Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Feb 26, 2024 2:23 pm
Little article from Psychology Today discussing the links (which I was unaware of tbh) between tendencies to conspiratorial theorisings and tendencies to grandiose delusions of self-importance. Seems to me like this might be beneficial information for quite a few persons in this vicinity.
Do you know anybody who believes that a shadowy cabal of Jews runs all the media, and wants to use it to make you all homosexual? Or are you aware of any person who just assumes that a bunch of billionaires are trying to make it illegal for you to own your own shoes instead of renting them from a globalist mega-government? Does that person often treat you like you ought to know how much better they are than you? If you do, please try to help that person, because they need lots of help to overcome their immense burden of madness and stupidity.
Among the key points:
[1]Conspiracy theories are explanations that attribute the true cause of a major event to secret and malevolent plots by powerful agents or groups.
[2]Research shows that compared to the average person, narcissists are more likely to find conspiracy theories appealing.
[3]Paranoia, gullibility, need for dominance and uniqueness, and collective narcissism may explain why narcissists are drawn to conspiracy theories.
First, some clarity. There
are certainly *conspiracies* that do occur, have occurred, and continue to occur. Take for one example the behind the scenes machinations that led the US into WWll. A great deal about this has been uncovered in the last 5 decades. It involved, literally, what the word *conspiracy* connotes. Secret agreements and then machinations to bring it about without the wider public being aware. This is not controversial. Everyone understands this.
Maybe. I don't know which specific theories you are referring to though and it's fairly clear already that you grant a lot of credence to several theories I consider utterly maniacal.
I have been informal in my description of what a conspiracy theory is, the article specifies "Conspiracy theories are explanations that attribute the true cause of a major event to secret and malevolent plots by powerful agents or groups" and for my own purposes, if it is necessary to allow conversation to proceed, I am content to restrict further, perhaps to what we might consider paradigmatic examples, which I sort of think are the ones that require absurd bloated conspiracies (the ones that involve 7 goverments, 90 agencies, and over half a million persons for instance) where the motives of the participants are frankly mad (like most of the ones about taking over the world).
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
So one can only make sense of the psychological analysis if the specific sorts of *conspiracies* are mentioned. For example, do aliens live in underground caverns with entrance points at the N Pole? would be considered a deluded theory based (one supposes) in an overactive imagination. I think we would be safe to label it deluded and to dismiss it. There are definitely many
many strange theories of this nature.
Oh yes, like the insane theory that aliens built the pyramids, or the Flat Earthers who think NASA is engaged in a conspiracy to pretend the world is round. Another such theory has it that the Holocaust was invented (under jewish orders) to make the Nazis look bad and none of it really happened. That's equally mad, right?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
Then the question arises: in what type of person, in what type of
psychology of a person do these sorts of imaginings occur? It would be impossible to discern, and it would be a problematic assessment, if it were linked to "grandiose delusions of self-importance". Who judges? And what is the
function of the judgment?
Allof the words in phrase "grandiose delusions of self-importance" seem to be fairly meaningful, but I am not a psychologist and those were some words I threw together as a vague colloquial description of narcissism. So replace them something more medically accurate if you are in a position to do so. The article I linked says that "Narcissism refers to grandiose self-regard", so you can use that I guess.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
How would the researcher arrive at this conclusion? And because it is unlikely that there is a sound method to do so, I submit that he could only offer
an opinion, and one likely slanted by a tendency to *locate pathologies* for political purposes. Remeber we are in times of tremendous discord and ideological battles.
We are in times of the usual amount of discord and ideological battles, this isn't the French Revolution. Ever since mankind developed language and logic many thousands of years ago, we have been formulating new approaches to epistemological satisfaction without ever getting it exactly right, if there even is an exactly right to aim for.
That doesn't mean we can't arrive at reasonable conclusions about how to form reliable beliefs, and how to justify our beliefs. To ref
Hilary Putnam, we apply what he calls the epistemic values, which includes (not limited to) coherence, reasonableness, plausibility, simplicity, elegance. In fact even when we're convinced that we are doing something much more rigorous than that such as science or really really good logic, we're working in a framework that still depends on those informal epistemic values for its own plausibility, so we aren't likely to really get a perfect truth of anything important. Now I am not in the same camp as Putnam, in fact if you watch that video and can understand his words, you could easily actually become the most talented moral realist on this site and therefore an enemy I would take seriously at last.
But Putnam is broadly right in this observation I think, even though each of those words does open up obvious new problems. There's nothing logically important about simplicity at all for instance, but still we value it as a reason to consider a notion plausible. And we have standards for adjudging certain persons to be of reduced capability, even to the point of taking away their liberty, if their belief formation processes don't show evidence of meeting at least some of those epistemic requirements on a regular basis.
This need not be political at all, this is normal and always has been. The biggest change over the last 10 thousand years in this matter is nothing to do with politics, it is that we seldom blame witchcraft or demonic posession any more when somebody is unable to form beliefs in the way we find epistemically pleasing.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
If one pathologizes even the belief, or the supposition, that Jews have inordinate power
within a given sphere, then one is engaging in a politicized pathological diagnosis. It should be obvious that such diagnoses are common, and that many people resort to them at the drop of a hat.
I guess the Antwerp diamond cutting industry is very jewish, and I hear that the London equivalent at Hatton Garden used to be similar, although I expect those descriptions are probably overblown. But the notion that jews run the PR industry, and the media is epistemically unsound, and that's before you go into weirdness about them using these powers for mind-control to spread homosexuality. Once you get into that latter theory, you've gone howling mad and that's not a politics thing.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
I can cite one example in reference to that notable forum inhabitant who seems to honestly believe that all who do not toe a specific, accepted ideological line of belief and understanding are therefore Nazis. This is emoted politicized pathological diagnosis in the context of political disagreements. But it does not require a psychological analysis to label it. At least I don't imagine so. It is a question of training, received ideas, social conventions and a skewed analytical processes.
Yawn. You and GrandWizard22 like to imagine that very fine distinctions are required specifically when people are referring to you, not so much when you refer to others. I don't consent to be bound by shenanigans, a neo-nazi is just a nazi as far as I am concerned. I may be applying the term with a slightly broad brush to include persons who might more correctly according to some taxonomy you prefer be nazi-adjacent, or just white nationalists instead of national socialists etc.... but I am really just including all the people who hold weird conspiracy theories about jews, and that seems ok to me. Tough shit if you don't like it.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
Having studied, unofficially of course, a great deal of the ideas and view of those on the Left, the Far Left, the Right and the Far Right, I am well aware of the range of opinions about the role of Jews. But the question is actually: Can this topic be discussed? By anyone? At any time? Or, is the topic made to seem so reprobate, so wrong-headed, and a priori bad/evil that it cannot be considered? Is there a fair, decent and honest way to go about it? If so, how?
This is really what the issue hinges on. Is it pathological to think about the question? I do not think so. But I would certainly recommend great restraint and careful self-analysis of one's own motives. Yet that would be true in
all controversial areas.
If you are hoping to represent yourself as a disinterested academic far removed from the subject at hand, some sort of purely rational observer, then you have a problem with the formation of plausible beliefs. Everyone knows you've taken a side and you aren't just "asking the question".
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
Seems to me like this might be beneficial information for quite a few persons in this vicinity.
Similarly, one could make recommendations to the one who wrote this sentence about different forms of *beneficial information* they could put to use in self-examination of their own stances.
True, it is easier to see the faults in the other. But we all recognize that when we do this we often make substantial errors.
Sure, so what? I'm not a narcissist so I take it for granted that I am mistaken in many matters. I don't know shit about psychology for a start. I'm not much of a one for conspiracy theories though and you aren't going to sell me one about jews today.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 11:02 pm
In all questions that pertain to controversial topics -- such as who or what, if anything is discoverable -- stands behind or has influenced the *homosexualization* of our cultures, then the question has to be posed honestly. Not a trick question or a trap question. And not with the a priori assumption that the question is a bad one to ask and one morally reprehensible.
Can the question be asked? Does the question have legitimacy? Or again is the question one that only
a pathological person could ask?
Show me where you've asked the question of if?
But a-priori, a theory about global media elites who -- for some absurdly insane reason -- choose to homosexualise society and by some implausible mechanism have that much mind control is pre-ordained to be madness. If your ingredients list to make a cake is:
1 cup white sugar
½ cup unsalted lunacy
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons madness extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¾ teaspoons insanity powder
½ cup milk
Your cake is going to be mad.