I still don't hate Elon Musk. And I find the wild and shameless mischaracterization of his statements and actions tremendously disorienting.
Worst of all is the conformity of it all. People not paying close attention pick up the tribal revulsion via snideness on Twitter or MSNBC, in the same contagion pattern as MAGAs mindlessly conforming to the senseless snideness of their media silos. Visceral snideness and hate, none of it more than a micron deep. Shallow snark will be the death of us.
OF COURSE Elon is a malignant, devious, extreme right-wing hateful plutocrat and an ABSOLUTE IDIOT. Everyone knows it! We hear the tone of voice of our thought leaders, and instantly fall in line, smirking at that sorry rich shmuck. Elon is TRENDING DOWN. Step on him!
Just like with the MAGAs, it's all pro-wrestling kayfabe all the time. Nothing means anything, it's all just opening socially-acceptable channels for venting resentful snideness and cruelty. No different from "BURN THE WITCH!" It's that old trope.
It's not just that the Right's gone mad (and, hooboy, has it!). It's that America's gone mad, and Republicans are currently expressing this madness in a more harmful manner. That's temporary. Just wait till the Left gets a truly effective populist demagogue of their own (even milquetoast Bernie nearly ignited that kindling, demonstrating how primed and ready they are). The Left looks better because it hasn't found a Trump of its own.
Elon has taken solid and effective strides to helping the environment with electric cars, and has already saved the country's space program with rockets. His Boring Company may or may not work out, but it's a noble effort, and his battery work is groundbreaking. He's patently not in it for the money, which I (and apparently I alone) find admirable. The wealthiest man doesn't hang out in Aspen, he does literally nothing but work all day. He casually throws his chips on the table when captivated by an opportunity to do some good, which is my idea of heroism. I don't know anyone more widely beneficial and committed, including Bill Gates. And this guy's the great ogre and pinhead???
Elon says some dumb shit, as do we all. That's because he's human. The main problem, so far as I can tell, is that Elon remains unfiltered. He doesn't strive to project smooth omniscience and diligent thought compliance (empty poses, both). Why would we demand that of him? He puts himself out there, unafraid to be wrong. He hasn't outsourced Elon Musk™ to a PR battalion. We should admire that, not ridicule it!
I was about to type "he tells it like it is", and suddenly recoiled. I sound like a mild MAGA failing to grok what's so awful about Donald (who is unquestionably unfiltered). Ugggggh!
With all the gaslighting and disinformation surrounding both these people, it's nearly impossible to find stable ground. I'm still quite sure Donald Trump is a legit cancer - utterly selfish and sociopathic with no redeeming characteristics - hugely damaging to the nation, while Elon is a smart, principled guy doing his imperfect best to do cool and widely helpful things while defiantly remaining an actual (i.e. flawed) human being despite glaring spotlight. But, Jesus, the floor's not level, so who knows? Somebody exfiltrate me from this funhouse!
It's excruciating to me that the more people hate and misrepresent Elon (all driven - just like in MAGAworld - by pundits trading off a famous name for clicks, competing for maximal screechy excoriation), the more I question my antipathy to Trump. I wonder if I've been spun on that; if I'm being trendy. It's a centrist conundrum in moments of escalating bipolar extremism. My refusal to conform with Elon hatred softens me ever-so-slightly re: Trump, because the extremists hating both repel me to the point where I viscerally want to oppose everything they propose.
That's the danger right there. That's why extremists are toxic. Radicals radicalize others either for or against. They are like tops whose intense spin contagiously induces either sympathetic or counter spin. Good luck trying to remain still and stable! The aversion to dancing with the devil is, itself, a dance. In fact, the moment you call a devil a devil, you're already dancing! So good luck trying to find level ground!
It takes great effort to reframe oneself out of being radicalized or reverse-radicalized by appalling behavior. Given my visceral need to try and do so, America hasn't been a good setting for me (though I do feel obliged to keep writing, to offer cognitive support to others trying to hold the line of rationality - or, at least, what I deem rationality, though this deeming becomes more and more effortful).
Portugal hasn't caught this virus quite yet. So off I go.
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5 comments:
“It's excruciating to me that the more people hate and misrepresent Elon (all driven - just like in MAGAworld - by pundits trading off a famous name for clicks, competing for maximal screechy excoriation), the more I question my antipathy to Trump. I wonder if I've been spun on that; if I'm being trendy. It's a centrist conundrum in moments of escalating bipolar extremism. My refusal to conform with Elon hatred softens me ever-so-slightly re: Trump, because the extremists hating both repel me to the point where I viscerally want to oppose everything they propose.”
I hope you don’t question or soften your view of Donald Trump, Jim. This post of yours alone shows that you have the independence and strength to rise above the noise of the gaslighters, regardless of which side of the political spectrum they live on. Trump is, as you say, “a legit cancer - utterly selfish and sociopathic with no redeeming characteristics - hugely damaging to the nation.” The fact that some may try to paint others, like Musk, with the same brush, ignoring the obvious and important factual differences between the two, should not gaslight the reality of Trump’s evil or cause you to question that reality.
In my view, it’s more important than ever to resist the efforts to undermine our sense of reality and to make our efforts to separate truth from fiction seem futile or irrelevant. The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1944 movie “Gaslight.” In this movie, after the murder of her famous opera-singing aunt, Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to study in Italy to become a great opera singer as well. While there, she falls in love with and marries the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The two return to London to live in Paula’s aunt’s house, where Paula begins to notice strange goings-on, including Gregory’s manipulation of the gaslights to make them appear to dim without being touched. Gregory’s purpose is to psychologically manipulate his wife in order to make her question her perception of reality and make her dependent on Gregory’s malicious and evil version of reality in order to steal from her. The relevance to the lies, misinformation, and psychological manipulation in our current social and political environment is obvious. All the more reason to maintain confidence in our independence, our insistent questioning, and our relentless efforts to validate and verify facts, overcoming to the extent possible all the barriers being put in the road to truth.
Tom Armitage
I've not only been alarmed by Trump since the day he descended the gilded escalator, frothing about those evil Hispanic immigrants (many of whom are my friends, and every one of whom works harder and more sincerely and honestly than any native-born American I've ever known), I even conceived the closing Lincoln Project ad of the 2022 cycle, my gambit for keeping him from power. The "trigger" I pulled yesterday (see my top-most posting) may (or may not) have a much stronger inoculating affect. So I'm still far from donning (no pun intended) a MAGA hat, don't worry.
I did not know that history on gaslighting. I thought it was invented by my family as a special op to keep me in line! :)
I am, however, loathe to frame a fact/fiction binary. I have MAGA friends - nice people, not racist, not viscerally authoritarian; they're mostly just floating with the tide of their cultural ecosystem - every one of whom sincerely believes they're also honorably, nobly, sincerely, intelligently trying to "refute the lies". Like that Joe Biden won. Etc.
Problem is that not being tribally-oriented, I have trouble "them"-ing a Them; othering an Other. Strong Dems and strong Reps both believe they're trying to cut through misinformation, but it's mirror world. From my position, it's not a binary. If it were a binary, it would be as simple as you assert. But it's not. It's an onslaught of madness from all sides.
I think historians will conclude that this was a conflagration of Russian Chekist techniques (Desinformatsiya being the only ready-for-prime-time Russian export besides gas) finding fertile ground in the west. Many factors made us vulnerable to them, and they spread like kudzu on both sides (taboo term, I know) of every spectrum, leaving everyone without a floor beneath their feet (which, of course, makes anything possible, including autocratic kleptocracy and blatantly untrue propaganda). It's "The Death of Truth" come westward, and centrist conciliatory relativists like me are the last to fall, but when we do, it's largely due to terminal exasperation.
Much easier if it's "Argh, THOSE FUCKING PEOPLE!" That's easy!
No. no, no, Jim. I'm not in any way unaware of the fact that many people who disagree with my politics, including those who have swallowed the MAGA poison, are decent, kind generous, good people. I continue my friendships with these decent, honorable, although misguided, people. But, TRUMP IS EVIL. I'm not an us-versus-them person in any way. But, despite my compassion and friendship with these folks, reality is reality. I work very hard to be an honest, open-minded, free-minded human being. I don't hate my MAGA friends, but they are supporting a path to evil. I am perfectly capable of separating my personal friendships from my views of what is happening to us politically and culturally.
No argument on Trump. But that easy binary is not representative of all, or even much, of the nonsense currently going on.
So my point is that, Trump specifically aside, this is not a “guard your flank” scenario. It’s multi-directional. It’s seriously flying from every direction, and in every one of those directions reside people sincerely aiming to separate fact from falsehood.
There is no level ground. You and I agree on many things, but I bet even we would find issues where we appear upside-down to each other. In previous times, this would be vive la difference. But I feel it’s overrun a certain threshold, and it’s worse than we even think. Hence my posting above!
"You and I agree on many things, but I bet even we would find issues where we appear upside-down to each other. In previous times, this would be vive la difference."
Hey, Jim. I'd much rather engage in a discussion with people who disagree with me, than remain in an echo chamber with those who don't challenge my thinking. You are among a select few people with whom I'd happily engage in discussions that challenge my thinking. As long as discussions are open-minded and based on facts, not lies, I'm happy to accept reasonable disagreements. As you say, vive la difference. The problem is that it is very difficult to have discussions of this nature between people who are are are committed to and can agree on empirically verifiable facts, and who can reasonably agree to disagree on policies based on those facts.
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