Not when they are in power and pressing the levers of active oppression.
I don’t have a publisher yet! It’s very frustrating. I’ll certainly share the link when I do!
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It’s nice to see research validating my worst instincts, which makes me suspicious of it. But there is a pretty good reason to think that ridicule may be more effective than some other options. One of the appeals of grand all encompassing conspiracies is the emotional lift that comes from being the person smart enough to have seen through the plot. Ridicule reduces that feeling. I’ll have to dig into the paper, but the summaries raise the question of how this squares with other research into fraud and scams where people are more likely to dig in to save face once a con has been revealed.
I’m definitely a fan of the Socratic approach and, at least anecdotally, it works really well under certain conditions. It is most effective for people who are early on the descent into a conspiracy theory. As people get deeper into them, they construct more elaborate systems of belief defense and have tied their identity to it. All of the obvious questions will have answers that are supported by a web of related constructs once someone is deep enough and once you’re too many questions deep they can simply admit that they don’t know the answer to that one, but in their mind they reaffirmed dozens of beliefs without you stumping them and they can return to whatever the community is around their belief for an answer to the question they didn’t have. If the community doesn’t have an answer they can synthesize it from the other beliefs that are accepted. People who are only a few steps in still have most of their worldview tied to the standard model of reality and can usually see the contrasts easily enough.
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Even then. Xi still gets really upset over being called “Winnie the Pooh” despite having the full weight of an authoritarian state behind him. The mockery can’t be done as openly within an oppressive state, but it still occurs and these thugs hate it because it undermines their authority.
But it makes no difference to his authoritarianism. Arguably, it makes it worse, as he uses the levers of oppression to get personally vindictive with those who mock him.
Don’t get me wrong. Aspirational authoritarians should be mocked - it undermines their credibility. In-power authoritarians should also be mocked, but it is unlikely to dilute their authoritarianism - and perhaps results in the opposite. If it can undermine their authority enough, ok - but a well-entrenched fascist’s power is almost immune to mockery, even if they themselves are not, personally.
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to agree that we can’t mock false beliefs is, by definition, to make those beliefs respectable
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That’s true, but I also think it’s true that on blue moons or so, their brains check in and do the garbage collection and tipping of false things into the critical sea. Expecting results in mere hours is quite hopeful.
By another token it’s a hard pill to swallow that MDs (even given the circumstances of a single worst payer) have prisoners scheduled for a tuboligation and much punched for the hysterectomy. The whole Mother Jones plus ads; not always a digestive.
Taunting people with guns: You started by not replicating their gear and comparing finishes, you may as well let them put on trigger discipline and a rubber toy and some photo staging before choosing an exit.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Just because your’re nutz doesn’t mean conspiracies don’t exist. Problem with CTs: If the actual conspiracy is competent, you’ll never hear of it – you’ll be distracted by fakes, or deluded by the incompetent. As RAW said, it’s a death-spiral to insanity.
I remember the post, but I think you may be missing the point here. Today’s post isn’t about right wing authoritarians, it’s about reprogramming people who believe in crazed conspiracy theories.
I stand by my post. To people who believe that there is still a child murdering pizza operation being covered up, no amount of be-bop, or ridicule will convince them otherwise.
You may be able to drown them out numbers and louder voices, but convincing them is a whole other kettle of fish.
When my kid was younger, we would march in the West Hollywood Pride Parade.
Every year at Santa Monica and Crescent Heights would be the opposing and vocal bunch of God Hates Fags signs, Abortion Is Murder, God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, you know the ones.
Yup, Every year they show up, and every year we would gleefully shout them down.
The point is, I honestly don’t think it would matter what any person on that parade route could do to change these people, or the way that they not only live, but expect me to Live their way as well.
They are there every year, they are ridiculed, they are blasted with bad tunes for hours at a time, and still they show up, and they vote…
Stay well Gracchus!
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Really sad that the proposed remedies didn’t involve stakes or silver bullets.
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Whenever people talk about “curing” these kinds of people, it reminds me of the end of the movie Warm Bodies, where zombies are slowly cured and rehabilitated. The only difference is that zombies aren’t as scary or harmful as these QAnon whackos.
I think the study explains a little more complex relationship than simply shame (a word that doesn’t appear even once there).
I know that it is a widespread belief that shame can (and should) be used to influence people, even children, and shame certainly does have all kinds of lasting negative effects on people, but I would argue that the effect is mostly not a sustainable change of behavior or attitude in the desired direction. Have you ever heard that fat-shaming is an effective way to help people lose weight?
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