The Most Interesting Man In The World

Something tells me you've met a conservative recently. The Republican campaign has already spent millions training their minds. You can't expect them to start thinking for themselves overnight.

Heh, scroll through some of my recent memes, you'll see it. And it's not recent, I am debating with conservatives and nationalists since long time ago. It's not the lack of arguments that I find interesting that much as their persistence in sticking to their attitudes and being vocal about them, despite the fact that they can't argument the simplest holes in them. Ignorance combined with some kind of an, animalistic stubbornness is really stunning in some people. If they would just use their energy on self development as they use for sticking to their illusions and living in denial, they could all be extraordinary individuals. :) But they degrade themselves by their own choice. And it would be easy to ignore them if their ignorance wouldn't do as much harm as it does. :)

They have a handful of tricks up their sleeve and when they quickly exhaust those, they get increasingly angry. I've noticed they presume I am trying to convert them or something. I have confidence that necessity will force changes in government, and I am sure they will fight it to the bitter end. But rather than silently watch it all unfold, may as well have some commentary on it. To be completely honest I am fascinated as to how and why their brains so easily buy into the propaganda. I think it is reinforced by their environment and family and media constantly from birth.

I had lots of thinking about it. The answer is psychological, and could include various options. I think the root problem is that they fear themselves. They refuse to face their fears and take the responsibility for their lives. So, then they just project their own fears and problems to the outside world and the media and the government just channel and enforce that projection. That's why they're like that, and that's why they can't develop individuality and thus, their own individual attitudes formed by an honest attempt of trying to see both side of the story and thinking about it for themselves. They need a herd to blend in, they depend on it, cause deep down inside them, they refuse to face and accept themselves, which actually makes them run to get support and recognision from the others, to support their illusions and lies about themselves. That's what I guess most of them do in real life. And deep down they are most probably still infants on some level. And they can't take responsibility for themselves and their actions, their lives. They still want to be a child and need a parent, someone to protect them from their fears and cuddle them so they don't need to take the responsibility for themselves. When they grow up, they just channel that to the government, nation, God, their friends, husbands and wives, etc. And that's why we have all of these problems, cause most people are chickens and cowards. And they rather follow their illusions even if they lead them to a war or death, than face themselves and their own fears and false perception of themselves.

When you look at humans, we function that way since ancient times. Tribes project their fears and ideas to the outside world through their religion. When humans gain more knowledge and start developing individuality, we start realising that those things are just our own emotions and ideas inside us, and we develop science to explain the outside world. In the same way, still, people project things to the outside, we all do it as kids for example. So, what's happening is that the society is trying to grow up but some people are really keen on staying children.

Those childish ways could be cultivating the fear of change, because that would be a new stage of maturity. And the definition of conservatism is basically no change, even if all evidence points to the need for change. And the ultimate challenge, how do you deal with a man child that refuses to mature.

Yeah, the ultimate chalenge. The only way is facing him to the facts and even more important, to his own imaturity. But I think in most of the cases, you can't do much through debates about politics. It takes things in their personal lives to make them face themselves. Their illusions need to break in order for them to see what they're like. And the majority of them will probably find enough comfort to keep their illusions for their entire lives. I think we just have to accept that we can't change some people. You can face them with the facts and with your opinion about them. The rest is on them. If someone is ready to see some things they might face it, and eventually change. But the majority will probably still stick to their old ways. I see that most of them have a hard time understanding few simple concepts as well. They percieve thigs in the terms 'if you're not with us, you're with them'. It's hard to explain anything to someone like that. I guess you should first have to explain that the world isn't necesarily like that and that, the fact that you think somebody's opinion is bad you don't ncesarily think he's evil and you don't necessarily advocate some other people's crazy agenda. But some people just can't realise that. I've found quite a lot of them on this site. I know many from my life as well. I think undermining their comfort zone can work as well. If you put a bug in their head about the governments and that they're being manipulated, it might make them wonder about things. But again, it might not. I guess we just need to accept that.

The fear thing makes sense and then needing some symbolic role model which turns out to be guns and god. It's like a weird contradiction though to arm yourself to the teeth against some big bad enemy and the government, and also actively buy into and elect that same big bad government. America has always needed a symbolic enemy to justify their attitude and it is most definitely muslims currently (notice the recent hate towards Obama). I guess if one of the herd did somehow develop their own educated opinion, they would be a black sheep in the family and majority, and that is just way too frightening for them.

Yes, the loyalty for their families and surroundings sure play a big role. Not ust to them but to all of us. I am not from the US, I am from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Europe. We have tons of nationalists in my country, we had wars and we could easily have more wars, because the people didn't really change much. It's the same here, just that the background story is different. Every nation needs an enemy to fight. You always need someone to fight when you refuse to face yourself. For example my family is right wing and it wasn't easy for me to speak about my attitudes. But I have a good luck to live in a family that is loving and nice. Some other families are much more severe to their kids if they do not follow their views of the world.