There have been occasions in my life where I have had someone tell me what it is that I think. Knowing the human condition as I do, I suspect we have all experienced this at one time or another. It is really annoying. Especially when they are wrong!
Probably twenty years ago, I and my late wife, my brother, and his soon-to-be ex-wife, who was typically argumentative, decided we’d go out to dinner at the local pizza parlor. While our wives went up to the counter to order the pizza, my brother and I went to the bar to get beer for us all. I had no more than sat down at our table when my brother’s wife came running towards me from the counter with my wife in hot pursuit. She demanded to know somewhat indignantly whether I liked thin or thick crust pizza. I quizzically looked at her and said that I have always liked only thick crust and despise thin crust pizza, to which my wife responded to my brother’s betrothed, “See? I think I know what my husband likes.” My brother’s wife was having none of it and told me that she was absolutely sure that I had liked thin crust.
That was typical of Pam.
It wasn’t too long after that my brother got a divorce and she was involuntarily placed under medical supervision for being completely nuts. (Not necessarily just because of this incident though – at least I assume so.)
Well, it seems like the certifiably nuts contagion is spreading these days. What is even more ironic is that I have been accused of this very thing by one of the goof balls that is always guilty of this exact faux pas towards me when it comes to politics. Indeed, I have been called an authoritarian, racist, homophobe, Trump-supporter, and neo-Nazi for years by one particular individual who may actually be in the terminal stages of leftist Kool-aide intoxication. It doesn’t matter what I write or say to the contrary. The fact is that I disagree with his leftist bunk, so he must know what kind of pizza I like!
I have always strongly disliked Trump, which I have reiterated ad nauseum. Indeed, I didn’t even vote for him the first time he ran. Nor did I vote for him the primary this year. Mr. Kool-aide insists that I am a blind follower, admirer, and believer of his lies. It does no good to explain that Trump is the lesser of two evils, and having seen how Biden and Trump have each governed, I choose Trump to be president. I don’t like him, trust him, or believe a lot of what he says. I believe in NOTHING that the head of the Biden crime family says or does. It is a painful choice. But I must like that damned cracker-crust pizza according to this one individual.
What is really ironic, interesting, and hypocritical on his behalf is that this individual has accused me of supporting a racist and neo-Nazi, while this person supports all of the racist BLM, DEI, critical race theory nonsense and thinks it is necessary for Israel to immediately commence a cease-fire in the hopes of one day establishing a two-state solution with the very people that voted for the government that is actually calling for a genocide of the entire Jewish people. Disconnect much?
According to him, “Believing Trump's lies is what makes Americans neo-Nazis.” Meanwhile he is actually championing modern day Nazis hoping to exterminate the Jews that Hitler couldn’t, while he erroneously blames Israel for the “Israeli land theft, apartheid, terrorism, the Palestinian Nakba and GAZA holocaust.” A little research of other-than-left-wing propaganda would prove that all of that is a lie.
This person has long parroted that, “The authoritarian personality has a characteristic over-active and enlarged primitive amygdala, the brain's fear/fight/flight center. This is why they readily embrace whatever triggers their anger, fear and hate.”
While there probably is a legitimate scientific basis for this conclusion, the irony is that an authoritarian is using this in hyperbolic propaganda-fashion to support the limitation of constitutional freedoms because he assumes that I and other like-minded conservatives are the one wanting to restrict the democratic process and destroy our nation, while his president has actually been doing this.
The whole ludicrous backwards notion is enough to make me tired and hungry. Maybe I’ll go see if I can find some deep-dish pizza somewhere, even though I supposedly don’t like it.
2 comments:
It is an annoying phenomenon -- one which I think is, in many cases, rooted in a desire to de-legitimize an opponent's arguments without engaging with them. If you can explain away a person's beliefs by claiming they are rooted in some psychological issue, you can evade addressing whatever evidence he cites to support those beliefs.
I must say, though, that the most prominent example of this behavior that I see is on the part of religious believers who apply it to atheists. Among people who leave religion, the most common reason they cite for doing so is that they simply can no longer believe religion's truth-claims (the existence of God, the claims of supernatural phenomena like miracles, non-scientific explanations for the existence of life as we know it, etc). But many religious believers refuse to accept this and insist that people who leave religion must have done so because they were traumatized or offended in some way by bad experiences with it. That does happen in some cases, but they will not accept that the majority of atheists reject religion primarily because they simply find its claims impossible to believe. I've heard that there is some basis in the Bible for doing this, but that doesn't change the fact that they are claiming to know the atheist's motives and thinking better than the atheist himself does.
By the way, I don't believe the claim that conservative views are the product of an "over-active and enlarged primitive amygdala", or any claim that political views are caused by innate biological traits. Too many individuals change their political views over time for that to be true.
I would like to return to your comment later and give a more thorough response to your insights when I have more time.
That said, I agree with your premise though. If an atheist tells me he doesn't believe in God for whatever reason, I am going to take him at his word regarding his stated reasons. The same goes for peoples' support or resistance to political issues. Indeed, there are people that sometimes couch or outright disguise their motives for professing as they do, but as a general rule, I tend to believe what a person tells me is their true motivation in supporting some issue until the facts of their actions indicate otherwise.
As for the amygdala issue, I re-read what I wrote and I definitely need to clarify. I think some people are more prone to respond to a fight/flight-emotional response by an over-active amygdala. I do NOT think that is an affliction that is common only to conservatives though. As you point out, people can and do change their political and even religious beliefs sometimes based on fear or emotion.
It is interesting when one is accused of attitudes, emotions, and actions that are the very ones being displayed by one's accuser. It is about as ironic and preposterous as Hamas claiming that Israel is the one committing genocide, albeit my quarrels are hardly as existential in comparison.
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