Just a Regular Rape

For a few weeks there has been a lot of discourse about the Loundoun County school where a girl was raped by a boy in a skirt in the school bathroom. Recently it has come to light that the girl had previous consensual encounters with the boy and the story for the most part turned out to be different than it has first been reported upon, as usually happens. Once the news broke that the girl had had consensual encounters with the boy previously, I nervously waited to see if the champions of consent from the past would compromise their own morals and beliefs to condemn this girl for "her part" in her rape or not, or to what degree.

I was predictably disappointed that they did, in fact, compromise their morals on consent - but it was as little as possible. Only in implications, in the framing. When making headlines or opening paragraphs, the fact that the girl and boy had met up for consensual sex in the school bathroom previously was brought up as the "main point" - disguised as an objective journalistic reporting detail, but worded and framed as a headliner detail. Their reason for this isn't to excuse the rape necessarily, but to excuse the boy in the skirt in the girl's bathroom. Because, you see, to the mainstream population this issue has been, from the beginning, not about a girl being raped, but about trying to defend transgender bathroom policy. It started that way from the very beginning when the girl's father was dragged out of a school board meeting and has never stopped being about that for them.

That's why such an obtuse a ridiculous article was written entitled, astonishingly, "The Right's Big Lie About A Sexual Assault in Virginia". I cannot stress enough how absurd this was to read as a real, genuine article.

The title is one thing, but what's somewhat surprising is that every terrible detail is confirmed in the article, which still has the audacity to claim that the whole thing was a "big lie". The dad being arrested for acting out at a school board meeting because he was furious that his daughter was raped. The school not properly reporting the crime and covering it up. The boy being transferred to another school and committing a second sexual crime. Everything, every single detail is correct. So what on earth is the "big lie" here that the article showcases?

Since for them it was about transgenders in bathrooms from the first day, it's still about it now. The "big lie" is that this wasn't a case of a regular teenager using the cover of false transgender identity to enter the girl's bathroom and commit a crime. We can all rest easy, folks! Since the girl and boy had met up previously in the girl's bathroom, this is not a case that can be used against transgenders in girl's bathrooms! Conservatives lied yet again! The entire premise of saying the right had a "big lie" is that this was not a normal teenage boy using the cover of the transgender bathroom policy to commit a sexual crime against a totally random and unsuspecting female victim. 

What's interesting is that that fact is the only thing that is a "lie", yet the article intends to convince us that we "had it all wrong". All wrong. All of it, totally wrong. Except for the vast majority of it. What's most glaring of course is that it was never a lie - details about the story were missing. For all intents and purposes, it was actually definitely a boy using transgender identity as a cover to go into the girl's room and rape someone - until we learned that they organized ahead of time to meet up in there on purpose. We do not lie when we are lacking information. Is it wise to make declarations about a situation when you don't have all the information? Surely, we could have a discussion about that, but that is different from intentionally lying about a situation. 

None of this, of course, matters to the author of this and other articles like it. The framework of this piece allows unbelievable responses in the people who were desperate to be relieved of their guilt for wanting to belittle this crime against an innocent girl, such as the following:

"So, it was all bullshıt. The boy wearing a skirt who raped a girl isn't trans. They had hooked up in the bathroom a couple times before. This time she said no & he raped her. Then the girl's dad fed the media the "trans predator" story."

"It was all bullshit." All of it, according to the rape apologists, was bullshit. Except, of course, for the school hiding the rape, sending the boy to another school where he would commit another sexual crime, arresting the father for trying to speak for his daughter, so on and so on. It turns out a very large amount of the story was absolutely not bullshit, but it becomes all bullshit when the magic information they needed to quell their nervous hearts is heard, that the girl and boy had previous encounters. Suddenly all is forgiven.

Except that the biggest cover points I have seen in every article that discussed this horrible situation did not even focus on the transgender aspect. It was mentioned, of course, but nothing has been more important to the people covering this story than the fact that the school covered up the rape. This was the absolute biggest part of the story, it was not focused on transgender kids from the beginning. It was, however, the main focus for the mainstream, liberals, leftists, and Democrats. They projected their focus on transgender bathroom policy onto their opposition - or perhaps maliciously, intentionally pretended that a school covering up a rape was not a big deal.

Yes, from the beginning, before it was even a story, before the girl's father was even arrested, this was about transgenders in bathrooms for the mainstream - that's why the school hid the rape. That's why they had the father forcibly removed, because they knew they hid the rape and didn't want to be found out. They hid the rape because the boy had worn a skirt as a cover to go into the girl's bathroom uncontested and they didn't want this story used as ammunition against their transgender bathroom policy. It was a relief to them that the girl had had previous sexual encounters with the boy, which is why they think "the right" has made this case into what they see as a whole hullabaloo over just a run of the mill rape. They are ecstatic that this isn't a random assault by a boy who wore a skirt to enter the girl's bathroom. Despite that this girl was raped, the fact that they had intentionally met up in the bathroom before, and had done so that day, resolves the moral quandary they had over the case from the beginning. They project that to their preferred boogeyman of "the right" and spin the story until it vomits. "The right lied about this story from the beginning!"

Except the big problems I've seen from the beginning weren't that a skirt wearing boy used transgender bathroom policy to rape a girl, but rather that the school hid the rape because they were worried people would use it against their transgender bathroom policy. They had the father - understandably furious - arrested to keep trying to hide the rape. The big story was the blatant disregard of this girl, the crime against her hidden for their agendas, and as if it couldn't get any worse, another girl was assaulted due to their negligence. Because they didn't want to hurt the transgender cause.

It wasn't the right that made this about transgender bathroom policies, it was the Loundoun County school when they hid the rape for fear of making it about transgender bathroom policies. It is about transgender bathroom policy not because a boy wore a skirt into a bathroom to rape a girl, but because adults are so worried about passing transgender bathroom policies that they would hide a rape by a boy in a skirt. The transgender agenda itself is not worried about sacrificing young girls for their cause.

What's more is, unfortunately, they still aren't even in the clear. They are so focused on the boy in a skirt portion that they are ignoring the fact that these two students were having sex in the school bathroom. How is that even acceptable? Of course, kids were having sex in school bathrooms when I was in school, too, but it was at least marginally more difficult when boys were not allowed free reign of the girl's room. The transgender bathroom policy may have not, in this specific case, enabled a boy to randomly assault an unsuspecting girl in the girl's bathroom under the cover of the transgender bathroom policy, but the greater transgender discourse absolutely enabled the situation. Would they have met up anyway, without pretending to be gender fluid? Maybe. Probably even likely. But the fact of the matter is, there would have been a small chance he would have been stopped at the gate if the adults in the situation were not so hellbent on propping up transgender ideology.

The NYT flagrantly accuses the Bad Team of using this story to hurt "transgender children" when they used "transgender children" from the beginning to try and erase a crime against a girl and a second crime against another girl that was enabled due to their complicity. That's why they are so stuck on the idea that anyone has been "lying" about this story to hurt the transgender cause - because they thought someone would and proactively tried to hide the rape to keep that from happening.

Of course they will argue that the father made the situation about the transgender bathroom policy. I understand that this was his intention, as it is very likely his daughter framed the situation for him thusly. She was brave enough to speak up about being raped, but was she brave enough to tell her father that it was by a boy with whom she had been regularly fornicating in the school bathroom previously? We don't know that yet, but it seems rather likely. Despite any of this, of course, while it may have been his intention to frame it thusly, his sudden summary expulsion from the school board meeting is what set the narrative. While surely people had been talking about the "predatory exploitation of the transgender bathroom policy" aspect before we knew that the girl planned to meet with the boy who raped her, I cannot stress enough that the biggest part of the story from the beginning was the school hiding the rape. Articles like these, meant to assuage leftist moral quandaries over being more concerned for transgender bathroom policy than a girl being raped, do even more to delegitimize the victim - by claiming that the people who were defending her and trying to ensure her rapist saw justice were actually lying about the case. The more nuanced details, of course, insist that surely she was raped and trust us we do think that's bad, but the discourse is framed overwhelmingly about transgender bathroom policies instead of that adults responsible for the safety of a young girl covered up a heinous crime against her. 

Of course, more details don't make this story better. Many parts of it are disgusting and revealing about how our culture hurts children and teenagers. One of the first articles I read about this story that contained the information that the girl and boy had had previous consensual encounters was a very objective article. In this article, a much larger problem about this crime is uncovered. It stated that the boy had previously propositioned the girl for "a particular sexual act" in the past, but she continually refused. Considering the crime was forcible sodomy, we do not need to do much of a connect the dots puzzle to figure out that the boy had been trying to persuade this girl to engage in consensual sodomy rather than forcible. The boy further claims that he stopped when he realized he was hurting her. Whether or not that's true, it showcases a deeper tragic scenario. 

When we know what we know about porn and its horrible effect on young minds, we get a much more depressing picture of this encounter. A boy's mind poisoned by gratuitous pornography showcasing women enthusiastically enjoying sudden anal penetration, or perhaps even more disturbingly not enjoying, convinced this teenager that if his female hookup just tried it, it would be just like the sex he sees in the porn! So convinced he was of this in fact, he decided it would be okay to force it upon her, and it would just work out, like it does in the porn, and he'd get the sexual gratification he sees the men in porn display. All the education about consent in the world has to fight against the brain rewiring, evil power of highly accessible, gratuitous porn.

Many many things could have been different to have stopped this situation from ever happening. Many things could have been done differently to allow responsible adults to actually handle it properly after it unfortunately did happen. The big story isn't about whether boys can use the girl's room, though it is a small part of it. 

Truly no situation is ever so cut and dry. I'm sure there are people who were excited that there was what appeared to be such a plain and uncontestable example of transgender bathroom policies harming young girls, just as excited as the people who were thrilled to hear the victim of this crime had intentionally met up with her soon-to-be rapist that day. People love to exploit others for their causes and beliefs, an unfortunate reality. But the real story is actually just as bad, despite it not matching up perfectly to any one of these sociopaths' desired narratives. There are multiple aspects to it, all of which are terrible. The facts of the situation do not reflect well on the Loudoun county school and contribute even more fuel to the fire of the greater "parents and school board meetings" discourse happening concurrent to this. This is probably the most important aspect of the story and people are more than happy to bury it, as the facts undeniably point to a justifiably outraged father being arrested for attempting to advocate for his daughter.

I am not very surprised lately by the grotesque behavior of many, but the framing of this crime as what essentially boils down to "guys this isn't a special rape, it's just a regular run of the mill rape" is particularly disgusting. We were just a few years ago heavy into how important it was for schools to take sexual assault seriously. Apparently it was a huge deal then. But now it is not, because holding the school who tried to hide a rape accountable could hurt the transgender cause, even though we could easily agree to set that aside and focus on the reality of the victim. The blatant display of tribalism and friend vs. foe thinking is perhaps the last time I will be so naively surprised. They would surely sacrifice thousands of young girls at the altars of their culture war than risk harming any of their ideological causes and it is naïve to believe otherwise.

Purity Spiraling

Purity spiraling is a term that gained mainstream usage during the infamous gamergate days. It is defined quite well by urban dictionary here, where more or less it is the practice of trying to be "more pure" than the others in your ingroup, accompanied by everyone else doing the same, until nuance has been pummeled into a broken heap upon the ground. While the term was used to describe the behavior as it was perpetrated by those on the progressive side of things during the great gamergate controversy (and whether it existed before then, I couldn't tell you), any group can experience this, since "purity" in this case is described by the ideology of the group in question. If you're in an alt-right circle, a purity spiral may occur because one of your group chat friends is disgusted that you aren't fully onboard with a full and complete forcible deportation of all non-white people from the country. Another group chat member responds that the only true position is to execute them all, of course, and the purity spiral begins to see who is the most pure racist. By the end of the spiral, (which could take place over a day or over weeks) the ingroup's collective views become more extreme (another documented concept called "group polarization") and anyone who espouses a view short of total execution of non-whites is kicked out. Interestingly, the results vary - as it is equally possible for people to leave the movement due to this behavior as it is for them to become more radicalized and embroiled within it.

Purity spiraling also describes quite well the entirety of the progressive movement. The movement itself subsides off of a constant state of purity spiraling - everyone involved must move increasingly further left, the group itself imagining that it's modestly "solidly left" but no more, while they have long been advancing further left. In the same process, people who have been stagnantly moderate for twenty years become dangerous reactionaries in the eyes of the progressive movement as they continue to become further entrenched in being the wokest possible, accepting no less than complete and total purity within whatever their current metrics happen to be at the time.

 

From the outside looking in, it was truly bizarre to see opinions begin to pop up that, for example, it was not possible for a black man to rape a white woman, as rape is an expression of power, and black men as a group do not have power while white women do, thus any unwelcomed sexual interaction between these groups could not "legally" be considered rape. Everyone is supposed to understand that the concept of "power" as it relates to institutions and societal organization is different from the physical "power" one uses over another physically weaker person to commit rape, but that nuance was lost, here, because as a rule, critical theory disregards the individual and analyzes them only as a member of their hierarchical group. Hence the practice of viciously assaulting nuance until the bloody mess is unrecognizable - even nuance as simple and generally well understood as the concept that words can have two separate definitions that mean different things.

The fact of the matter is that, due to critical theory, these wild positions were inevitable. Back in the good ol' days, purity spiraling used to happen in relation to whether, for example, it was okay to say "retard". It seemed very justifiable to say, well, we simply cannot say rude words that denigrate a group of people, as it is impolite. The progressive movement's purity spiraling toward the consensus that it was not okay to say any mean words progressed to people finding the root usages of words like "dumb" and saying they were rude because they referred to people who could not speak, a disadvantaged group. This occurred over several years to the point where it's now very obviously not okay to say any even slightly maligned word - including words in different languages which are not rude at all, but sound rude in English. This seems like it should be something that is wrong to say is wrong, because now we're maligning a foreign language. The problem, of course, is that nuance was obliterated many years ago. Now we are running out of things to devolve into screaming outrage over, so words in other languages that sound like bad words in our language are the new purity vogue. The purity spiral from five years back has escalated into a purity tornado and it has torn through a very significant portion of our language.

Unfortunately, the purity spiral continues still. They have run out of words to designate rude after we removed half the English vernacular from acceptable usage. The purity spiraling must continue, however, as a rule, because that's a bare basic tenant of the progressive movement - progress, somewhere, anywhere, as long as you're moving somewhere (even if it's a descent into madness itself) you're progressing. Critical theory posits that if oppression exists, it must be because of existing power structures, and language is considered one of our social power structures. Thus, since oppression continues to exist, everything is suspect. This is also why everything is also white supremacy.

The problem for the average person who desires to be seen as a progressive member of the current leftism cult is that the purity spiral is nonsensical, and while they confidently agree with it, they usually do not actually have a justifiable reason for it. A member of the progressive ingroup thus often falls prey to the constant state of purity tornado that is whirling all around them, saying something they think will be acceptably pure, only to be accosted by the progressive wolves that what they have said was actually decidedly unwoke. We see here that David Hogg - a staunch gun control advocate - says something that makes complete sense as far as what his ideology is. He decries violent protests and gun usage, because he is for gun control. It is a sentiment that would probably have made it through without contesting in 2016, but because we are so far gone within the depths of the spiral, it was an offensive statement.

What's happening to the average, milquetoast progressive - the ones who are on board merely because they align most closely to them and would be aghast at being on the same side as any right-wing group - are losing their grasp of what is good and what is bad due to the chaos sewn by the overarching, constant state of purity whirlwind on which the progressive movement is centered. The progressive leftism cult resides within the eye of the purity tornado. As the tornado moves around - or, progresses, as it were - those who are unable to gauge the direction of the storm are caught in the winds. The eye itself becomes smaller and more difficult to find refuge in as people are no longer able to understand the terms of the purity whirlwind, where darlings of the mainstream left like David Hogg are suddenly attacked for views they've held without issue this entire time.

It should be obvious that the most recent developments as to what is good and what is bad were simply not always so. It is a clear progression from "it's certainly wrong to say retard, can we as a community please stop saying such offensive words," to "foreign words that sound offensive are fireable offenses". The problem is that not all the people within the group are fully cognizant that this is what has been happening, as they have - this entire time - merely been coasting along, cautiously taking social cues from their fellow progressives as to what was problematic or acceptable. The followers of popular leftism that are simply not sufficiently woke enough are being exposed by their own inability to keep up with the trajectory path of the purity tornado. These people are more or less imposter members of the woke mob - aligning with them out of necessity, since they would be sick to be perceived for even a moment as being anywhere other than solidly left.

A small interlude to this post, the inspiration in fact for it, is this thread seen here. What is essentially being said, here, is what I've pointed out. The "imposters" of the progressive movement reside there by necessity, attempting to take hints from the woke mob as to what is acceptable or not, hoping to blend in long enough to be "safe". It seems unnecessarily dramatic to word it this way - that they are almost hiding, even afraid to be judged as insufficiently woke, but that is the fact of the matter. Being perceived as right wing - or holding even a marginally right-of-center idea - gets you decidedly labeled a Nazi and white supremacist, something that the leftism ingroup sees as not simply bad, but devastating. They themselves view anyone right of center as being a literal monster, lacking any sense of humanity or empathy, the result of successful "dehumanization of the enemy" - a common tactic used during times of war to lessen the innate horror of murdering human beings. They could not bear to be considered anything less than a progressive or it would open them to attack, so they seek to avoid it as they would an electrical shock. They are aligned enough with progressiveness that they feel the same way about conservatives as the extremist radical progressive left does, but they are essentially fearful lemmings, attempting daily to navigate the winds of the purity tornado and avoid being thrown into the storm for a bad take.

They do not know why they believe what they do, they merely know that they must believe it or they will lose all they have accumulated by being a progressive grifter. The purity spiraling which was more or less intuitive before - words that are offensive are bad, respect all non-white culture, America is not the center of the world - are thrown into disarray now. It's impossible to know which "woke" position is going to be win out - do we respect a foreign language or condemn it for sounding like a slur in our language? Each progressive adherent wakes up not knowing whether their previously held convictions - gun violence is always bad - will be attacked for not accounting for people of color's utilization of power through violence, or some other concept that gained popularity the day before. No one knows whats going on anymore, an ideological chaos that is indiscernible to the average, typically consistent and thoughtful person. 

 

The intuitive positions - obviously it's wrong to judge non-white people's culture (which language is part of) - are in direct conflict with chaotic positions, such as how maligning a foreign language for sounding like an English slur most assuredly would be an "America is the center of the world" thought process, which we thought was wrong, but now it's okay, for this situation, but why is unknown. The progressivism cult will post hoc rationalize why it was wrong to say a foreign word that sounded like a slur, thus making up new "cues" that the imposters will try to mimic later, only to find in a similar but minutely different scenario, this argument loses out to yet another post hoc rationalization. All progressivism outrage is ultimately immediate, unquestionable feelings-based reactions and by its very nature cannot be discerned through logical pattern recognition.

The positions of progressive leftism change constantly as people attempt to one-up each other within the purity spiral. That is consistent with the defined driving factor of critical theory - dismantling systems of oppression. If oppression still exists, something is wrong in the systems, so they continue the spiral endlessly, trying to weed out all "white supremacy" within the systems, as that is their entire goal. We see here the outline for what is considered "white supremacy" - which is, as far as critical theory is concerned, merely the name for the system in which white people are perceived as having unfair levels of power. It is not, in this context, a malicious and brazen belief that white people are inherently superior. The issue, of course, is that "believing white people are inherently superior" is the colloquial understanding of "white supremacy" and the two become conflated - intentionally.

 

The usage of a term with such inherently negative connotations to describe the power system of the country is designed to cause the average person to turn away from association with the "power structure" in question and make it appear unquestionably bad. They did the same thing with "racism" - demand people accept that "all white people are racist" but insist that it only refers to unintentional happenstance that is almost never done intentionally, while simultaneously maintaining the colloquial understanding of "racist" as someone who hold malicious, intentional disdain for other races of people. To recognize that we are dealing with two separate definitions of a term that are being conflated as one in the same is too nuanced for the constant purity storm - thus it winds up being irrelevant that "white supremacy [as a power structure]" refers to more subtle, unintentional, almost nebulous concepts that are prevalent in society that is historically majority white. The term also means an active belief in inherent superiority of white people. The tenants of "white supremacy [as a power structure]" are thus "self-evidently" bad, because "white supremacy [as a belief in white superiority]" is bad, and we can see that they're the same thing because they're both called the same thing! Here is the same outline of what "white supremacy" is from a book - written in 2001.

The significance of it being from 2001 is heavy. The fact of the matter is that critical theory has been around in colleges for decades. It is only now bleeding so heavily into the mainstream culture as it's been more accepted and circulated. I have been online since 1998 - worried my hand me down junk computer would break for Y2K - and I have only just now seen this "white supremacy" outline last week, in 2020. The foundation for critical theory has been outlined for years, but as recently as 2-3 years ago, the purity spiral did not expel people who didn't understand it (yet). The postmodern critical theory concepts that were developed by pompous postmodernist pseudo-intellectuals twenty years ago are gaining more and more focus, but the people who pledged allegiance to progressivism in 2014-2016 did not actually know that. They simply knew lines were being drawn and drifted with the waves further left in order to maintain their social circles and online personas. 

What was intuitive purity spiraling before is now based around critical theory, which itself is not intuitive and based wholly on circular reasoning centered around the unprovable concept that "systems of power cause oppression and thus those systems must be changed". There is no factual, testable basis upon which this declaration stands - it is simply an assumed truth. Thus, the people who aligned with progressivism, but still believed in modernist concepts like "objectivity" - which is of course a system of white supremacy now - are not sure what to do. They cannot discern intuitively or through logic or reasoning what is good or what is bad, it is entirely up to the mob to decide. They must then take their cues from the mob - which is, itself, bickering back and forth over which is the most woke position, eventually deciding on one prevailing narrative based on what seems the least white-supremacisty. They haven't learned this, though, as they are unaware that the entire chaotic progressivism system is based on vapid, unprovable and simultaneously unchallengable assumptions. They continue to try and discern through patterns and logical reasoning what is woke and what is transgression, but there is no way to tell other than social cues by their ingroup. This method of only knowing what is right or wrong by being told is intentional, another part of critical theory, where truth is discerned by the voices of the oppressed, whichever one is loud enough to talk over the others being the winner.

This is one of the reasons why learning what critical theory is about, insofar as the history and purpose, is one of the best ways to free someone from its grasp. Unfortunately, many people continue to side with the adherents to critical theory out of what boils down to survival - to retain their following, continue their ad sponsorships, and maintain their social status. The average person may find it easy to escape, but these people who have based their lives and livelihood around their political personalities know very well they'll have their status torn to shreds if they don't double down on progressive ideology. They must continue the charade as long as possible, but are slowly being found out. Some will allow themselves to be bullied time and time again every time they lose their footing in the chaos of the storm, begging to be pulled from the torturous winds and back to the safety of the tornado's eye, without realizing they could simply leave the storm behind altogether. 

 

Much of this is due to ingroup loyalties, fear, peer pressure, and so forth - in other words, the normal kinds of social psychology that keeps people from thinking for themselves. It's hard for people to imagine that the people they thought were their friends are actually manipulating them - but it's likely that the people doing the manipulation do not realize they are, either. Many have checked in wholesale to the progressive leftism cult and could not fathom anything different. Life for them is simply constant mandatory conformity with the ever-present risk of ostracization at the smallest misstep. This hostile environment causes a situation where it becomes dangerous to question things that would be universally despised just four years ago - such as gratuitous sexual "education" for children who have only learned how to talk two years prior. If the mob thinks it's a good idea, opposing it is not a matter of "having a civil disagreement" but rather being entirely removed from your social circle - regardless of your political leanings, being forcibly outcast is often sufficient motivation to avoid stepping out of line. The thought of having to take refuge among the "others" of the outgroups seems degrading and repulsive. These are the social psychology blackmail tools that are being used to maintain the ever-present purity spiral of the progressivism cult. It's just a matter of how extensively you're willing to compromise your convictions and morals to retain your standing in your ingroup before you accept becoming an outcast as preferable.

The "Conspiracy Theory" Conspiracy Theory

I have already written about how the habit of calling all ideas counter to the mainstream narrative "conspiracy theories", or especially "right wing conspiracy theories", is a form of gaslighting. It is a well established tactic that works quite easily to immediately, magically, and fully discredit your target and make them appear crazy with the least possible amount of work. Once a theory has been established as a conspiracy theory, it's a simple matter to discredit anyone who says anything even remotely similar by the power of association. This post further explores the tactic of calling everything a conspiracy theory, as well as why it works. It also explains the rational behind various conspiracy theories and psychological concepts that are at work within belief and disbelief of conspiracy theories - and why everyone is at risk of them.

The "conspiracy theory" discourse

I have looked into the origins and definition of the term "conspiracy theory". Apparently, there is a "conspiracy theory" that the term "conspiracy theory" was invented in 1967 by the CIA to discredit people who didn't believe the government's statement on JFK's assassination. This theory and the resulting discussion around it illustrates an important factor in the way the conspiracy theory label is used to attack every concept adjacent to "the official conspiracy" of any given theory.

 

The people seeking to discredit ideas outside of the mainstream narrative will define the theory in question with the most extreme possible attributes. They will find the craziest adherent with the most easily debunkable concepts and call that, for example, "the JFK conspiracy theory". This may occur naturally if someone is pushing a truly unbelievable idea, like flat earth. Any theory with possible validity behind it, unfortunately, will be defined by its craziest supporters. They will explain the conspiracy theory with very definitive terms and say that people who believe the US government assassinated JFK unilaterally agree on any given number of terms and concepts. They then move on to disprove any number of certain aspects of the defined and outlined theory. Once the "definitive JFK assassination theory" is debunked due to flaws in the official theory, they will declare that anyone who believes any adjacent concept of the official theory to be just as crazy as anyone who believes wholesale in the official theory. Thus, if you even mildly doubt that the US government is being honest about the events surrounding JFK's death, you are automatically considered as someone who believes "the official" JFK conspiracy theory (the crazy one). The person who seeks to discredit you will point to the debunked "official theory" and consequently discredit you as someone who is wacky enough to believe clearly disproven things. Any objections will be met with the same brick wall mindset, since you are now simply a crazy conspiracy theorist and are therefore unreliable, maybe even suffering from psychosis. 

 

Another current example of this issue is seen where, if anyone believes even a single politician may have been involved in child sexual abuse, they are thoroughly and undeniably "Q-Anon" and accused of believing the full and complete manifesto of Q-Anon supporters (even if you say otherwise, you're obviously just lying because you know Q-Anon is looked down upon and want to avoid the social alienation). Some people will even attack you as Q-Anon for acknowledging that child sex trafficking is real - it should be very obvious why this is a problem. It's worth mentioning that I do not believe the people doing this are actively attempting to cover up sex trafficking - but rather, they are so far radicalized in the complete other direction due to their intense aversion to Q-Anon that they believe all analogous concepts are related to it.

This is an applicable example of "false dichotomy" wherein, what is actually happening is that the most far-gone, fact and evidence ignoring concepts are touted as the theory, and thus anyone who says they think anything even resembling xyz theory is, obviously, a devout adherent to the official theory. This practice creates two perceived groups of people, wherein you for example either believe the outlined JFK conspiracy theory (which has been debunked, and therefore you are crazy), or you believe the official US government story. The idea that there is no possible alternative is heavily implied through the manner in which these things are addressed, the conspiracy theory discourse.

 

The train of thought you are manipulated into is "if the official JFK assassination conspiracy theory is wrong, then it's impossible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination". This is actually not a logically sound conclusion, since it is actually still possible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination, but simply in a way that is different from the "official" conspiracy theory. Whether there is weight to such a conclusion may vary - admittedly, I've been using this as an example, and yet I don't really care about the JFK assassination. I do believe, however, that it's entirely reasonable to believe it is possible that the government was involved in JFK's assassination because they have been caught being involved in illegal affairs before and have lied about all sorts of absolutely nefarious things. However, the crux of the matter is that believing unquestioningly in the official government explanation for JFK's assassination explicitly requires that you think it's simply impossible that the government would be directly involved in the assassination of a US president and then not admit it. As if they would be involved in assassinating JFK and then turn around and go, "yes, our bad, our sincerest apologies, we promise not to conspire against the duly elected president of the United States ever again, pwease don't execute us for committing treason." The people who would have been involved in this are still alive today and I'm sure they do not want to be executed for treason. At the end of the matter, though, it's mostly inconsequential, as there is not enough evidence to charge anyone.

 

This subconsciously accepted false dichotomy conclusion applies just as easily to most conspiracy theories. Moving back to the "the CIA invented the term conspiracy theory" theory, if the CIA did not invent the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 to intentionally discredit people who don't believe the official JFK assassination story, then you should doubt whether "conspiracy theory" is being intentionally used to discredit possibly valid ideas. You see the "conspiracy theory" that the CIA invented the term, and see it debunked, and you are led to a conclusion wherein, if I say something like "the term conspiracy theory is being intentionally used to discredit certain ideas simply because the mainstream/government/organization in question wants to wholly discredit such idea" you think I'm an adherent of the "the CIA invented the term in 1967" group, which, seeing that theory has been debunked, discredits me as a wacky conspiracy theorist, despite the fact that I don't believe the CIA invented the term in 1967. It's close enough to the conspiracy theory in question to, not simply doubt, but fully and entirely dismiss my claim, despite being entirely reasonable. 

 

The unspoken possibilities between the extremes

 

My entire point here then is that, regardless of whether the CIA "invented" the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 for use against alternative theories for JFK's assassination, it was utilized in this way. Is it truly crazy to believe that someone seeking to hide the fact that they did something illegal and punishable by death would go to great lengths to disguise and discredit people if the truth is at risk of being exposed? The utilization of the existent term of "conspiracy theory" is very reasonable to use if you wish to discredit a theory that's gaining popularity. If given to honest contemplation, the claim that it's reasonable to believe that certain ideas with reasonable cause for concern are being discredited through application of the term "conspiracy theory" is not even slightly crazy, but more akin to a simple observation. The point here is that it's important not to dismiss ideas out of hand because another group of people has designated it a conspiracy theory. This is a tactic being used on purpose to cause this exact reaction - but there is nothing crazy about being skeptical.

 

This is how the labeling and subsequent debunking of the most far-gone concepts is used to discredit similar, but conceptually different ideas. Unfortunately, you are being manipulated this way and likely do not even realize it - not by a shadowy cabal, but by simple psychology. The idea that the term conspiracy theory is intentionally used to discredit ideas that organizations do not want people to believe is not crazy in the least - people who believe in the "general goodness" of large, powerful organizations are naive, probably crazier than most "conspiracy theorists". In fact, they can simultaneously believe things like "the United States as an institution has intentionally exploited black people and other minorities throughout their history and gotten away with it due to institutionalized power," and then think it's simply absolutely wacky that they would be involved in other nefarious acts that would cause great harm to large groups of people. Why believe they would only ever do this one particular bad thing, insofar as believing they are still doing it, but then not see other questionable behavior by the government as suspicious?

The government is actually, definitely, lying - but about what specifically?

 

What happens is because "the government is lying" is tied to things that really are pretty crazy (flat earth is a good example), any person who says "the government is lying" is more likely to be viewed as a nutcase rather than someone who is noticing suspicious things and questioning them. We can even point to things that we know for a fact the government lied about, and say "given the evidence that the government has lied before, why do you believe unwaveringly that they simply could not possibly be lying about this?" but still have people dismiss it out of hand as "crazy". It is self-evidently much more crazy to believe governments are simply behaving themselves nowadays despite multiple proven situations where they did suspicious and malicious things quite recently, like how Obama's administration decided to consider all military aged men killed by drones in the Middle East as combatants, thus underreporting their "civilian" kill count. This is, by all accounts, not actually a very "crazy" lie - but the fact of the matter is that the government lies. It is not unreasonable to distrust someone who has a habit of lying - it is, in fact, quite smart to distrust someone who has a habit of lying, especially when they are in such powerful positions. People seem to have no issues with this conclusion, since it's not very hard to find someone who believes it's reasonable not to trust Trump since they believe he has a habit of lying. It should not be hard to attribute the same concept to all government organizations and politicians at large, and yet it is somehow "conspiratorial thinking" to believe any politician aside from Trump has lied, and likely could again, for their own gain.

 

In fact, they may believe that Trump has been conspiring with Russia and getting away with it for nearly four years without prosecution despite evidence, (which would imply a network of individuals within the government that were working to ensure Trump could get away with this and not be prosecuted - almost like there was a "deep state" working outside the confines of our constitution) but the very idea that any number of analogous situations may have happened or are happening is, why, simply absolutely crazy. If any given politician could manipulate such a situation, why doubt that anyone else could, or would? Throughout all of history, the elite ruling classes have lied to and abused their subjects and citizens for their own gain without regard to their humanity, with mass murder evidenced within the lifetimes of people alive today, but now, magically, governments just don't do that stuff anymore, obviously, because they said they don't. They would also benefit tremendously from getting you to believe that they are looking out for your best interests, but we just ignore that, because to be skeptical of the government is something crazy people who believe in a flat earth do. We, being generally good (or at least believing we are), assume everyone else is, too. This is called the false consensus effect and is an accepted psychological concept. The fact of the matter is that the rich and powerful are not like us. Narcissistic people who seek to manipulate and use others for their own gain of wealth and power have had thousands of years to figure out the best way to do it, but you simply believe they suddenly stopped, because, like, we just, progressed, as a society, or something. Us normal people generally lack the power, resources, motivation, and opportunity to perform egregious crimes against humanity - and so we assume everyone else does, too. "If I were president, I would simply not commit genocide", you say, without any perspective on how a person with unimaginable power views themselves and the world around them.

How people who believe they don't believe anything crazy view "conspiracy theory"

The inspiration for this post, of course, is the newest "conspiracy pyramid" graphic/video circulating around the internet, wherein this person commits the exact "guilty (of being absolutely insane) by association" concept that I have stated here, that I would have said any other day of the week before this graphic was released. That this person did indeed lump "flat earth" theory along with what they considered to be the absolute most "dangerous and deranged" theories was not surprising to me in the least. The aversion to being associated with flat earthers is strong, and people who may not have any issue believing that the government is lying to them or cooperating with other governments to push through policies and ideas that the general populace may dislike, would see the association pushed that "my belief that the government is not trustworthy is adjacent to believing the earth is flat," and then move away from their reasonable distrust in the rich and powerful elite that routinely exploit their position for their own gain to avoid social alienation.

 

Ironically, the argument is made that "if you believe some of these (the ones the author considers the most dangerous) conspiracies, you usually believe most" implying that once someone believes something like "George Soros is funding operations that push a radical left-wing agenda" which is actually easily believable (why would a rich and powerful man who believes himself to be a philanthropist not put money into funding operations that support what he believes to be a path to a better world?), you magically believe the earth is flat - when in reality, you never go in that direction. If you start from believing the earth is flat, then you would likely have little issue believing most of the other conspiracies - but believing rich and powerful people abuse their power and influence has little to do with denying observable realities about our universe, like the roundness of planets. This is explicitly done to make people adverse to these theories - social pressure is very real, as we will go into shortly.

 

It's an obnoxiously obvious tactic and, unfortunately, very successful. Through this method, they more or less make "contemplating the trustworthiness of the elite" conspiratorial in itself, on par with ignoring readily available, self-evident aspects of reality - for example, we can see the round moon in the sky and assume other planetary bodies are similarly round. Flat earth theory assumes something is wildly wrong with reality itself and we are being successfully lied to about it despite having the ability to discern otherwise through methods available to the everyday person. The level of coverup necessary to hide that the earth is flat is unimaginable, while theories surrounding the "deep state" assume malicious intent and cooperation by rich and powerful people. We are implicitly led to believe these two concepts are somehow similar. "How could you believe people with unimaginable power and influence would ever lie for their own personal gain? Why, the amount of effort to cover that up is unimaginable!" is the implied messaging - we understand exactly why a flat earth doesn't hold up to scrutiny, then unintentionally apply the same levels of disbelief to the concept of the "deep state" - yet they are not similar in composition in any measurable way. It implies that discovering malicious cooperation between the ruling elite class would somehow be "easy" to discern, as easy as looking upon the moon and seeing that it is round. Politicians have been caught doing nefarious things in the past, and yet we are to believe we have simply caught them every single time? Or, sillier yet, they have simply stopped trying to do those things? The implication here is "if the government were conspiring in a bad way, we'd have simply found it out by now". It took 40 years for the Tuskgee Syphilis experiment to be exposed, but for some reason people just have incredible faith in people today to be super good at discovering corruption, somehow, for reasons.

 

Most results are due to psychological aspects

 

The important thing to remember about all this is that there is no nefarious cooperation behind the useage of "they" or language that implies intentional, malicious action being taken. It is not a shadowy cabal of people manipulating on every level the narrative and ideas that are allowed to see the light of day. The vast majority of these people are independent actors who, for the most part, are unaware that they are actually providing a valuable service to the very small number of people who desire these outcomes. 

 

Culture and ingroup preferences drive most of the behavior of the majority of people. There is plenty of evidence that people often behave in ways that benefit themselves the most, as well as the documented concept that people often adopt extreme versions (going in either direction) of their beliefs when they are openly discussed within their ingroup. Who we associate with and what we associate ourselves with directly influence what we say and think. We also have the concept of "ingroup favortism" wherein anyone perceived to be in the ingroup is given the benefit of the doubt and people in outgroups are judged more harshly. We recognize these biases and would understandably then be adverse to being classified as part of the outgroup, knowing how poorly your friends in your ingroup perceive them. You are not poor of character, of course, as no one sees themselves as the antagonist of their story, so being part of the outgroup and thus being perceived to be poor of character, is something we instinctually would seek to avoid. Last but not least for our psychological concepts, we have general "group behavior" psychology that demonstrates things like "groupthink" (not to be confused with Orwell's "doublethink"), wherein people conform their beliefs to the those of their perceived ingroup. That's right - if you feel a strong connection to a particular group, you are more likely to begin to hold the same beliefs as them regardless of the defenses and explanations you've given yourself for your previous beliefs. This is not some wild pseudo-psychology, all of these things are documented phenomena that explain the ways in which we are manipulated every day by the environment around us.

 

These phenomena are exemplified in the realm of conspiracy theory discourse. It is not so grand a global plot as people think is meant when these things are discussed, but merely the psychology of the human mind viewed on a large scale. The people in power do not orchestrate these things with the help of ritualistically indoctrinated cultist initiates that they place in office buildings around the world, they merely utilize already present psychological phenomena to their advantage. Self-interest and ingroup preference are intensely powerful psychological concepts and to believe that they could not be manipulated for the advantage of another is, again, naive. Everything is downstream of culture, you do not actually need to control very much of society at large to get control of a considerable portion of the populace - and they will not even know they have been manipulated. It is simply normal day to day psychological reactions to our environment.

It sounds crazy because we have been conditioned to believe this is not possible because of various things we've attributed to society at large. We like to believe people are naturally good, that the people have the power because we can vote, and we ignore evidence of things if they are happening too far away from us or too long ago. We recognize the nefariousness of monopolies but don't stop to question how it might be dangerous that 10 food companies control almost every other food company in the world. Even more unbelievable, this writer at Forbes shows that the totality of market power can be consolidated down to just four total companies, in control of literally everything else. To make matters worse, here is Business Insider again letting us know that just six companies control all of the mainstream media we consume. This seems very suspicious considering my earlier points about how culture has a lot of control over the everyday person. Also, if you're "conspiratorial" enough to dare think it, it appears to give credence to the idea that the news media by and large is one big "ingroup" that may, perhaps, agree on a large number of ideas.

This very concept itself (it is bad that so few companies control so much) is seen as an "antisemitic conspiracy theory", yet there is not a single mention of Jews is in these publicly available, very normal "Business Insider" articles. The front page here as I'm seeing today has no fewer than three anti-Trump articles, including a very bluntly named Op-Ed "Donald Trump Doesn't Care About You". But, I suppose Business Insider is pushing a dangerous far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory by reporting these easily researchable facts. This is actually a beautiful example of my entire point - the people who don't want you to notice these things are trying very hard to make you adverse to seeing them. The antisemitism angle comes from the very same people fighting against the general public noticing this very suspicious behavior, as a method of causing aversion toward accepting this easily verifiable fact. Because, you see, it would be antisemitic to acknowledge it. The secret, here, is that it is not antisemitic to notice these monopolies and this label is simply being used to attempt to manipulate you into not believing that this is true, or at least not believing that it could be a large problem. Because you're not an antisemite, are you?

 

Going back to the new conspiracy chart linked above, we make some interesting observations. Indeed, the author of this chart is exhibiting some grade-A ingroup preference, as at least one of the "deranged crazy" theories is easily and without a doubt verifiably true and openly admitted - the "moisturizing with foreskin". It does sound crazy if you have never heard of it before, and taking this chart at face value will undoubtedly lead you to believe it's a crazy conspiracy theory, because you were told it was (by someone maybe you believed at face value due to your own ingroup preference?). Honestly, just look up "foreskin facial". I actually can't even find anything implying an underlying conspiracy when I search "foreskin facial conspiracy". This appears to be wildly irresponsible by the maker of this chart. Another commenter has brought up that "deep state" is actually closely tied to "COINTELPRO" (something in the "proven true" list), and yet "deep state" is in the "too far gone" category. This pyramid indeed tells us more about the ingroup biases of the person who made it than it does about true conspiracy theorists who believe these particular ideas. It appears, actually, to be an example of someone whose ideas became more extreme (all things called conspiracy theories are dangerous and antisemitic) due to ingroup discussion, evidenced by the person who was brave enough to point out that "deep state" is far more reasonable than it is shown here. Anyone within the ingroup and subject to the groupthink of the group would be under heavy pressure to dismiss "deep state" as a wildly inaccurate, dangerous theory, even when maybe they see evidence for it, as the "deep state" theory is mostly owned by the "outgroup" of Trump supporters.

 

Indeed, the association of reasonable theories with wilder theories like flat earth is done on purpose to cause people in various ingroups to avoid association with what they perceive as outgroup thinking. If believing rich and powerful people cooperate under the table or that a rich person who controls 20% of everything created on earth wouldn't utilize their position for their own interests is as crazy as "science denial" like flat earth, then they must avoid association with such ideas due to social pressure and ingroup identity.  We can see the expressed disgust of the commenters when they see particularly "science denial" theories - it's demonstrably a very strong tool to create aversion within an ingroup.

People with too much power do not behave like we do

Shame and manipulation is used to get people to do, say, and believe things all the time. The disbelief comes from the idea that it could be done on such a large scale, and yet the fact of the matter is that a very small number of companies - and, thus, a very small number of people - control unimaginably vast amounts of all of the kinds of things we see and consume every day. It is much crazier to assume these incomprehensibly powerful people who control levels of wealth and influence genuinely inconceivable to poor, average schmucks like us are behaving benevolently, and not in their own self-interests. We magically, for no reason, give the benefit of the doubt to these people who are - and I cannot stress this enough - incomprehensibly powerful, because the alternative is, admittedly, kind of scary. We simply do not want to accept that it is possible that rich and powerful people could, dare I say, be mean, because if they were mean, the levels of devastation they could bring upon us are chilling.

I'm not saying definitively that these people with unimaginable wealth and influence are doing any particular sort of nefarious thing. I'm trying to make you understand that it is entirely reasonable to believe that people with such power to do literally anything they desired, could, in fact, do anything they desired. If the thing they desired to do was detrimental to the vast majority of people, well, that would be quite unfortunate for us. Is it so farfetched to believe that a single person, so powerful and capable of anything they desired, could seek a manipulated vision of a world they personally perceive as "better", despite, perhaps, many people disagreeing? Could such disgusting levels of power and influence cause certain people to maybe see the world differently than we do? The failure to grasp the implications of the absolutely vast levels of power and influence these people has comes from our complete inability to apprehend the sheer levels of influence and power they have. This, in itself, becomes "conspiratorial" simply because the vast overwhelming majority of people do not understand that people with this level of power are absolutely nothing like us. Trying to convince the average person otherwise seems "crazy", with no small part played by the earlier mentioned false consensus effect (we simply believe most people think like we do, for no reason, our brains just do that).

 

Conspiracy theories are not unique to the right-wing

 

It's important to remember that there are things that are truly "conspiracy theories", which flat earth falls into. Indeed, certain left-wing originating concepts like the Trump-Russia connection are by their own merits conspiracy theories that have been thoroughly debunked by readily available public information. The people who believe it, however, simply ignore this evidence and continue to believe there is a nefarious connection between Trump and Putin. It's possible, surely, because Trump is a politician and the government does shady stuff all the time. It's even fully understandable that they would continue to believe in it due to the exact same reasons that people continue to believe in a flat earth - you can't trust the evidence because the people providing the evidence are lying. It's interesting to point out, in fact, that the "official" Trump-Russia conspiracy theory is as debunked as the "official" JFK assassination conspiracy theory. But that does not mean nothing nefarious is happening - however, there is little to be done about it, and what remains is only speculation. 

 

Just as I believe it's possible the government was involved in JFK's assassination, but we can't really know, it's also definitely possible that Trump colluded with a foreign power, maybe Russia. But if the overwhelming evidence that's claimed to exist really did exist, he would have long been prosecuted. Everyone on every level of the government hates him. That's the difference - one side claims the evidence is there, and yet no one has been held accountable. The remaining evidence for the government's involvement in JFK's assassination is only speculative. It's actually wild to see that people who believe the Russian collusion story don't believe unilaterally in the "deep state", since such concepts would go hand in hand. What else explains why Trump hasn't been prosecuted despite these alleged mountains of evidence? Just, y'know, because reasons. Or, just maybe, it's an ingroup preference for the Russian collusion theory and prejudice against the outgroup theory of the "deep state".

 

This is what's happening on a psychological level. The people who believe in all of the debunked Trump-Russia connections are showing ingroup preference. They believe in the theory because their ingroup does, and specifically because the outgroup - Trump and by association his supporters - are of course against the theory. Seeing as they are the lying, malicious outgroup, they cannot be trusted, and may even be in on it. Conservative outlets and right-wing pundits have no issue labeling this as a conspiracy theory, but the term simply does not catch on in the mainstream because the mainstream media who published these stories for so long are also suffering from the ingroup preference, along with the same problems any other conspiracy theorist suffers when they find their beliefs debunked. Aversion to admitting you were wrong is yet another psychological issue wherein we see ourselves as the protagonists and thus, often justified and in the right. Wholesale belief in a debunked conspiracy theory, then, isn't "being embarrassingly wrong" but, rather, an understandable mistake, due to all of these such and such reasons, and thus you will likely never see news outlets that pushed this theory admit outright that they were wrong.

 

The mainstream media outlets pushing these articles are run and operated by mere humans like any one of us and thus are subject to the same psychological issues that we all fight against. There is no magical attribute that journalists possess that make them immune to the same ingroup favortism and self-benefiting preferences as any other human being. They published the stories in the first place, so the Trump-Russia connection is okay in their ingroup. We do not hesitate to point out the outgroup's failures and label them derisively, but when our ingroup fails and makes a terrible error, it's "simply a misunderstanding" and all efforts are made to explain how it's very reasonable and understandable that they would make such a mistake, downplaying any harm it's caused. It's not because there is an invisible cabal of Satanists controlling the op-eds of every single NYT journalist through threats and blackmail - it is normal, every day psychology that every one of us experiences. If they feel they are part of an ingroup, they will adhere more strongly to the perceived beliefs of that ingroup. It is why we are so easily able to pinpoint and classify which news organizations we believe have left or right leaning biases - because they do. It's absurd to believe that they do not, because they are human like any one of us and subject to the same psychological phenomena. 

What this shows is less the idea that right-leaning people are subject to believing in conspiracy theories, and more that we are all susceptible to believing things that don't have very good evidence. A recent article came out actually wherein someone said they found out their hairdresser believed in Q-Anon - and they proceeded to be no less than shocked that they weren't also a raging racist who thinks Trump is a demigod. The failure for this outgroup person (the hairdresser) to not adhere unilaterally to all of the things that the author's ingroup told her the outgroup believes should have been an eyeopener to the author that "conspiracy theorists" are regular people like anyone else and aren't living in an alternative reality. They see the same evidence, or wild speculation perhaps, that everyone else sees, but interprets it differently due to their ingroup preferences and personal biases. This quote is at the very bottom so I will copy it here to share, the author says, "The hairdresser’s take on race, and anti-Black racism specifically, did not spiral into conspiratorial territory, nor did they hail Trump as the best thing to happen to Black people. I was actually shocked to find their ideas were similar to my own." Unfortunately, most people get here and think "this wacky conspiracy theorist is saveable", and not the more correct, "every normal person is subject to influence by particular ideas (and this means even myself)".

 

Theories around conspiracy theories and why people believe them ignore that every person is capable of being swindled by a theory or ideology that plays on their own personal biases. They attempt to paint "conspiracy theorists" with a broad brush as being irreconcilably crazy - something is mentally wrong with them (per wikipedia "Research suggests that conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—may be psychologically harmful or pathological and that it is correlated with psychological projection, paranoia and Machiavellianism."), but they are simply being manipulated by the same psychological influences that every person is suffering under, but in different ways. 

 

Who people identify with plays an enormous part in how they perceive themselves. The content we view will slowly alter our own perceptions, even if we think we are "above" such things. It takes an intentional effort to avoid indoctrination - but indoctrination occurs constantly without our express permission. It is subtle and works mostly in the background - and is not due to the intentional, malicious and cooperative actions by a shadowy cabal of elites, but simply due to what is more or less a "trickle down" effect in the culture pushed by them. I personally have been pulled back and forth by close calls with radicalization toward certain ideas. My personal foundation that keeps me from from straying too far into dangerous territories is my Christian faith. Many people without a foundation - that is to say, any foundation, regardless of whether it is Christian or otherwise - will fall victim more easily. With secularism on the rise, it appears people are more subject than ever to the subtle manipulation tactics that occur every day through psychological phenomena. It is not intentionally done by a malicious actor, and sometimes we even place ourselves there.

 

It's a little overwhelming to realize that we are nearly helpless to control where narratives and biases will lead us, and many people tend to believe they are simply too clever to fall for such ruses. It would be to your extreme benefit to recognize that you are susceptible to these forces, and act accordingly when you feel like your ingroup preferences may be leading you somewhere bad.

What Does "Catholic" and Religion Mean to the General Public

The current political discourse is focused pretty heavily on President Trump's most likely choice to fill the Supreme Court seat, Amy Coney Barrett. While large numbers of arguments are bubbling up all over for every possible for and against position, one of the agreed upon main focuses for the mainstream pundits is over her religious faith. She is a Catholic who actually believes in Catholic tenants, which of course is bad according to liberals and progressives. It's not that she's Catholic persay, it's that she actually believes in and practices her Catholic faith. This results in the argument that she intends to legislate through her religious beliefs.

Many have pointed out that the problem is certainly not simply that she is religious - while there is a large number of atheists and anti-theists who claim that having religious beliefs at all is a crime against humanity, anyone who is honest is able to recognize that it's the active practice of the actual beliefs behind what it means to be Catholic that is the "problem". People who are looking only to score "debate points" ignore the obvious, well understood concept here that people are against anyone who actually believes in what they say they believe, and attempt to proclaim that, "no! of course we are not against Catholics! How absurd, clearly, honestly, how could you be so obtuse as to say we don't like Catholics!"

Anyone intellectually sincere understands that the thing that causes the disagreement is when the faithful person in question goes forward with applying their beliefs actively to their life. See, that's the "bad thing" that religious people do - when people believe there is an all powerful, all knowing, merciful but just God who created all things, who created existence itself, and has given us directions on how to navigate through the universe He created, and then apply this knowledge to their everyday existence in a way which is entirely consistent and obviously understandable when you give it more than a passing thought, that's a problem. You can have your "religious beliefs" - that is, that God has given us distinct instructions on what is good and what is bad and that these things apply to all existence at every second of every day - but don't you dare actually believe that.

So, how does this weird inconsistency happen in the first place? Amy Coney Barrett is Catholic, just like Joe Biden, even Nancy Pelosi. All of these people self-identify as Catholic. Amy Coney Barrett is the only one who causes issues, because she actually practices Catholic beliefs. But as far as intellectually dishonest left-wing pundits are concerned, all three are fully and equally Catholic. The American left doesn't have a problem with Catholics, and the followup argument that is either thinly veiled or outright proclaimed is that right-leaning pundits are making up strawmen and being insincere when they say that an anti-Catholic bias exists. Because, you see, Joe and Nancy are Catholic! So, obviously, we see there's nothing wrong with Catholics. This should seem absurd if you are capable of honest analysis - because it is. But how do people get here, to this obviously cognitive dissonant position, without seeing the issue?

The actual root problem lies in what the general public understands about what it means to have a religious belief, and especially Catholic beliefs. To understand how this inconsistent belief persists, we have to look at how people understand what it means to be both Catholic and religious. The problem is quite clear when we first realize that the common American fundamentally misunderstands what religious beliefs even are. The problem is exacerbated by the idea of the Catholic identity, which somehow manages to exist in this peculiar state as almost a separate idea from actual faithful religious beliefs. Let me explain.

America was a Christian nation at its founding. People often talk about how the colonists were seeking "religious freedom" when they came to North America, but sneakily discard the obvious fact that this religious freedom was Protestantism and not, say, Judaism or Buddhism. They didn't seek "religious freedom" so they could practice pagan tree-worship and become Wiccans - England was Catholic and the colonists wanted to be Protestant. Still explicitly Jesus worshippers - the religious freedom they sought was away from the Pope and the theocratic legal atmosphere therein. The purpose of explaining all this is to stress that Americans from their very foundation, and thus American culture from its very beginning, was Christian. This means that the every day person believed in God, spoke of God, prayed to God, and the culture was directly influenced by religious beliefs - what is basically "socially right-wing" today. A cohesive and coherent understanding of who God is was explained to children and adults every day through media, every day conversations, cultural phenomenon, and of course in church, where people actually went very often. The general cultural understanding of God and religious reality was Christian and was much more correctly understood than it is today.

This culture persisted for the next couple centuries of America's history. It has only recently begun to be dismantled, the culture only recently - within the lifetimes of people alive right now - has become abjectly secular. This means that the common man no longer genuinely believes in God as described by the bible, as this information must be sought out individually. It takes a person with intentional desire for faith-focus education to find out the reality of who God is and what it means to believe in Him. These days, it's not taught or explained to the average person without their effort. People come to understand what God is and what faith and religion are via infostreams that do not explain these concepts properly. The Christian understanding of the world is a faded echo in our culture - people use "Jesus Christ" as an expletive without even consciously realizing they're invoking the name of the savior of the world. People believe nebulously in the concept of God without believing anything consistent about Him - not even that they would believe other religion's concepts of God, but that they simply believe in God as a secular, cultural concept - a brand new concept of God that is not reflected in any formal religious understanding. These people have not engaged with religion as an important aspect of their lives and believe very generally things like "good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell" without ever reflecting any further on this idea. Absolutely no recognized religion actually believes in Heaven and Hell this way, these concepts are best described as "secular spiritualism". These people falsely identify as Christian or Catholic due to their upbringing because their parents said "we're Catholic" and then they never actually learned what any of that meant. Or, perhaps, they did learn it, but it became unlearned as they aged within our aggressively secular culture.

These secular-focused and non-Christian ideas have invaded the current culture so that much older people - say maybe 65 and older - were the last generation to experience an actual cohesive religious reality portrayed through media. As the 1970s came and went, the culture became exponentially more secular, and this ever-present general understanding of actual religious reality experienced by the average, every day person has gone away. What this means is that well meaning parents of baby boomers who experienced a constant every day culture of religious reality simply expected their children to grow up the same way, not believing they needed to put actual individual effort forth into ensuring that their children grew up with a coherent religious understanding of God and Christianity. Even people who had strong religious backgrounds growing up may quite easily, and without intending to, fall away from their faith simply because there is such a deficit in the culture of mentioning God. They simply "forget to remember" God in their day to day lives because there is nothing around them reminding them.

This overall failure to understand the importance of our existential spiritual reality that is encompassed by religious faith is the root cause of this strange phenomenon where "Catholics" like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are A-OK by democrats, in a very real and sincere belief by the general public, but Amy Coney Barrett's actual Catholic faith that she actively applies to her life, is not. To the general common man, these three people are all genuinely Catholic. It is a unique aspect to Amy Coney Barrett that she actually applies her beliefs - a concept that, to the general public, is something "people who are religious" can simply choose to turn on and off at will without their underlying spiritual commitment being affected. They in all sincerity do not understand the problem here.

The reason for this is that they don't understand what "makes" someone Catholic. The general layman understanding is, in all actuality, that someone is Catholic by way of the performance of rituals in their upbringing, by way of their parent's faith. They have a confirmation name, and thus they are Catholic. It is understood - very incorrectly - as an aspect of someone's identity in the same way that you graduated from a particular college or, to some, similar to how someone can be Jewish, but not religious. People are for example "Irish Catholic" by birth - despite the fact that Catholic identity is not connected to any race in the way that Jewish identity is, severing the importance behind the actual application of religious beliefs to their lives. "Being Catholic" is a nebulous identity with no actual important underlying aspects to the majority of Americans. 

 

Biden is Catholic because, well, he just is. He was "raised Catholic" and thus, despite not believing anything even vaguely resembling Catholicism, he simply is Catholic as a matter of identity. Barrett is equally as Catholic as Joe Biden, but she is also religious, where Biden is not. People understand this issue subconsciously but fail to fully apprehend it, thus they believe something as ridiculous as "we have nothing against Catholics don't be silly" without seeing any inconsistencies in their beliefs. Someone being Catholic is effectively meaningless, just a box you check on the census indicating a particular series of rituals performed as a child, and nothing more.

Both the people who believe they are Catholic and the secular, existential-reality denying faithless general public do not understand what someone is saying when they say they are Catholic. The concept exists of a "lapsed Catholic" which, at its base, means someone who is simultaneously Catholic and not Catholic - they were Catholic, but do not practice Catholicism anymore, yet in a subtle way they somehow remain Catholic by way of immutable identity. The very existence of the phrase "lapsed Catholic" underlines the issue here - people believe you simply are or are not Catholic by way of circumstance, not by way of genuine committed faithful adherence to a set of religious beliefs. If you've ever attended Mass or been confirmed, you're now always Catholic, allegedly. 

 

But that is not how religion - any religion - works. In fact, we simultaneously seem to believe it's possible to choose your religion due to your preferences while believing someone who was raised Catholic is simply always Catholic. You can choose to convert - religion is just a meaningless preference, like preferring Coke over Pepsi, and yet they are simultaneously concrete indicators of identity of a person. These conflicting ideas exist in the consciousness of society without reflection and people fail to recognize the issue with these inconsistencies. Religious affiliation, in fact, is so meaningless, that we take at face value every claim of religious identity. This should not be the case - if someone says they are Christian, they cannot deny all of Christianity's dogma. 

 

I am not even referring to, here, on matters of popular disagreements like gay marriages or women pastors - there is an unbelievably high number of people who identify themselves as Christians and do not even believe Jesus was a real person. There are people who claim to be pastors who genuinely believe you can actually just believe whatever you want and still go to Heaven if you are "good" - this is not a belief congruent with Christianity. There are bare basic claims Christianity makes that, if you don't believe in them, you cannot in any good conscious claim to be Christian. It would be like saying that you are a vegan, but still eat fish. There is a different name for that classification of identity, and it is not "vegan". When we allow definitions of words to exist in the general conscious that conflict directly with the understood definition of that word, the result is that we communicate nothing. In this day and age, saying that you are a Christian has effectively been made meaningless because it carries with it no consistent outline of expectation - if you can say you're a Christian and simultaneously believe that everyone goes to Heaven, then what does "Christian" even mean?

Now, in regards to the actual theological beliefs that coincide to Christianity, there are certain truth claims that are necessary to say that you believe in Christian dogma. While the cultural problem with the definition of religion in and of itself suffers from this failure to adhere to even the bare basic tenants of a religious affiliation, things like the aforementioned popular disagreements do still come into play in a very real and important way. If you believe in the truth claims made within the Christian religion, then you should, if you are being consistent, thoughtful, and intellectually honest, wind up believing particular claims made within Christianity that are not explicitly existential theological truth claims. Of course I refer to "social issues", and the social issue that is in the forefront here because of this whole current hulabaloo with Barrett is of course the issue of abortion. 

 

Catholics believe in a very specific set of theological truths in regards to God, Jesus, the spiritual world, the value and purpose of human life, salvation, and eternity. When those theological truths are applied thoughtfully, a Catholic should be staunchly against abortion. This is where the issue is coming into play - Biden and Pelosi claim to "be Catholic" in a meaningless, self-identifying sort of way, while Barrett claims to be Catholic in an actual, applied, committed way. Thus, with no actual theological beliefs about truth, the aforementioned duo are in favor of abortion on demand at any time and in any circumstance, while people are "afraid" that Barrett - because they, whether they spell it out for themselves or not, truly do understand the concept that the theological truths put forth by Catholicism ultimately comes to a conclusion where abortion is morally repugnant - will legislate from her religious beliefs against abortion.

The failure of the common man to bring beliefs to coherent conclusions is the root of this problem. The culture will pretend like you can choose a set of religious beliefs that you have, but you never speak about them, you apply them only personally to yourself, and that you should under no circumstance discuss them or apply them to the rest of your beliefs that "aren't about" religion. The very act of having a certain set of beliefs but not applying them to the rest of your thought processes is cognitive dissonance - it is inconsistent and incoherent. When you do not apply your beliefs about one thing to another thing, you wind up with inconsistent beliefs, in regards to anything. It is how hypocrisy occurs. This idea that we should keep our "religion out of politics" or "religion out of ____" is nothing more than social pressure to be hypocrites. If we were to be sincere - intellectually honest, thoughtful, self-reflective people - then we should, absolutely, under every circumstance, apply our religious beliefs to our politics and every other aspect of our lives.

The failure to recognize this comes from a failure to understand what religion is. I'll help - religion is the term we use to describe the mechanisms by which we believe the entire world operates. It would be an aggressive act of intentional mental disconnection to have the beliefs I have about God, how we got here, why we are here, who Jesus was and what He did, and what will happen to each of us when we die, and then proceed to not think about that in regards to everything else that ever happens to me or anyone else on this earth. If I believe God is active in my life, it would be nothing less than pathetically thoughtless for me to not remember that when I think about other aspects of my life. The very idea that religious beliefs, of all possible things, are somehow relegated to only discussing privately in your own head, is the most offensive scam in modern history. The purpose of religion is describing our very existence in the most fundamental possible ways. People have managed to incorrectly define and identify the purpose of religion to the point where people don't even know what it is for.

Indeed, it is more accurate to define our religious beliefs as our "worldview" - especially because there are a good number of people who claim to "not be religious" while simultaneously holding views about the fundamental reality of our existence. That is what religion is, and thus everyone is "religious" - or at least analogous to it. The modern blunder of inaccurately defining religion has led to a fractured social consciousness - it is totally normal and acceptable to simply have beliefs about things, and as long as you don't imply in any way that you believe the way you do due to your "religion" (i.e., the fundamental understanding of the cause and purpose of our existence) then people will debate you based on the merits of your beliefs. As soon as you attribute those beliefs to your religion, then it is the religion that is the problem, and you should have never applied your religion to your beliefs - despite the fact that the root cause of all belief is "religious" in nature, attributed to the worldview we have about the mechanisms through which existence functions. To say you are "not religious" is truly to say you are not self-reflective or thoughtful - you are drifting through life without ever stopping to think on the whys or hows about it.

This is how we have arrived to this nonsensical future, where anyone can say they are a Catholic and democrats can say they don't have anything against Catholicism, while simultaneously being against everything that Catholicism has to say about anything at all. The failure to adhere to a coherent understanding of the words we are using has created an epidemic of communication failures. Do not be fooled by this flimsy argument - this baseless idea that democrats are fully accepting of Catholics because particular prominent democrats "are" Catholics. The definitions they are using are different from the definitions we understand - and thus, it is fully consistent, in their minds, to make these claims. We differ fundamentally not merely on ideas of law and politics, but the very essence of what makes up our reality. This is the reason why there is such immense failure to find common ground with our ideological rivals - they are speaking a completely different language.