It’s often been said it does not matter how good the quality of your evidence it will be ignored or ridiculed for the narrative of the left. This caused such great frustration and bewilderment amongst those defending hunting in early 2000 as science and logic was ignored for hearsay and conjecture. In fact it caused such frustration Charlie Pye-Smith wrote a report called “The abuse and misuse of science to support the hunting act”
Click to access mwgabusebooklet7-07.pdf
The question was why? Then along came twitter with the answer – After a number of years on twitter you begin to recognise a certain type of response and soon it takes just two replies from a person for a pattern to be recognised, it’s as if they are reading from a pre-programed script, a list with no thought or deliberation. This leads one to a bit of research on the pattern of behaviour and not before long academics like Bruno Campello de Souza professor at Federal University of Pernambuco turn up with some key comments.
“It’s just pattern recognition and rote memory (IF → GOTO)”
Campello de Souza is talking about ideological possession and the left is racked with it. There is no better example than the climate change warriors or the anti-hunt brigade, both single issue left wing extremist. You only have to read the below passage from Campello de Souza and it all becomes apparent.
“The reason why an ideological script gets internalized in the first place has to do with its ability to reduce anxiety by simplifying one’s understanding of the world and their associated decision-making, as well as the emotional gratification coming from the collective approval of those who share the ideology. When said ideology spreads to the point of providing some level of social influence and power to the leaders of the movement, there can even be economic incentives to following the script”
We know for instance the fox hunting argument is complex being a management tool in mainly lowland areas and a pest control tool in the uplands, that gets simplified by the left to they don’t kill enough foxes. Rather an absurd claim from folk calling themselves fox lovers, but it’s in the script and that’s what they follow.
There is certainly emotional gratification from the feeling you are saving foxes with the collective approval of all those loaded opinion polls carried out on a regular basis, it’s as much to convince themselves, everyone agrees with what they are doing.
Of course the anti-hunt movement has spread and so has social influence, the economic incentives of following the script are in the form of charities and animal rights groups.
Just watch an ideologically possessed climate change MEP from the UK tell the world’s leading climate change scientists they have got it all wrong over the non-climate emergency:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SxNqttt5Qw
It has to be pointed out to the MEP the scientists have agreed climate change in part is man made, she has not listened and thinks they are deniers. Someone kindly points out she has been driven by emotion in which case perhaps a better career choice would have been a nurse, in reality she is ideologically possessed.
Bruno de Souza explaining Ideological possession
It means that they have internalized a pre-programmed script of statements and responses to promote a specific narrative about how things are that, due to logical fallacy (usually tautology, but there are many others), is applicable to any situation. Once one accesses that “script” and begins to execute it, a series of automatic behaviors emerges that involve no deliberation, judgement, inquiry or, God forbid, personal perspective or creativity. It’s just pattern recognition and rote memory (IF → GOTO).
In such a state, people become unable to perform any form of higher-order thinking regarding the subject in question. This makes them impervious to any logic and evidence, to which they react simply following the particular script they internalized, even when doing so is contradictory, tangential, off-topic, non sequitur, observably wrong, etc., for such shortcomings will simply be ignored, dismissed or altogether unperceived.
It’s the perfect recipe for total stupidity, at least while the script is being run, and, in some cases, it never stops running.
It is quite hard to win an argument against people who are ideologically possessed, for, as the saying goes:
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits,
-Alexandre Dumas, fils.
The reason why an ideological script gets internalized in the first place has to do with its ability to reduce anxiety by simplifying one’s understanding of the world and their associated decision-making, as well as the emotional gratification coming from the collective approval of those who share the ideology. When said ideology spreads to the point of providing some level of social influence and power to the leaders of the movement, there can even be economic incentives to following the script.
All in all, ideological possession is a dangerous and viral process that must be nipped in the bud when possible, for it is very hard to cure and often intellectually fatal.