Blood libel is a very old anti-Semitic myth that has stubbornly persisted for centuries, one of several conspiracy theories that have scapegoating the Jewish people for all of society’s ills at their core. The heart of the false claim is that Jews murder non-Jewish (or Gentile) children to use their blood for apocryphal religious rituals, […]
Conspiracy theories are not new. Covid-related conspiracies may be new, but conspiracy theories about pandemics and contagious diseases have been around for centuries. Anti-vaccination hysteria goes back decades. The QAnon conspiracy theory may be new (or maybe not really?!), but conspiracy theories themselves are a tale(s) as old as time — or at least time […]
Gaslighting describes the act of professing skepticism, disbelief, or denial of another person’s lived experience, feelings, or perceptions of reality. It’s one thing to disagree respectfully with someone; it’s another thing altogether to deny the validity of their point of view to the point of aggression, and attack them with hostility. Gaslighters are engaging in […]
Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory originally promoted by ultraconservative American political operatives William S. Lind and Paul Weyrich, claiming the existence of an organized conspiracy against the “traditional Christian values of America.” It’s a modern derivative of the Nazi propaganda term “Cultural Bolshevism,” which was used as a derogative slur against anything progressive, modernist, […]
The caricatures of the TV show — at least some of them — ring true, especially politically these days. The MAGA folks who remain loyal are truly stuck in time. They’re back at an event that’s over — some to spend the rest of their lives relitigating the election and holding onto its Lost Cause-style […]
The digital world is binary: made of 1s and 0s, discrete bits and bytes. The organic world is made pretty much entirely of spectra — a continuum or gradient along which multiple states or options exist. It is fluid and boundaryless in a way that makes the “real” world constructed fundamentally differently from the digital […]
President Biden and Vice President Harris commemorated the 1 year anniversary of the January 6 attack on our democracy with morning speeches and a day of remembrance inside the Capitol rotunda with Representatives and Senators giving a number of moving speeches in their respective chambers. The tone on TV news and blue check Twitter was […]
The stock in trade narrative for these right-wing folks is usually a completely invented one that paints them in a flattering light and magically transforms all their criming into noble, virtuous deeds (The Lost Cause, e.g.). I will be continuously collecting these GOP myths and de-mystifying them for posterity, and for the public record such […]
It feels like the 1930s all over again — and with good reason. The rise of American fascists and right-wing extremism around the world has been a known trend for decades, and America’s past flirtations with fascism had been largely swept under the rug by the then anti-semites who tried to put a stop to […]
Data literacy is the newest frontier. The world of information has a pale twin universe of disinformation, deep fakes, fake news, and true believers — keeping track of reality will become more and more important and valuable into the future. RussiaGate: Russian hacking of the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 US elections The Thinkery See […]
It’s not just here at home in the US that fascism seems to have taken root in the population. There are many burgeoning nationalist movements resurrecting right-wing populism around the world, and as per many experts’ warnings, right-wing authoritarianism is on the rise around the globe. Many of the right-wing populist thatches that have sprung […]
Cultism as a kind of collective personality disorder The enemy at the gates is us
Unthinking is a kind of militant stance against thinking, for oneself and others. It goes beyond a simple distaste for or preference against thinking, and on into something of a dedication, mission, or serious zeal for anti-intellectualism. As well, the Unthinking mentality includes a sort of reverence for instinctiveness and impulsiveness, and a distaste or […]
We all have fear from time to time. Paranoia is beyond that — way beyond. People who are paranoid see enemies around every corner and under every rock — everyone is an enemy, and sometimes they distrust even their friends. Paranoid people sometimes go to great lengths to relieve the tension of their constant fear, […]
January 6: A Day that will live in ignominy. The day Capitol riots broke out when an angry mob, following instructions from Donald Trump, stormed the halls of Congress and came within minutes of a potential hostage situation or worse: a massacre. I’m still processing the events of Wednesday, as are many. Even though I […]