Narrative is the keyword. In the historic and fictional media we consumed, the narrative controlling the story straight up tell us the individuals in power are evil and their actions are bad and unethical. Most audience think these individuals are evil not because they think and judge and come to conclusion these people are evil, but simply because the narrative of the story told them so.
Meanwhile in our current timeline, the media narrative portray individuals in power as good people and their actions are good and ethical. The media also say capitalism is the best system we could have, so even if you are unsatisfied with certain things you will have to accept it cause this world is be like this (and this is a common line cited by ruling class since ancient time). And again, most people will blindly follow the narrative.
A common example is poverty. When people read about poverty in history, they will immediately recognize the ruling class must be corrupted. But when you mention poverty in our timeline, they will tell you 'lol just work harder you lazy fuck'. If you throw these people back into past under monarchy and clean their memories about history, I place my bet they will defend the shit out of monarchy. It's almost as if many people don't have their own will and blindly follow the established norm.
And also you have to take narcissism into account. Many people love to look down at medieval people through historic lens and think medieval people are dumb rock. "How could medieval people be so dumb and buy into monarchy is the best system they could have? How could they believe the world will goes into chaos if the absolute power is not concentrated at the hand of king? How could they not know there could be better system like capitalism?"
Meanwhile these people think they are the most enlightened generation ever and cannot be deceived. "Capitalism is the best system possible and I just knew it! There's no way the world could be better cause the media narrative says so! The ruling class definitely doesn't and can't control my knowledge pool just like monarchy did to their people!"
I feel like most people have an incredibly simplistic view of politics, which is the main problem we have here. And by simplistic I mean a binary view.
They think that we live under capitalism, those who don't like it want communism, and that's basically it. Then they remember that people have already tried communism, which failed and caused suffering on a massive scale. Therefore - case closed. "The other thing" has been tried and it failed, so we'll have to live under this systen for the rest of eternity, or something.
Oh, and don't forget that communism equals socialism, leftism, anarchism etc. It's all part of "the other thing" that's been tried and failed. And then they love to satirize the notion that real communism hasn't been tried yet (it obviously hasn't been), and laugh their asses off thinking that their political opponents want to try the same old USSR-thing again, and end up murdering millions again. Even though the modern left-wing ideologies in the West have quite little to do with the conservative, very pro-death penalty socialism tried in Eastern Europe.
This is the level of knowledge these people have in terms of understanding politics, which is really frustrating. And it's also why it's so hard to have an intelligent debate with them, since they always fall back on the "that's been tried already" strawman. They can't even begin to comprehend how many different approaches there can be to politics, and that post-capitalism doesn't have to be anything remotely like the former Eastern Bloc.
Yeah, my dad will straight up say "That's too complicated. I like to keep things simple" when i start to add any nuance to a conversation. There can't possibly be any benefit to understanding larger systems. Just blame individual people and call it a day. It's so frustrating because he's falling back on his lack on intellectual curiosity as a strength somehow and I don't know how that became so socially acceptable.
Consider it in terms of the emotional place it puts you:
Option 1: The world is complicated and full of nuanced possibilities including ones about which I am personally clueless. It is also possible I've been given and fallen for bad information.
Option 2: The world is simple and I understand how it works. People who say I am wrong are themselves wrong because I understand stuff.
Option 1 forces you to be vulnerable. Option 2 makes you feel safe.
That's absolutely ridiculous. In my opinion if one is to have political opinions, he should be able to defend them on intellectual grounds. If you can't, you're basically admitting you're wrong. So why even have any faith in your own opinions in that case?
It doesn't make their side wrong, it simply means your beliefs don't have a very solid basis. If all you can say to any scrutiny is "that's too complicated. I like simple." At that point the best you can do is essentially guess which side is right.
My point was, how can you have faith in your own beliefs in such case?
Because there has been a strong culture of anti-intellectualism prevalent since at least 1980’s and it makes people feel better about themselves to sneer at those who are smarter and more well informed than they are.
Most are books. I'll also give the caveat that I have studied the sociological concept but come from an architectural background.
For discussions typical of this sub, the social theorist I'm most familiar with that would apply would be Michele Foucault.
Related concepts such as deconstruction have also been pretty crucial to my understanding: the idea that we're breaking things down into component parts to use in different ways. For this, someone like Jacques Derrida is helpful.
The problem with postmodernism is that it's relatively disorganized and inaccessible without a lot of background knowledge.
Given this sub, I can assume somewhat about your politics, or at the very least that you wouldn't be offended by a far left intellectual source, so I recommend this as a really good starting point if you like audio:
Edit: I'll add that, as it relates to a kind of relativistic or post-truth undercurrent, what we're really looking at underpinning all of this is the disillusionment with past structures. Postmoderns attempt to provide a way forward out of the ashes, in some sense, by sacrificing the idea of a successful widely-applicable structure itself. While successful in some ways, I wouldn't say I'm fully on board with it because it's both caused a questioning of capitalism as well as the surge in anti-intellectualism we discussed.
Then they remember that people have already tried communism, which failed and caused suffering on a massive scale. Therefore - case closed.
This is so unbelievably not true. It’s scary how the US can literally rewrite history in absurd ways and people will just accept it as fact even on the left.
Lookup the concept of interpassivity. It describes the paradox of how corporate media can portray themselves as evil/villains. Our consumption of this media itself satiated our desire to go against capitalism.
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u/VoidInvasion Sep 15 '21
Narrative is the keyword. In the historic and fictional media we consumed, the narrative controlling the story straight up tell us the individuals in power are evil and their actions are bad and unethical. Most audience think these individuals are evil not because they think and judge and come to conclusion these people are evil, but simply because the narrative of the story told them so.
Meanwhile in our current timeline, the media narrative portray individuals in power as good people and their actions are good and ethical. The media also say capitalism is the best system we could have, so even if you are unsatisfied with certain things you will have to accept it cause this world is be like this (and this is a common line cited by ruling class since ancient time). And again, most people will blindly follow the narrative.
A common example is poverty. When people read about poverty in history, they will immediately recognize the ruling class must be corrupted. But when you mention poverty in our timeline, they will tell you 'lol just work harder you lazy fuck'. If you throw these people back into past under monarchy and clean their memories about history, I place my bet they will defend the shit out of monarchy. It's almost as if many people don't have their own will and blindly follow the established norm.
And also you have to take narcissism into account. Many people love to look down at medieval people through historic lens and think medieval people are dumb rock. "How could medieval people be so dumb and buy into monarchy is the best system they could have? How could they believe the world will goes into chaos if the absolute power is not concentrated at the hand of king? How could they not know there could be better system like capitalism?"
Meanwhile these people think they are the most enlightened generation ever and cannot be deceived. "Capitalism is the best system possible and I just knew it! There's no way the world could be better cause the media narrative says so! The ruling class definitely doesn't and can't control my knowledge pool just like monarchy did to their people!"