'm basically telling them that they are providing a very valuable service to me by helping me see more clearly what's what and that I very much appreciate them being willing to spend the time and energy to send me all this info. It's sort of interesting that these are all the same people who have previously said they do NOT want to pay any attention to the outer world and especially to politics. What I'm observing is that this election has electrified all of them into becoming more politically engaged than any previous occurrence in the past many many years.
I did send them Bernhard Guenther's post which someone here posted in the Trump thread. Here's what I wrote:
Aloha. Don’t know if you’re interested in reading this particular point of view I've included below, but just in case you are, here’s an article I found interesting based on a Jungian Psychological observation.
It’s by Bernhard Guenther who writes a Blog called Piercing the Veil of Reality. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting view about the political polarization occurring in America. It’s specifically addressed to Hillary supporters I think. Maybe, reading it could help us all re-assess our projections of our own shadow sides onto Trump & his supporters. The 'shadow' represents who we 'imagine' Trump and his supporters to be. I've been noticing that many people seem to be tossing Trump (& his supporters) into a very small box labeled misogynists, racists, sexists, etc. Maybe we need to look at our own projections? Maybe this could help us see ourselves more realistically and objectively? Has the Liberal Left taken the stance that we are the good & pure & enlightened and everyone who does not espouse our particular brand of politics must, by inference, be inferior troglodytes?
The following article has motivated me to more closely examine my own personal projections onto Hillary's supporters as well. Obviously, this projection and shadow stuff would apply to all sides of any polarized dichotomy. Bernhard is writing for a group of people with whom I think he mostly identifies himself. As have I too. To wit: leftist, liberal, & progressive. I probably still mostly align with those ideas. But I’m seeing that I need to also expand my narrow little world viewpoint to also include others who do not think as I do. Scary as it might be for me to admit, maybe I too have to include the great unwashed masses (LOLOL) and those I consider the Homer Simpsons and Archie Bunkers . . . the so-called ‘deplorables’. And I also need to look at my own assignment of Hillary’s supporters as the ‘contemptibles’ as well. Difficult for me to do I assure you. If I maintain my 'being-right-&-making-others-wrong' stance, I’ll just be opposing people only because I don’t see eye-to-eye or agree with their concerns or viewpoints or understand their mindsets.
Well, that’s my current assessment of myself at the moment.
Interested in your thoughts about this.
I also thanked everyone for being willing to engage in discussions & exchange information with me about news items I'm unaware of because I wish to avoid getting trapped in the confirmation bias syndrome and I want to learn about ALL that's happening, not just whatever might confirm my present points of view. That basically I'm taking a wait & see approach and attempting to factor in all the data in order to more accurately assess the situation.
Getting back to Laura's post, I'm making determined efforts to refrain from falling into one or another political camp & not get caught up in rooting for any particular team to the point of forgetting that neither of these teams is playing on the STO team.
What I'm wondering is this. When the C's refer to 'revealing-the-man-behind-the-curtain', could they be referring to the purveyors of Liberal Left Idealogy (I almost wrote Idiology!! :)?
I'm leaning towards the idea that The Man who is going to be revealed will be some sort of previously unknown, unsuspected Puppet Master.
Ordinarily, I've always thought of The Man as representing Right-Wing-Authoritarianism as described by Robert Altemyer. However, he also describes 'Right-Wing' as either left or right political views as right-wing authoritarianism - depending on which wing is established as the reigning power of any nation. So either right or left wing can be described as Right Wing Authoritarianism.
With the C's penchant for double entendres and clues within clues, what if they also mean The Man as Left-Wing Liberals?
I don't think that's exclusively what the C's might be referring to, but it does seem as if some of us have pulled aside the curtain and seen that the Wizard of Oz has been pronouncing his edicts in the guise of Liberal Left policies - which, as in the Emerald City of Oz - where everyone wears green-lensed glasses in order that all appears to be constructed of real emeralds - seem to be for the benefit of all residents - to be all-inclusive and include every diverse and even outrageous possible lifestyle under the Emerald Umbrella of Liberality?
The point being that the Emerald City is not made of eye-blinding emeralds at all. What makes the city seem to be built of emeralds are the green lenses that everyone is required to wear. I'm wondering if those 'green' lenses are a symbol for Liberal Left idealogy and that we've been required to wear those lenses in order to see that philosophy as beautiful, wonderful, & enlightening? Now that we've taken off the green lenses, we see that the Emerald City is just grey concrete. Ouch! Sort of the opposite of that movie, "They Live", where putting ON the glasses enabled the seer to SEE what had previously been obscured or invisible.
I was also thinking about how Fox News has used "Fair And Balanced" as their slogan. I always considered their news to be slanted towards the Conservative Right and not fair and balanced at all. Now that I'm seeing that most other mainstream news media are actually slanted towards the Left of the political spectrum, maybe what Fox meant by fair and balanced is that their own news views were taking the position of Conservative Right news in order to balance out all the other Liberal Left news media and not that Fox would present both Left & Right viewpoints in their own newscasts?
What's apparent to me is that neither left nor right is capable of taking a balanced view vis-a-vis Russia, Iran, China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, etc., et al. They all seem to have the same viewpoints about who are the enemies of the USA. And on those points, as far as I'm concerned, they're all clappers.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
