Very busy so two quick links. The first is an essay on conservatism that does a fine job of defining it.
http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html
The second is an old favourite of mine, defining authoritarianism. There's a lot of overlap.
The Authoritarians
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Monday, 23 September 2013
Excellent blog entry on the clobber passages
http://www.thegodarticle.com/7/post/2011/10/clobbering-biblical-gay-bashing.html
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
The addiction to certainty
I am an addict.
Addiction is an imbalance in the brain's dealings with neurotransmitters in response to outside stimulus. Where ordinary people would have a "ho hum" reaction, addicts get a boost of certain neurotransmitters and/or are deficient in neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine, and are using the stimulus of choice in an attempt to bring themselves up to normal levels.
From previous blog entries, it's obvious alcohol is my stimulus of choice. I'm likely also addicted to stimulants such as caffeine and I have an unhealthy relationship with tranquilizers. When using my drug of choice, I get a nice feeling associated with certain neurotransmitters. When I'm doing without, I get withdrawal symptoms - I call it the "screaming meemies", others call it "jonesing" or "the monkey on my back".
You will notice I've been avoiding the normally-used word "substance". That's because it doesn't necessarily have to be a substance. I have a number of obsessions. When I indulge myself in them, I get the exact same "thrill" - the hallmark of a neurotransmitter - that I get from alcohol. For example, there's certain political websites I can't keep away from, and I have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of bookstores else I leave with more books than I can carry, have shelf space for or can afford.
A lot of our understanding of addiction was mostly theory until the invention of the real-time MRI scanner. This allowed scientists to see exactly what was going on in the brain during addictive behaviour. What surprised scientists was they were seeing the exact same brain activity for non-substance addictive behaviour to, for example, mental states.
One mental state is certainty.
I listen to voices. Someone who knows what they're talking about speaks with an authoritative tone, even and measured with a dropping tone on facts. If they get into uncertain territory, the voice rises e.g. "applying this patch should work" but you can hear the implied "but" at the end. An authoritarian speaks differently. They're dropping tone is on "should", with a rising tone on their "facts" (which usually aren't). Their emphasis is on conclusions - how they get there is irrelevant. The "facts" must match the conclusions, not the other way around.
Hence authoritarian followers look to authoritarian leaders for their source of certainty - which outrageous statement they can treat as "fact" to get them through their day. The other day Pat Robertson announced that gay people go around with special rings that infect people with AIDS. Not a whimper of protest from the Religious Right to this obvious nonsense. But sure as shootin' they're been certain this is a fact just 'cause he said it.
Addiction sucks - don't it.
Addiction is an imbalance in the brain's dealings with neurotransmitters in response to outside stimulus. Where ordinary people would have a "ho hum" reaction, addicts get a boost of certain neurotransmitters and/or are deficient in neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine, and are using the stimulus of choice in an attempt to bring themselves up to normal levels.
From previous blog entries, it's obvious alcohol is my stimulus of choice. I'm likely also addicted to stimulants such as caffeine and I have an unhealthy relationship with tranquilizers. When using my drug of choice, I get a nice feeling associated with certain neurotransmitters. When I'm doing without, I get withdrawal symptoms - I call it the "screaming meemies", others call it "jonesing" or "the monkey on my back".
You will notice I've been avoiding the normally-used word "substance". That's because it doesn't necessarily have to be a substance. I have a number of obsessions. When I indulge myself in them, I get the exact same "thrill" - the hallmark of a neurotransmitter - that I get from alcohol. For example, there's certain political websites I can't keep away from, and I have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of bookstores else I leave with more books than I can carry, have shelf space for or can afford.
A lot of our understanding of addiction was mostly theory until the invention of the real-time MRI scanner. This allowed scientists to see exactly what was going on in the brain during addictive behaviour. What surprised scientists was they were seeing the exact same brain activity for non-substance addictive behaviour to, for example, mental states.
One mental state is certainty.
I suspect that retreat into absolute ideologies is accentuated during periods of confusion, lack of governmental direction, economic chaos and information overload. At bottom, we are pattern recognizers who seek escape from ambiguity and indecision. If a major brain function is to maintain mental homeostasis, it is understandable how stances of certainty can counteract anxiety and apprehension. Even though I know better, I find myself somewhat reassured (albeit temporarily) by absolute comments such as, "the stock market always recovers," even when I realize that this may be only wishful thinking.A much longer excerpt can be found here.
I listen to voices. Someone who knows what they're talking about speaks with an authoritative tone, even and measured with a dropping tone on facts. If they get into uncertain territory, the voice rises e.g. "applying this patch should work" but you can hear the implied "but" at the end. An authoritarian speaks differently. They're dropping tone is on "should", with a rising tone on their "facts" (which usually aren't). Their emphasis is on conclusions - how they get there is irrelevant. The "facts" must match the conclusions, not the other way around.
Hence authoritarian followers look to authoritarian leaders for their source of certainty - which outrageous statement they can treat as "fact" to get them through their day. The other day Pat Robertson announced that gay people go around with special rings that infect people with AIDS. Not a whimper of protest from the Religious Right to this obvious nonsense. But sure as shootin' they're been certain this is a fact just 'cause he said it.
Addiction sucks - don't it.
How the Religious Right gives communicable diseases a chance to spread
The origins of an Epidemic: How Right-Wing Religious Communities Give Measles A Chance To Spread
Here's the problem. The symptoms of autism show up right around the same time that kids are vaccinated. The temptation is to blame the symptoms on the vaccination because they occurred at the same time. That's fallacy of the Undivided Middle, otherwise refuted as "correlation does not imply causation".
To cause the changes to brain structure that appear to be the actual causes of autism, these causes would have to occur when the brain was first developing, way before vaccine time.
I've been sitting here trying to way of phrasing this so it doesn't come across as insulting, but I've come up empty. Authoritarians love simplistic thinking and projection. It's as simple as that. They're thinking "if my kid has autism it must be somebody's fault, likely mine and that's unacceptable so I'm going to project it someplace else". Blaming it on vaccines is a simple out. The problem is to take it to its logical conclusion, they have to ban vaccines and damn the consequences to anybody else. Their only concern is for their herd. They don't care if the rest of us live or die. As long as they isolate themselves, huddling in their megachurches and homeschooling their kids, they think they're safe.
They're not.
...At the end of last month, epidemiologists in Texas traced the source of a measles outbreak to a right-wing megachurch whose pastor has preached against vaccines. Even though about 98 percent of Texas residents are vaccinated against the highly contagious disease, the congregants who attended that evangelical church represented a pocket of unprotected people, and measles was able to spread rapidly.
...The country’s epidemiologists are having difficulty tracking the outbreak because orthodox Protestants don’t usually seek treatment at the doctor after they become sick. The close-knit religious community believes in faith healing, and opposes medical interventions like vaccines because they undermine “divine providence.” And because they live among other orthodox Protestants, rather than being integrated among the rest of the country’s residents, they don’t benefit from the “herd effect” that helps prevent the spread of diseases — that is, the fact that vaccinating some people can end up protecting the unvaccinated ones around them.
The "widely-debunked study" was originally published by a Dr. Wakefield, causing a huge controversy. It claimed that autism was caused by a specific vaccine which contained mercury. Parents with autistic kids jumped on board hoping to find a cause for autism and possibly a cure. A secondary industry arose of quacks selling cures for autism such as chelation. The problem - vaccine is no longer used, when it was used it contained less mercury than a can of tuna and the controversy invoked a logical fallacy.The United Kingdom has also been struggling with a resurgence in measles cases over the past several years. The recent uptick hasn’t been linked to a particular religious community, but health officials do blame a widely-debunked study that claimed vaccines can cause autism. Thanks to that persistent myth, many parents still have misconceptions about the risks of inoculating their kids.
Here's the problem. The symptoms of autism show up right around the same time that kids are vaccinated. The temptation is to blame the symptoms on the vaccination because they occurred at the same time. That's fallacy of the Undivided Middle, otherwise refuted as "correlation does not imply causation".
To cause the changes to brain structure that appear to be the actual causes of autism, these causes would have to occur when the brain was first developing, way before vaccine time.
I've been sitting here trying to way of phrasing this so it doesn't come across as insulting, but I've come up empty. Authoritarians love simplistic thinking and projection. It's as simple as that. They're thinking "if my kid has autism it must be somebody's fault, likely mine and that's unacceptable so I'm going to project it someplace else". Blaming it on vaccines is a simple out. The problem is to take it to its logical conclusion, they have to ban vaccines and damn the consequences to anybody else. Their only concern is for their herd. They don't care if the rest of us live or die. As long as they isolate themselves, huddling in their megachurches and homeschooling their kids, they think they're safe.
They're not.
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