Forwarded from janedoe
hi all. I just want to share the headline that annoys me so much I feel angry about it whenever I remember it throughout the course of my day . I almost feel angrier about this headline than about the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs and the 890+ post-vaccine deaths reported to TGA. It was published on ABC in January 2022 for some reason it keeps coming up as a top story. The headline : SO YOU'VE RECOVERED FROM COVID : NOW WHAT? even just typing this drives me absolutely nuts. Its like they imagine us all just sitting here in our apartments sheltering in place and awaiting further instructions from the government . anyone else find this to be astonishingly annoying? or just me? the headlines from the ABC are just advertising copy. I know I shouldn't read it , keep my eyes averted from evil, but I log on for a laugh every now and then...
Forwarded from janedoe
they are the types of headlines that belong in so-called "womens magazines", or magazines targeted at adolescent girls. friendly, authoritative and assuming an intimacy with the reader. like the headline "We fact checked XYZ. Here's what we found". And ""Tom, Mary and Susan have Long Covid. Here's what they want you to know" . the way these sentences are structured drives me insane. and all the more so knowing that most people in my ''cohort'' will only scan the headlines before or after work, while sitting on the toilet, or scoffing down their lunch. its just this impenetrable haze of shite.
Forwarded from janedoe
the entire premise is that the reader is such a busy and in-demand executive, they dont have the luxury of being across the detail. they just want their most trusted news source to give them the executive summary with a few key facts, but more importantly the correct emotional tone to assume. it almost invites the reader to assume they won't get any detailed or factual reporting, only a high-level ''analysis''. almost invites the reader to not even want any details.
A society where the possibility of a universal moral standard is rejected, where individuals are biological contingencies with no transcendental purpose, where conflicting preferences can be resolved only by manipulating the emotions of others, by invoking the dichotomy of pride or shame as markers of moral correctness vs moral failure, is dominated by individual alienation and anxiety about meaning. This permanent vulnerability, a structural ‘hole’ or ‘lack’ in the social ground of self-constitution, can be mitigated only by immersion in psychotic mobs brought together by the same emotional rupture to cultural shocks, by regular, ritualised hysteria, serving as a transient substitute for the lost sense of ontological belonging. To be anything at all, to have any value, one must serve an emotive cause, the only cause that matters today and makes your movement the Saviour. The inherent vulnerability of individuals unmoored from any universal reference point leaves them in a childlike state that craves powerful authority to guide them, a corporeal androgynous demiurge; a function that is eagerly assumed by the mass media and the State.
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/ancient-philosophys-return-amidst-the-triumph-of-the-therapeutic/
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/ancient-philosophys-return-amidst-the-triumph-of-the-therapeutic/
Church Life Journal
Ancient Philosophy's Return Amidst the Triumph of the Therapeutic
What we have today is a fragile culture centered on the self’s needs and wants, which sociologist Philip Rieff aptly called therapeutic. In his 1966 classic The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud, he observed modern changes in the deep…
What are moral arguments good for anyway? They change the world.
Remember that the British Empire was not established on overtly economic, exploitative rationale but gained the necessary support only once it was presented as a moral imperative. British expansionism and colonialism did not have much support among the English aristocracy, many of whom preferred “Little England” and saw imperialism with distrust, until Oxford professor John Ruskin, in 1870, “told them that they were the possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and self-discipline but that this tradition could not be saved, and did not deserve to be saved, unless it could be extended to the lower classes in England itself and to the non-English masses throughout the world.” The British Empire thus became a moral duty owed not only to England but to the whole world. If this lesson of history still applies today, then issues such as vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and many other social, political and cultural aberrations will not be defeated on the basis of science, law or utility, but on the basis of awakened moral conscience.
Remember that the British Empire was not established on overtly economic, exploitative rationale but gained the necessary support only once it was presented as a moral imperative. British expansionism and colonialism did not have much support among the English aristocracy, many of whom preferred “Little England” and saw imperialism with distrust, until Oxford professor John Ruskin, in 1870, “told them that they were the possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and self-discipline but that this tradition could not be saved, and did not deserve to be saved, unless it could be extended to the lower classes in England itself and to the non-English masses throughout the world.” The British Empire thus became a moral duty owed not only to England but to the whole world. If this lesson of history still applies today, then issues such as vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and many other social, political and cultural aberrations will not be defeated on the basis of science, law or utility, but on the basis of awakened moral conscience.
How to covertly insult ignorant people with compliments in order to facilitate moral improvement.
I have a fun exercise for you.
Step 1: Read this article and memorise the basic techniques used to manipulate you emotionally by professional writers. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-blame-game/202012/the-psychology-successful-copywriting
Step 2: Open your favourite tabloid newspaper/website and carefully identify all instances of the above techniques being used to emotionally manipulate and cause a specific reaction in the audience (most books, magazines, government policies, speeches, websites, will be using some of these tools).
Step 3: Check your Inbox and social media notifications. Did any of your work colleagues or acquaintances share a news or magazine article in order to virtue-signal or just because “it is interesting”? Great. Now analyse the shared article as in Step 2: make a list of points how specific psychological techniques were used to achieve a specific reaction. Write back to the sender, be friendly and intimate but natural, not contrived, because now you know how much you two have in common: compliment them on how brilliantly they chose this article to illustrate its manipulative force (they didn’t, but this is the point of the exercise), and how cleverly they presented it to you:) So smart! No mater how they respond, even if they try to correct the misunderstanding, you will not stumble. They are surely just demonstrating their mastery of psychology, making a big joke of it, how funny, so brilliant!
Be creative in exploring new contexts where you can use your new secret knowledge. Humbly impress.
So why should you insult ignorant people with compliments? Because it allows conceited fools to save face and correct their ignorant behaviour by pretending they “always knew”. They understand that you still like them, you are complimenting them. The fact that you are complimenting them for something they did not do (they were in fact wrong all along) gives them an unearned reward and simultaneously incentivises them to emulate the admired insight.
There are countless ways to insult with a compliment, and when used wisely it can be therapeutic to others. “I love your extra weight, it actually makes you sexier!” “Every time we meet you seem wiser, more beautiful and noble. Some new wrinkles on your face, older skin, testify to your life experience, and make me appreciate how long we have known one another.” :)
I have a fun exercise for you.
Step 1: Read this article and memorise the basic techniques used to manipulate you emotionally by professional writers. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-blame-game/202012/the-psychology-successful-copywriting
Step 2: Open your favourite tabloid newspaper/website and carefully identify all instances of the above techniques being used to emotionally manipulate and cause a specific reaction in the audience (most books, magazines, government policies, speeches, websites, will be using some of these tools).
Step 3: Check your Inbox and social media notifications. Did any of your work colleagues or acquaintances share a news or magazine article in order to virtue-signal or just because “it is interesting”? Great. Now analyse the shared article as in Step 2: make a list of points how specific psychological techniques were used to achieve a specific reaction. Write back to the sender, be friendly and intimate but natural, not contrived, because now you know how much you two have in common: compliment them on how brilliantly they chose this article to illustrate its manipulative force (they didn’t, but this is the point of the exercise), and how cleverly they presented it to you:) So smart! No mater how they respond, even if they try to correct the misunderstanding, you will not stumble. They are surely just demonstrating their mastery of psychology, making a big joke of it, how funny, so brilliant!
Be creative in exploring new contexts where you can use your new secret knowledge. Humbly impress.
So why should you insult ignorant people with compliments? Because it allows conceited fools to save face and correct their ignorant behaviour by pretending they “always knew”. They understand that you still like them, you are complimenting them. The fact that you are complimenting them for something they did not do (they were in fact wrong all along) gives them an unearned reward and simultaneously incentivises them to emulate the admired insight.
There are countless ways to insult with a compliment, and when used wisely it can be therapeutic to others. “I love your extra weight, it actually makes you sexier!” “Every time we meet you seem wiser, more beautiful and noble. Some new wrinkles on your face, older skin, testify to your life experience, and make me appreciate how long we have known one another.” :)
Psychology Today
The Psychology of Successful Copywriting
10 secrets to engage and persuade.
Identity politics will reach its logical end-point when the most competent people have the least social authority, remaining either unemployed or performing the most menial tasks, while the least competent are granted dictatorial powers.
BREAKING NEWS: The World Health Organisation has changed the definition of HEALTHY to ASYMPTOMATIC. The term HEALTHY will no longer be used by medical professionals as it was found to contribute to complacency about the permanent danger of viral infections. ;)
I have decided that for the foreseeable future I will communicate with the general Hominid population only through touch, because words have no meaning to them. Exceptions will be granted in rare cases where rational consciousness can be consistently verified.
Remember that pregnant woman from Ballarat (Zoe Lee Buhler) who was arrested and fined on incitement charges during lockdown? Or the woman who was choked by the police officer in Melbourne CBD for not wearing a mask? Or the man who was filmed having his head stomped on by the police? Or that “old woman” in a red dress and a black wig who was slammed into the ground at a Melbourne protest? As lockdown related charges against others are now dropped, it is very strange that these victims of serious police violence are nowhere to be found. Nobody is following their story. No activist lawyer is handling their case. Where are they? RDA is silent about them. Serene is silent about them. Is it all fake?
“Face masks stop the spread of smiles.” I have to give credit where credit is due (to D. Oneegs).
The physical world is the visible part of the collective unconscious.
Forwarded from Normal (Michael Kowalik)
Face masks are also psychologically damaging even to those who are not themselves wearing one. I have discussed the underlying phenomenological mechanism here: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3840787
Ssrn
An Ontological Argument against Mandatory Face-Masks
Face-coverings were widely mandated during the Covid-19 pandemic, on the assumption that they limit the spread of respiratory viruses and are therefore likely t
There are killer arguments against vaccine mandates, they defeat them irrespective of contingent circumstances and utilitarian considerations. There are killer arguments against the legality of emergency powers, proving they violate the logic of the delegation of legislative authority. Why were they not used or even acknowledged by the leaders of the freedom movement?