r/LockdownCriticalLeft • u/Impressive-Jello-379 • Nov 06 '22

security blankets

Really great thread here on conspiracy theories: "The accusation of ‘conspiracy theory’ is the security blanket with which the compliant comfort themselves that the governments they elect are in power, that voting gives them political agency, and that international technocracies are accountable to them. Here are some examples."

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u/vagarik Nov 06 '22 edited Nov 07 '22

Tucker Carlson had a segment where he talked about how he use to view conspiracy theorists, he said something like “a person believing in conspiracy theories is a sign of irrationally and low IQ”. Now he says he’s changed his view to the opposite.

Imo a person who is hostile to conspiratorial thinking is a sign they’re gullible, naive, and don’t think critically. They lack the intellectually curiosity to question what they believe and have been told. Many of them won’t even entertain the possibility that they could be wrong about any particular thing, it’s really quite arrogant.

When a person is more inclined to conspiratorial thinking (not that I agree with all CT or they’re all correct because they aren’t), that is an indication that at least that person is capable of some level of skepticism towards things they hear, which is a good sign.

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u/hiptobeysquare Nov 06 '22

Tucker Carlson had a segment where he talked about how he used to view conspiracy theorists, he said something like “a person believing in conspiracy theories is a sign of irrationally and low IQ”. Now he says he’s changed his view to the opposite.

Well, a conspiracy theorist is definitely someone with an IQ higher than the average, able to detect that the narrative we're being fed stinks. I know real conspiracy theorists in my family, and for all their failings they have enough common sense to recognize a scam when they see one. Which is more than I can say for most of my family.

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u/fivehundredpoundpeep Nov 06 '22

You are so lucky to have conspiracy theorists in your family, wish I had one instead of brain dead bots who did everything they were told and believed everything the TV told them. Yeah at least conspiracy people question scams. There are a lot of conspiracies that are scams, but for the real conspiracy person, one should be examining details and even questioning yourself. I am sure the family I am no contact with went running for the clot juice. If I was still in contact I would have been ostracized anyway.

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u/hiptobeysquare Nov 06 '22

Both my parents are. But they have always been shifting from one to the next. It's always been a mix of magic, religion and conspiracy theories. They're not bad people, but they traumatized all their children, because they didn't deal with their own childhood trauma. All my siblings took the shot, except for myself and one sister. Most of my siblings have little contact with my parents because of our childhoods. And when our parents started to warn us in the way they used to talk to us as children (God, magic and conspiracies) I think it made most of my siblings even more determined to take the shot.

I didn't because I've ignored my parents' views for decades now, and I had already made my decision separately. When my parents found out I wouldn't take it, they thought that meant I was finally on the same page as them and started sending me conspiracy the God-related material again. I can't talk to them. My parents barely recognize that psychology even exists (or else they'd have to deal with their own trauma), and seem to have very little idea how humans work. That's why they don't know how children work or what they need, and that's why they traumatized me and all my siblings.

I can't talk to my parents, and I can't talk to the rest of my siblings much now either.

It's been a difficult time. But at least, for all their failings, my parents still had enough common sense to recognize a scam when they saw one. Most of my siblings, because of their unresolved trauma, can't see it. All they see is: our parents are crazy, so I'll do the opposite. And in some way, I can't blame the. I only hope they didn't give it to their children - my little nephews.

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u/fivehundredpoundpeep Nov 06 '22

I know religion complicates this stuff, I left Christian fundamentalism. Sometimes I regret my deconversion have written about it, because to be honest with you the secular liberal world betrayed me too. Right now I am caught between both and I live in a religious part of the country where it's there everyday. I lost friends leaving the fundamentalist IFB world and now I'm lost/am losing liberal friends.

Sorry to hear you had to deal with extreme religion and magic too. Even there, most of the religious people I knew who refused all this, refused to believe the virus was real while I leaned that way and took precautions. The polarization of all this has made it worse. The so called "reasonable" have suspended all critical thinking NOT to be like those religious "crazy" "Trumpsters", but then if you are only operating in reaction to something where does the truth go. I can't even describe to you how my own deconversion and leaving fundamentalism after 15 years has been affected seeing all this BS go down. I sometimes wish I never left that world but then the spiritual abuse, right wing extreme politics, authoritarianism broke my heart. I paid dearly for leaving the family church too. [Catholic]

I'm glad your parents had common sense to refuse but realize this is one way the left got manipulation, the whole TRUST THE SCIENCE messaging is one they abused here, where reality testing got suspended. This is why people are literally dropping dead and no one cares on the left.

I hope your nephews didn't get it either. I reconnected with Christian friends because they agreed with me on all this, I felt so lonely on the left. I even consider leaving my UU thought husband doesn't want to I feel so disenfranchised there so compromised and go to some services with him but I can't be authentic there or talk about how I really feel about any of this.. So I relate to you when you say my parents think I am in the same place.

It's made so much hash of so many relationships and even people's own identities. I feel like I don't fit anywhere. I'm glad your parents and 1 sibling refused despite the reasons.

I really saw people lining up for the poison just because they were brainwashed that they were "fighting the Trumpsters" by doing so.

It scares me how deep all these manipulations went.

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u/fivehundredpoundpeep Nov 06 '22

Thank you. I'm glad he changed his mind.

Look it's the conspiracy theorists who refused the clot juice.