"Gamergate happened because gamers hated women" "Animemes revolt happened because they hated trans people" "Christians want to kill queer people and want all women to be handmaidens"
Why do they keep making up these kind of lies? They always ignore what people actually say or what actually happened, and keep making up lies about people.
Because strawmen can't fight back.
Correct. To elaborate:
Strawmanning is when you can't defeat an opponents argument, but rather than concede the point, you create a flimsy version of what you wish their argument was -- a strawman, that you then tear apart and declare victory.
This is also how you know when someone is arguing in bad faith. People arguing in good faith don't lie about their opponent's position.
Of course, some of these strawman arguments ("Gamergate was a harassment campaign agains women") have become so pervasive that you will find people making that argument without realizing they are repeating a lie, mainly due to tribal affinity and intellectual laziness that keeps them from making any effort to find the truth.
And as more time goes on, I realize more and more that most of progressivism's growth is owed to this. A shockingly large amount of the human population has no real beliefs or perspectives, other than what they are told is right and wrong by their thought leaders. So many people have never thought about anything further than what they have heard most recently. Truly.
They use them like literal scare-crows. Scary caricatures stuffed with straw to keep the easily spooked away, so they can't look too closely at what they might otherwise want underneath.
If you refer back to some of Jonathan Haidt's work on his Moral Foundations Theory, one of the results he found was that the more liberal/left someone was the worse they were at inferring motivation/reasoning about the opinions of centrists and conservatives. Basically, leftists score the worst on a "political Turing test" to properly model/emulate what other
His in theory explanation for this was that leftists/liberals only really operate on 2/5 moral foundations (fairness and caring) while basically having no concept of the other 3/5 (loyalty, authority, sanctity). Conservatives and moderates, having non-negligible amounts of all 5, run the gamut and so actually CAN 'emulate' the thinking patterns of liberals to a much better extent than liberals can conservatives or moderates because they're just...blind to even the concept of valuing things beyond fairness and caring.
Whether that's the primary cause, a manifestation of underlying causes, or just one of many causes (can't count out things like moral hubris or simply being generally lower conscientiousness [probably also less systemitizing...] and therefore not caring about the solidity of your arguments) it is definitely the case that leftists...can't properly model people who disagree with them.
For some of them it might be a deliberate strategy but it's just...far too widespread and consistent across contexts for that to be it. It really does seem that leftists are just mentally deficient in terms of modeling what other people think, and reality more generally [inb4 muh leftists scientists: never underestimate the powers of compartmentalization].
Which, if they can't properly model (and therefore have good faith arguments/discussions that can reach compromise) with those they disagree with...that leads to some troubling conclusions w/r/t how differences can actually be resolved...
Gonna be a fun few years...
The useful idiots are much more useful when their minds are too crippled to even attempt to understand the other side.
Leftists don't do "fairness" or "caring" though. They are only "fair" and "caring"... to themselves. It's like an a primitive tribal/feudal concept.
Meshes really well with James Lindays' "pseudo-reality" theory though.
No they definitely do, it's just a much more simplistic version of it that (most) people age out of over time that takes into greater account context, path dependency, iterated games etc.
The "Generic Libtard" as we'll call them for this discussion DOES value "fariness" and "care," but only very simplistic, single shot, zero sum variations of them.
For fairness it's "anyone having more than anyone else is bad/a sign of injustice" because they aren't sophisticated enough to consider the temporal dimension of HOW those inequalities arose...and/or just assumes that can be discarded as unjust...doesn't understand that "fair" depends on value and value is multidimensional with individual term weights varying from person to person... the list goes on.
Leftists "care" in the sense that they "want to stop other people from experiencing harm" but completely block out the idea that suffering is often times earned through action (or inaction), that suffering isn't just meted out by malevolent external actors and is often a default state, that some people are WILLING to suffer short term for longer term gain because of longer time horizons, etc.
The Generic Libtard defaults to the most simplistic, 0th order models for how human interaction, with other humans and the environment, occur.
That suggests that in addition to diminished Moral Foundation Dimensions, leftists also seem to be chronically underdeveloped in terms of their moral theory/reasoning. See Piaget and Kohlberg's theories of moral development or similar ideas. They are underdeveloped in the sense of applying the cognitive muscles of abstraction to moral reasoning, and it really shows if you ever try to argue with one.
Yet another factor is leftists being far more empathizing than systemitizing compared to other political groups (libertarians being the only group showing a relative preference for systemitizing...) [and women being much more/less empathizing/systemitizing than men and the so-obvious-its-forbidden-to-discuss differences that results in...].
The Generic Libtard simply DOESN'T reason abstractly about things across time in the context of iterated games [poor systemitizing ability] between agents with different value structures [because they can't conceive different valuations] being able to only focus on what distress/issues they immediately see before them [high empathizing].
Sure that makes them more vulnerable to/ultimately results in them living in a moral reality that effectively is a figment of their imagination...but the root causes are much deeper.
As I recall, Haidt's moral foundations tests were self-reported. That is, "liberals" see themselves as fair and caring people, but that doesn't necessarily manifest in their actual behavior.
To Duranty's point: I have never seen such a mass of petty, vindictive, hateful monsters as the Woke when it comes to their treatment of the un-Woke. Again and again I've watched them become absolutely ecstatic about destroying the life of some transgressor (e.g. the 15-year-old girl who said the n-word), which cannot be said to come from any place of compassion, by any definition.
Indeed, when I see them demand punishment for a blasphemer who dares utter "the n-word", I'd say that authority and sanctity are actually top priorities for them.
I think they think of themselves as caring and compassionate, but I think the reality is that they are driven by bitterness, resentment, and lust for power that they cloak under the guise of compassion and righteousness so they can mete out all the suffering they wish while telling themselves they're the good guys.
That can still be lumped under 'compassion,' just a very primitive, zero-sum one that applies only for the subset of people within their circle of care (the woke and the 'oppressed') because everyone beyond that sphere, either by dint of their identity or hurtful transgressions against the tribe, is literally beyond moral concern. Ergo, you can show compassion to your in group just as much by 'comforting' them as by committing evil against the out group that, in moral zero-sum fashion, is constantly out to oppress you.
This was something one of Peterson's grad students supposedly found in research; that rabid SJWs scored VERY high in 'agreeableness' which would seem to run contrary to their behavior of attacking others like feral dogs...but not if your moral personality is extended only to your in group, which has to be protected from the outgroup at whatever cost.
True there are some psychopaths out there who just love to torture others, and such a movement will attract well beyond baseline, but most of them are just moral primitives whose domain of moral concern applies ONLY to their tribe because they're too stupid or short sighted for anything beyond stark Manicheanism of in group and out group and even the most basic realization that they shouldn't do that merely because that system could turn on them (see all the former libtards who woke up, but only after the experience of being turned on).
To say nothing of being too dim for concepts of moral symmetry/universalism, veil of ignorance, etc. etc.
In the end I think there are two fundamental (stylized for brevity) approaches to modeling leftists:
Psychopaths aside, I don't think the former view offers any real utility or viable explanatory power - especially since you can back out the former from the latter broader explanation.
The only real utility the former model has, which is what I'm sensing is more in line with what you've posted, is to make you feel better about purging them when reality finally comes to collect its interest on the debt we've accrued.
But the second model doesn't preclude that either, as even IF it's the case that most are warped or handicapped it hardly means they're fixable/redeemable...BUT it offers ideas on how to avoid traveling the same road we're currently on again.
I generally agree with your second model, but I also think that most, if not all humans (regardless of political beliefs) have warped and twisted urges that they are willing to give in to, unless they are taught some combination of morality, empathy, and self-reflection needed to keep those urges in check.
This doesn't make them all psychopaths. In day to day life, they may be pleasant people. But it does mean that they may indulge those urges when given the opportunity and the lack of self-realization, especially when part of a mob.
When I saw the reaction to the girl getting kicked out of college for saying the n-word at 15 years old, I could not stop thinking about the stoning scene from Life of Brian and how well it captures that attitude: People slavering for the chance to throw a stone at the blasphemer (violator of sanctity). They don't really care who it is, they just know they have a chance to feed the dark urge to punish someone, while being able to tell themselves it is a righteous act.
Then again, I guess I don't have a very optimistic view of humanity.
Real question is though, which is the cause and which is the effect?
While both aspects contribute, I think the latter is more prominent and fits with historical development; it has NEVER been 'obvious' to believe in individual rights and that a complex system where individuals can pursue their own interests yields a better outcome for more people than other systems...
The intuitive idea is just the "right/smart/whatever people" being "in charge" to micromanage the design to try and achieve the "obviously desirable" means AND ends - be it at the level of a tribe or into the autocracies of today.
Which is another reason leftism is so infested in education and seeks to undermine REAL learning; they know, probably not explicitly but implicitly from interactions with those who disagree with them in life, that they don't have sophisticated ideas that hold up to scrutiny...so they undermine the ability of as many people as possible to scrutinize their ideas, and ideally brainwash them into buying into them by getting them young.
He also later split fairness into two categories, equality and fairness with the expected nuances. Thus, the leftists could actually only emulate 2/6 moral foundations.
They don't know anything about us because they keep their own people in the dark. It's the same reason their conditioned to not to even engage with us.
The lies aren't about you, the lies are about them.
This is true. They paint us in any dismissable stereotype because they need to be victims to feel valid. They're always just the innocent person on the street and we're the maniacs attacking everything in sight. Literal nazis. Unrelatable monsters. "Don't even try to understand them!"
That's the hardest part about this whole thing. We need to actually subvert them by undermining their delusions, but that's hard to do while they are attacking.
It's why I said on a Reddit post that we basically have to dominate the Leftists in order to get them to work with us. They only ever recognize power, so if you don't over-power them, they just fight you until they win.
It's a neat trick for the establishment to condition them into being as servile as they are rebellious. It's works alarming well to keep any right wing progress at bay.
Leftists live and operate in a pseudo-reality - aka a fictional world.
Check James Lindsays's twitter. Wokies are top mad about this article, although it can be applied to both leftism and religious theocracies. (Except that the church used to emphasize the finding of truth, while leftism changes the dictionary.)
https://archive.vn/uxArR newdiscourses Psychopathy and the Origins of Totalitarianism DECEMBER 25, 2020 ·JAMES LINDSAY
Motte and Bailey. Have the Bailey be an absolutely reprehensible and indefensible position at the current point in time and the Motte be an easily defensible position. Should anyone try and attack the Bailey, immediately retreat to the Motte and do nothing but defend the Motte.
"Killing all men is a good idea!"
"WAAAAHHHH Don't attack women's rights!"
Had somebody pull this on plebbit a while back. Was going on and on about how trans people deserve human rights, and when pressed on it, admitted that includes hormone blockers for pubescent children.
I had someone on plebbit tell me that refusing to give hormone blockers to children was 'grade A fascism and downright inhumane'.
Soon we're going to have 'refusing to let children consent to sex is grade A fascism and downright inhumane'
Projection.
Women hate men having fun.
The left wants to kill everyone they dislike and make the rest slaves.
Look up Hitler's big lie theory.
Because their aim isn't to debate the finer points of the various ideologies. Their aim is to create an in-group and an out-group, so in service of that the most outlandish lie that will stick is what they're after.
Count yourself lucky they've not started saying we eat babies yet.
It's easier to have an enemy when you constantly dehumanise them.