It’s not often my work’s mentioned in mainstream publications, but it’s always instructive when it happens. Such an instance occurred earlier this week in the form of a nonsensical BuzzFeed piece.
The article was originality titled, “Here’s How A Bunch Of Syrians Trolled The Far Right Into Freaking Out Over A Twitter Poll,” but was quickly changed to “Fox & Friends Tried To Poll People About Whether The US Should Intervene In Syria And It Didn’t Go Well.”
I immediately pointed out the ridiculousness over Twitter about being included in an article with a title implying I’m “far right,” but there’s no way to know if this influenced the alteration. Either way, the piece gives me a perfect excuse to once again highlight some very important points regarding the dangers and counter-productiveness of excessive political tribalism.
Besides the idiotic original title, the other noteworthy aspect of the article was how the author described yours truly. Here’s what she wrote:
Let’s repeat that because it’s important. She wrote:
Some users, who claimed not to be affiliated with either the left or the right, noted the apparent sudden shift.
Her choice of words says so much about the extremely childish prism through which too many people view politics today. She seems to find it completely incredulous that someone might not fit into a neat little ideological box defined as “right or left.” As such, I must simply be “claiming” it, as opposed to living it each and every day.
There’s a reason I’ve kept the following as my permanent pinned tweet for nearly a year.
People see what they want to see.
This is who I am: pic.twitter.com/2li2uOKHTf— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) July 24, 2017
I keep that there for a variety of reasons. First, it’s the perfect introduction to my worldview and overall thought process. Secondly, it’s meant to put people on notice before they follow me. I will not confirm your biases because I don’t fit into any of the simplistic and jingoistic political labels we demand our fellow humans self-select into. Once everyone’s comfortably positioned in a political tribe the public becomes more easily controllable.
Here’s what I mean. Once you decide, “I’m a socialist” or “I’m a libertarian” you’ve voluntarily placed yourself into an established political sect. This sect will invariably have its very own unofficial rules of conduct, virtue signaling etiquette, and defined positions on virtually every major issue. Worse, the other members of your new tribe will demand totally conformity on all issues. If you deviate meaningfully from any element of the doctrine you’ll be ostracized. It’s this peer pressure which then leads to self-censorship. Everybody who decides to identify strongly with a well defined political ideology becomes a victim.
If you're scared to retweet someone because you're afraid of what your friends/followers might think, your mind is Pwned.
They got you in the mental reservation where they want you.— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) April 12, 2018
The only way to avoid this mental trap is to not self-label. The fact I don’t belong to any political tribe gives me total flexibility in my mental thought process. I don’t need to wonder “will my fellow libertarians (or socialists or conservatives) approve” before voicing an opinion or tweeting something.
This isn’t complicated, the moment you self-label you’ve willingly and destructively given away your mind to the crowd. Sure, it’s a crowd of your choosing, but it’s a crowd nonetheless, and the crowd will demand intellectual conformity. The moment you self-label is the moment you’ve decided to outsource your critical thinking to a mob. You’re no longer a free thinking human.
If there are so many clear downsides to self-labeling, why is it so incredibly common? There are several reasons. First, we’re a tribal species and uniting into tight bonds for self-preservation is part of our evolutionary history. We seem to be hard-wired for tribalism. Second, it simply makes political life much easier to join an established group. You no longer have to think for yourself on all issues, but can simply consult your new tribe’s position on a topic and embrace it like everyone else. Even better, you know your fellow tribe members will never turn against you provided you just accept the groupthink. You get two things for the price of one, protection from an established tribe and an excuse to become intellectually lazy. Most people will choose this every time.
Self-labeling also makes you feel better than those outside your political tribe, you know, the ideological heathens who must be permanently ostracized and only derisively discussed. In other words, you and your brethren discovered truth and are morally superior to the members of all other tribes. Being politically tribal simply makes you feel good.
In any event, why am I writing about this now? Because unaccountable lunatics in the U.S. are attempting to start World War 3 without Congressional approval, and refuse to provide any evidence to the public which will be asked to suffer the consequences of their actions.
The mass media is currently trying to sell the public as aggressively as possible on this war, and one key tactic appears to be to marginalize anti-war voices by claiming they’re on the “far right,” as had been done to me with that BuzzFeed article.
I called Chris Hayes out on this earlier, which led to a series of tweets I want to share.
The mass media is desperately trying to lump anti-war people into a vague "far right" or "reactionary" camp in order to scare your average malleable person into not becoming anti-war.
Sneaky.— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) April 12, 2018
Here's what the truly powerful love to see.
When we call each other "Nazis, fascists, libtards, Marxists."
What they hate, is everyone coming together and saying this war is bad for 99.99% of us and we will say NO with one voice.— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) April 12, 2018
The average American is not your enemy. He or she is probably just a chump being manipulated like you.
Refocus attention on the real problem. It's not the powerless American citizen from a different political party.— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) April 12, 2018
Taking this a step further, the average person anywhere around the world is not your enemy. Like you, they generally just want to be left alone, love their family and experience peaceful life.
It's those with centralized and unaccountable power who are the problem. https://t.co/CYujVYYKt4— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) April 12, 2018
This war the U.S. government and media are trying to sell us on is completely unnecessary, stupid and based on zero evidence. Their desperate tactics to get it going combined with the nonsensical rationale behind it tell you everything you need to know.
It won’t benefit 99.99% of American citizens to start World War 3 and it won’t benefit Syrians. Decent humans around the world need to stop being fractured by petty differences and unite on this issue with one voice to say: NO.
That’s the only thing that will really scare the crazed war hawks.
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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Mike, You wow me regularly. Huge fan. I wrote an award winning blog for years and got tired. DON’T!
Well said. Let’s hope a lot of people can understand this.
I know what you mean. I’ve been labeled “libtard,” “snowflake,” and worse for opposing these 21st century wars. I’ve been labeled “conservative,” “heartless,” for opposing Obamacare. I was called a “fascist “ twice the same day at work for my posts against Obama years ago…..However, please tell me where is middle ground between wanting rulers and not want any rulers. Please tell me where there is any alternative to practicing the nonaggression principle and not practicing the nonaggression principle. If you cannot find a middle ground, and you have to use twenty words to express a viewpoint when a single label defines that viewpoint it seems very ridiculous. Note there is a risk of being a coward for a cause by avoiding labels. I feel morally obligated to point out the evils of willful ignorance precisely because it is the willfully ignorant who hallucinate the Statists to power. I do call myself an anarchist. Anarchy means no rulers. But I use that label when appropriate. You should never be averse to use labels when 5ere are only two alternatives for describing: freedom or enslavement.
And yes, there are still people who must “live in dark basements” and think people are either left wing Statists or right wing Statists but cannot see that those are clearly false dichotomies that offer the same thing: control by an elite group. There are some labels with no false dichotomies: you are either an anarchist or you are not. But it’s that first group that gets me.
Yes, the labels are childish and ridiculous. Trolls get angry with you if they cannot categorize you easily and will keep throwing out mainstream talking points to see if you bite on something. It’s rather pathetic.
Unfortunately it’s going to take a large movement to reverse the labeling trend. The last time I saw a concerted effort to do so was the 2004 Presidential race. At the time I read a lot of Counterpunch and they frequently encouraged readers to submit essays on why they refused to support Kerry and would vote third party instead (the assumption, probably correct, was that hardly anyone reading Counterpunch was a Bush voter). People wrote some compelling essays, it was one of the last times I remember feeling inspired by my fellow Americans.
The only good thing about a looming Syria conflict is that it has a chance, however small, of shocking some Americans awake again. Destroying Assad once and for all likely continues into military action in Iran and Lebanon. Too many Americans have retreated from the big issues (war, poverty, corruption) to stuff like identifying dozens of genders and lamenting women unfortunate enough to have an unsatisfying sexual encounter with Aziz Ansari. I want to scold these people and hold their feet to the fire, but if an anti-war movement is ever to get off the ground, they are needed.
I have been slowly constructing a plan to move overseas in recent years, so maybe I’m part of the problem too. I haven’t voted since that 2004 election (protest vote for Nader) but I can still vote with my feet. If and when I follow through I’ll have a new label- expat. There are some on sites like ZH that wear that label with enormous pride. My motivations are a bit different. I have no desire to lord it over my fellow Americans on forums, I just want to live somewhere people don’t hate each other so much. I don’t need a wee island paradise, just a place where the labels are a little less toxic. That doesn’t seem too much to ask.
Thanks, Mike! I love your ability to communicate so clearly the twisted realities of our so called political “ normies.”
What I find ridiculous is the prevalent assumption that between the Liberal and Conservative labels exists an area called Moderate. I don’t think so. IMO Moderate perhaps meaning reasonable is now outside of Liberal and Conservative, or over them or to the Left of them or somewhere but certainly NOT between them.
With manipulated polls, people refusing to see any other side but their own and even the definition of words being changed on a daily basis is it any wonder that the average person is starting to feel that their locked in a madhouse and no one that they know seems to have the key?
Spiral Dynamics lower layer tribal fixations
The 3 biggest Spiral Dynamics layer tribes map to the political tribes:
Blue: Law & Order conservatives, Religious right.
Orange: Libertarians, Capitalists, Oligarchs.
Green: “The left”, SJWs. Political correctness.
The lower layers all seem to be psychologically fixated on something and you will either agree with that and be part of their tribe and “good” or be classified as some evil boogieman, regardless of whether or not the definition really fits.
Those fixations and boogieman are:
Blue: All out-groups (other races, religions, nations, everybody who is not part of the traditional ‘we’ and following traditional ‘values’) is “immoral”. Prefers in-group over out-group. The out-groups are by definition evil/inferior, regardless of individual behaviour. In-group behaviour is rationalized.
Orange: The state. Every group effort is tyranny/communism. etc and every man is an island. For example democracy is the “tyranny of the the masses”, while the tyranny by corporate plutocratic oligarchs is perfectly fine because it’s based on the magical/invisible hand of the ‘free’ market. Removing net neutrality was cheered by the orange layer because it was anti-state.
Green: Everybody is a nazi/racist/sexist/far-right/oppressor/…. Inverted blue-layer values. Prefers the out-group over the traditional in-group. The in-groups are by definition evil oppressors, regardless of individual behaviour, the out-group member is by definition a poor victim. Hence they will often blindly defend ‘victim groups’ regardless of how they behave individually. The strange alliance of feminists and islamic fundamentalists is an example of this. The islamic outgroup is an oppressed victim of the evil in-group, even when they clearly state they want to oppress others.
“Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
-George Orwell
“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.”
– George Orwell
Demonstrations are nothing but a bunch of people collectively pissing up a rope.
Spread the word. Stop voting! Tell everyone you know that you refuse to continue to vote for narcissistic, self-serving, lying, cheating, thieves, who don’t give a rats ass about anyone but themselves.
It will take time and patience and perseverance. But it will change everything.
And to add to my previous post I might also substitute Independent for Moderate. Somehow between the Liberals and Conservatives the domain of Independents is supposed to exist.
I guess if I had to label myself I would call myself an Independent using that as a very broad term but I’m not between Liberal and Conservative. In fact these days there’s not a lot of room for anyone between Liberals and Conservatives. They’re wedged right up against each other snarling in each other’s faces.
Mike, in this day and age, you are a true American hero.
This is one of your best posts, and you have many good ones.
It’s hard to believe that some people are so fixated on the question “which tribe do you belong to?” that parroting whatever is the party line of your party is deemed to be more proper and important than doing, hey, what democracy is supposed to ask of you: weigh the pros and cons and arrive to an independent opinion.
What’s this business of “joining forces with”? Whatever position you have, it’s almost guaranteed that some very unpleasant people will have the same position. Hitler was vegetarian. Stalin loved watching movies. Mussolini read a lot of books by ancient Romans. And so what? History buffs, movie fans and vegetarians aren’t “joining forces with” some of the nastiest leaders the world has seen.
The other day, I was talking about a policy with somebody I know who is politically to the left. To describe a concept, I used a phrase that apparently has been used by conservatives. I wasn’t aware of this, I check both conservative and liberal media. I simply used a phrase that for me sounded perfectly descriptive of the idea. She automatically reacted to the phrase itself, identified it as something from conservative media, and got very emotional about it, and proceeded to tell me everything that was wrong with it. The odd thing was, the phrase itself did not imply any of the other wrongs she was saying. It’s true that conservatives are proposing those things that she felt were wrong, and I also agreed with her that they were wrong, but the descriptive phrase in itself didn’t imply any of those things at all. Well, I didn’t manage to get her to see that. She was totally obsessed with her feeling that conservatives are wrong, and anything they ever say is wrong. She was clearly upset about it, actually. I finally realized it was utterly pointless to attempt to discuss policy with her, in spite that she sees herself as a bit of a policy wonk, because she isn’t actually interested in policies. She is interested in belonging to a party.
Things have got to such a sorry state, that belonging to a party and evaluating policies are now effectively incompatible. The only question you are now supposed to evaluate about a policy is: does my party support it?
Which is truly scary, when you think about this method being used to decide whether you prefer war or peace.
It’s commentary like this that makes keeping the comment section alive worthwhile.
Thank you.
No, thank you Michael, you’re a very plain spoken and articulate writer. In your original post here you said a lot of the same things myself and others have been saying for a very long time, and said them in a concise and easily understandable manner.
IMO the almost universal propagation and advancement of the Conservative and Liberal mindset is largely a divide and conquer technique and has a lot to do with the Hegelian dialectic not as a means of resolving disputes but as a way of manipulating people.
Great post, Michael.
I have been describing myself as an “atheist to the conceptual object of political theology” for years.
I simply refuse to surrender to the dogmatic religious fervor of political partisans that precludes non-partisan critical thought.
Political Atheist
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Political%20Atheist
One who is too intelligent and informed to believe any of the political ideologies being pushed today. Their knowledge of government has evolved to the point that they cannot trust, in any way, shape, or form the fairy tales and coincidences peddled by people in power, regardless of the party a politician proclaims him/herself to be in. A political atheist understands that these people tend to be the worst of humanity– greedy, sociopathic, narcissistic, lying criminals and are not worthy of supporting; especially not with a vote.
To trust a politician is the ultimate act of misplaced faith.
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
-Mark Twain, political atheist
Trump actually did it. He started world war three. These oligarchs are definitely pure evil. This is bad. Very Bad.
Its a sad sad day for the world. This marks the beginning of the end of the evil banking cartel. One way or another they will destroy us all or somebody will take them down. How ever youi look at it, it ends with there demise.
All the great greedy world power hungry leaders always end things in the destruction of themselves, Hitler, Napolean and Julius Caesar. The great lust for power always ends badly for them.
RT says that the Russians did not deploy there missile defense systems. That is good news. WW3 has not yet started.
But we must remain on high alert.
This could all get very ugly very fast and the nuclear fallout by ww3 will cause irreversible damage. The nuclear clouds will fill the atmosphere and cause permanent radiation damage world wide. We all know what that means.
The Oligarchs must be stopped. This is worse than any damage caused by Global Warming. I have three kids. I don’t want them growing up in a world of nuclear winter.
Make no mistake. The Cohen Raid was to get something on Trump to make sure he goes along with all of this.
This ends my plans to combat Global Warming with my “World Wide Energy Efficiency Building Standard”. Based on what the Oligarchs did, reducing co2 is pointless if you have to deal with nuclear fallout.