Delusion is a hard thing to overcome. Individuals believe things that are untrue for all sorts of reasons. Many times they even know inside that what they believe is untrue but they just can’t get the courage to admit it to themselves or others. It really isn’t that uncommon. But what is far more dangerous is when large groups inside a country believe things that there is no evidence for or is grossly exaggerated. This is true in America right now.
Some Trump supporters have gone down a rabbit hole of adoration. They are so enamored of Trump, so invested in him being their savior (from what I don’t know), that they can’t handle the fact that he’s been voted out of office. They want so badly not to believe it that they have staked their faith on lies told to them by people who don’t really care about them. It’s sad to see but really not surprising when you take into account Trump’s methodology of propaganda and disinformation and his legion of media followers who are also so invested that they amplify that message without regard for their duties as journalists or commentators.
It’s sad to see and I can only hope that we find a vaccine for this hysterical delusion soon.
The Wounded WomanThe Unhappy Wife the Moment Her Fences Flew AwayThe Renaissance Room at the MuseumThe Water AngelMother and SonThe Dancer Dancing in Her Favorite Spot During QuarantineThe Sad Queen Just Wanted To Be LovedThe Dishwashing Attorney With Her Bra OffThe Very Popular Exhibition at the Usually Unpopular Art MuseumThe TV Producer Dreaming She Was a BlowfishThe Translator Getting Ready For WorkThe Tattoo Artist With Issues
You ever notice how paranoid people think other people are paranoid? Or how angry people think others are angry? Or perhaps the opposite, the person who wears rose colored glasses thinks everyone else is nice and benign. What is happening there? They are projecting. They see the world a certain way due to their character traits and so they assign those same traits to others actions. They can’t imagine others thinking differently, especially if they are narcissists who never bother to think about others.
Perhaps that’s why Trump thinks those who lost their lives defending America are losers and suckers. Because he can’t imagine people doing anything sacrificial unless they are those things. He certainly doesn’t see value in sacrifice or someone having sacrifice in his or her character. Instead he sees everything as win or lose. If you do something that can lead to you losing (or dying or getting captured in war) then you are a sucker. You let it happen to you because you weren’t thinking about yourself, and that is not the way he thinks. It’s always about him succeeding, getting away with something, escaping something. If he screws someone else in the process, a vendor back when he was a real estate developer, or a supposed ally now that he’s President, then he did what was smart for him and the other person got suckered.
So I ask you, are you a sucker? You are if you think he cares about you or your life. He doesn’t. He only cares about himself.
“If you are easily offended you are easily manipulated”. I heard our Pastor say this in his sermon this week and it resonated with me.
There are two parts to this quote, first the idea of being easily offended. It is what might currently be associated with ‘cancel culture’. You hear something you don’t like from someone, maybe a celebrity, maybe a politician, and you decide they are no longer worthy of your, or anyone else’s attention because what they did or said offended you so deeply. You might go so far as to say they need to be fired or disciplined in some way. This happens in our 24/7 environment of rage almost every day. Now, sometimes the person or company deserves the judgment and the consequence. Maybe they need to be fired because what they did was so egregious so as to deserve that. But often times we either are overreacting to the ‘sin’ or our judgment is based on incomplete information.
The other part of the quote is about being manipulated. Manipulation in this context means being persuaded to believe something or take some action that you don’t realize is based on incomplete or faulty information, or through appealing to an emotion or feeling that becomes more important than the truth about something.
The question becomes how these two are connected. If you are easily offended it often means you are looking for a reason to judge and may not wait to hear enough information to fairly judge. And if you are that primed to judge, you are primed to hear what a manipulator wants you to hear.
To use two recent examples from today’s headlines, first we have the case of the unwanted hysterectomies taking place in immigrant detention facilities. If the headline is, ‘Mass forced hysterectomies performed on immigrant women’ you might think one thing. If the headline is, ‘Whistle blower describes hearing about possible unwanted hysterectomies at detention center’ you might think another. If you were already upset about treatment of immigrants you could be quickly offended and ready to judge and the headline that heightens to infraction is the one you are likely to believe without checking to see if it is accurate.
Another example: You hear about a ‘riot’ in a major US city that happened after a protest. If the headline is ‘Major violence and rioting causes city to burn’ you might think one thing. If the headline is, ‘Car set on fire after peaceful protest’ you might think another. But if you were already upset at the protesters and their message you could be quickly offended and ready to judge and the headline that tells of more violence is the one you are likely to believe without checking to see if it is accurate.
What that means is we have to analyze and double check our information while withholding judgment. How do you double check the information? One is by being patient and letting the story play out. The other is by having multiple avenues of information coming to you. If you are only listening to Fox and Breitbart then you can trust you are not getting an accurate picture. If you are only listening to MSNBC and HuffPost then the same is true, you are not getting an accurate picture.
You can’t trust a single news outlet to feed you a well-balanced picture. It’s your responsibility to wait until there is sufficient evidence and to hear news from a variety of directions. It’s also your responsibility to not propagate information that is nothing more than gossip and innuendo without evidence. Both of those responsibilities are easier if you aren’t so easily offended and thus easily manipulated.
In the book ‘1984’ there were official sayings of the party in control, inscribed on the giant white pyramid at the Ministry of Truth. war is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is strength
This has always been used as an example of a scary dystopian future we in America might see in a place like Russia or China. But that is not how it’s turned out. Instead we are seeing it play out here in the US under Trump. If you doubt this to be true I would submit the words above as just the merest of slices of what he has said that is absurd and untrue in the extreme.
All you have to do is look through a collection of what he’s said over the past 4 years or more to see the truth. If you don’t see it, I think you might work for the ‘Ministry of Truth’.
