Culture Warriors category archive
“. . . Winning Is the Only Thing” 0
Sportswriter extraordinaire Bob Molinaro notes the irony at the spawn of Jerry Falwell:
Methinks it should rename itself Libertine University.
Aside:
I contemn these charlatans’ Christianity of cashflo Oh, never mind.
Spreading the Sepsis 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Mike Wood explores how “social” media propagate misinformation and lies. A snippet:
Insecurity 0
Virginia Tech Professor Rebecca Hester suggests that, despite the (used-to-be) soaring Dow Jones average, we are not “better off” (emphasis added):
Dis Enchantment 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear muses on the ease with which right-wing evangelical “Christians” can suspend disbelief. A snippet:
Hatred in the Workplace: A Cavalcade of Craven 0
Over at Above the Law, Richard B. Cohen corrals a flock of work-place discrimination and harassment cases. It’s worse than I could have imagined.
Here’s a bit; follow the link for the herd.
And there were death threats. Death threats! In the workplace!
An assistant manager allegedly told him, “We will hang you. We will seriously lynch you if you call in again this week.” And another asked him if he was “ready to commit suicide,” and even offered him “assistance” if he wanted to do it.
Yes — he was fired.
Bleach Bite 0
The Kansas City Star reports that progress is being made towards an accommodation. Farron may be a bit overwrought in this recording, but I have witnessed enough incidents here and in other places I’ve lived in which the underlying motive was to make homeless persons just go away that I’m inclined to think he is on to something here.
“This Is America” 0
A resident of Maine whose brother occasionally attended the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh tells the story of his suspense as he wondered whether his brother was one of the victims of the shooting there. A snippet:
Unfortunately, this is America. We do have to worry about our family members in houses of worship.
Nowhere is safe in America.
Follow the link for the rest.
“The Other” 0
In a piece that I suspect fear will be quite useful in examining the results of this election, regardless of the outcome, Cannon Thomas explores the dynamics of “us” vs. “them.” Here’s a bit:
Here’s what mobilization against “them” looks like:
- We identify people or groups of people who are a threat to what we value and begin to have intense automatic emotional reactions to them. These emotions are well-studied and arise before we have even mentally processed the content of what the other person is saying.
- That gut emotional response shapes and informs all of our opinions and attitudes. The reaction precedes any rational awareness of the content of the issue, and our attitudes are very hard to change from that point. We create very elaborate and convincing arguments for what we already felt. People are wired to assume what they see is all there is, so we fail to realize that we are becoming entrenched in a very limited perspective.
- We minimize or marginalize the other person or group. We process them as less human, more limited or impaired on a moral level, and as less “right” than we are. How else could they fail to see what is so obvious to us?
- We mobilize against them to protect what is “right” or “good.” Sometimes we do it with the sense of being engaged in a moral good; sometimes we do it with a frustrated defensiveness. Regardless, we fight for what we believe is right.
The result, in any situation where cooperation is required, is disastrous.
Remember, for Republicans, everybody else is a “them.”
Commonalities 0
Stanton E. Samenow, who has long experience studying offenders, high-lights the key commonalities among mass shooters in an article at Psychology Today Blogs. Here’s a nugget:
Follow the link for more.