Welcome to the Melbourne Community Daily Discussion Thread.

  • Seagoon_
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    1 year ago

    I don’t know that he is so much exploiting as the disenfranchised have latched onto him.

    A really really really important thing to remember, and I cannot emphasise this enough, is that no one is all wrong or all right. Everyone is going to share some beliefs and disbeliefs with other people.

    Unfortunately there has been a recent tendency ( note my use of the word tendency that Marx himself loved to use ) toward puritanical rejection of a whole person when there is disagreement on one issue. A tendency of rejection that has been amplified by the Russians using social media to create division in the Western world ( there is proof of this ) .

    So you have people who feel rejected listen to Rogan and Peterson and they agree with some of what they say. Then they accept all of what they say through loyalty and group identity. Another thing is you overestimate how intelligent and reasonable people are. Average people just don’t have the skills to refute them, ( I admit I struggle refuting Peterson and I’m pretty good at this ) he is amazingly intelligent with an IQ of at least 150.

    Anyway, the attachment to the broadcasters is emotional, the disenfranchised feel they have a champion in these people, they feel heard.

    I suggest if we want to limit the power of demagogues we start listening to people, that we stop telling them what they should believe and how they should live. Give them an ear.

    • Force_majeure122
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      1 year ago

      I like you seagoon. I think you’re clever.
      In a similar way, I guess, I find it pretty ridiculous that people are quick to overlook that there may be some benefit to some of what JP is saying. There is, for some.
      In the same way that people latch on to some of the negatives because they agree with the positives and want to feel part of something – I feel the inverse is true, perhaps more true, that people immediately disregard the entirety of someone’s veiws or works because there are a few bits that are an affront to them (hello cancel culture, and fuck ya).

      • Seagoon_
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        1 year ago

        I heard Peterson rip a well known anti-trans and racist writer a new one. He saw right through her down to the deepest lie and told her to her face her position was based in her personal white supremacist arrogance . She paused for a short moment then continued.

        Nothing will stop these haters, nothing. Because it is irrational. Her followers are also irrational and do not care about refutation. His interview was very instructive on what these people are like because it was real and in real time.

        I am not so naïve to think that an interviewer necessarily agrees with what the interviewee says . I also think an interviewer doesn’t have to label or spell out to the audience what they should think.

        Should we avoid listening to things that are difficult? Of course not. If we want to change the world we have to learn how to do it.