Here lately I have been somewhat focused on the how and the why our society has become so damn divided. I used to vote R at a time in my life. I did not disagree too much with the party message, being for the most part, this is America dammit! There is opportunity for us all, it is up to us to get out there, and seek it. So I did. And I prospered to some degree. It all seemed to make sense.

But there were also times I voted for a D. I never identified as a R or a D. I simply looked at what both sides had to offer and made my decisions at the voting booth accordingly. It never occurred to me it had to be an all one or the other concept. My brain just never worked that way. I always saw things are never black and white, there is always a gray area or exceptions to a rule or a norm, and I’ve seen the blinders on people who can only see either/or.

Well my personal position hasn’t really moved one way or the other really. I still try to look at all sides and form an opinion based on what I can see and hear. Over the years what really stands out to me is this. The R party, for all intents and purposes has lost it’s freaking mind! They have moved so far to the right, so far into crazytown, that my middle ground ass looks like a radical lefty. I think, for most of us with an ounce of critical thinking skill, we can effectively agree on this.

So, maybe we agree. Which begs the question, how the hell did this happen? How did we get here?

My personal opinion, the answer is, the weaponization of right wing media, social media outlets (willingly or unwillingly) letting insanity run free, and last but not least, the people we share the world with. I have sort of been harping on logical fallacies of late. I’ll often link to the page of fallacies or insert a link to a specific fallacy as a response to a obvious fallacial argument. Which I know probably tends to make me look more like a prick than I’m comfortable with, but I feel like it is important for folks to understand these fallacies, primarily because they are the oft used tool in the toolkit of a lying, misleading, all out propaganda assault, on all good people. Once we become aware of what is being used against us, maybe we can learn to combat not just the big lie, but all of the rest of the lies and B.S. as well.

Politicians, media outlets, and people parroting what they have heard from these sources, have allowed, even encouraged, a long festering deep seated primal hate, that used to mostly hide under the bed, prosper in broad daylight. It feels to me like the divisiveness today is 1000x stronger than it was a few short years ago. I know myself, depite knowing darn well they can’t all be bad people, I find myself wanting to wall myself off from anyone that walks or talks like a R. Just because the B.S. has become so deep, and they are so embedded within it, I don’t want to be anywhere around these freaking people. I dont want to feel like that. I’m almost sure, that is the outcome, our professional liars in media and politics, are trying to take us to. And there we go, bleating the entire way…

With these things in mind, I did a search today, I found an interesting writeup by someone, I never caught the who, but this is a very well written look, at what I feel is much of the source of our social ills of the day. It is an eye opening look into fallacies, understanding them, and our own human failings, as to why we tend use these fallacies. Once people understand how they are being used against us, it is the way to find our way back, I hope, to a better world. Sadly the people who need it the most will balk at the thought they have ever been deceived, or wrong about anything. It takes a certain amount of open mindedness to open the door to introspect. So, those who need it the most will likely never consider it. But I do believe it is important for us to look at it from this angle.

I didn’t agree with everything there, it is a 10 part series, with lots of great quotes, and videos interspersed here and there to help drive a point home. But overall I liked it. I’m not real sure about the part encouraging folks to experiment with psychadelics, but I’ll have to try it first and get back to you. 😉 I’m also not sure about the premise of making anyone smarter, but it certainly has the potential to make people think. Which sometimes is a worthwhile investment.

I’d love to see your thoughts…

How to get Smarter: A guide to critical thinking, cognitive biases, and logical fallacies

I could not for the life of me get that link to embed. I kept getting told the site refused the request. But perhaps a copy and paste will work.

After I wrote this up, I went back and perused more on this guys site. (I’ve been exploring issues that could cause the link fail, changing settings, and even trying to use IE instead of my duck duck go/chrome, to no avail so this has been sitting in drafts for a day) Anyway… I saw a bit on astral projection there, that made me wince. Even though I did dabble with it when I was a kid. So, with that in mind it is possible for someone to post really good stuff and go over the deep end in places you did not see coming. I still feel like the place I’m sending my brave friends, is worth the trip.

Again, let me know your thoughts. It’s a long series, there’s no rush 🙂