Fear of other people's fear is completely rational. The meta fear is that those with primary fear will allow (call for, even) rights to be dismantled in the name of security.
There's research pointing out "the paranoid style" is everywhere in the world, just controlled or checked to various extents in different places and different times. Still a good read for perspective.
The most interesting part of this article is there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence that the paranoid people were wrong. Europe has spent most of the last 200 years under the control of a relatively small number of families and it is just common sense that there would be conspiracies to seize control of the US government and change its ideology. People debate which of them should gain the ascendancy every election.
> John Robison ... saw [the Masons] as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights...
That is a pretty accurate description of where Europe ended up in the 1900s to today, so it seems a unreasonable to dismiss the man out of hand. 100 years for a big social project isn't that long a time given how slowly the world moved back then. It is reasonable to say that the Masons might have been a benign organisation - but they also might not have been. There is no contest that groups in Europe were trying and succeeding to push in that direction. The communists had their big breakout in the 1900s but the personality type always has and will exist and the intellectual groundwork was being laid at least as early as the 1850s.
There is this weird social dynamic where people dismiss the idea that radical change is possible in foresight then shrug it off and basically don't care in hindsight. It results in remarkably small groups being able to achieve some incredible things, but it is a bit frustrating an attitude to argue with.
>The other problem is special pleading - the author adds more and more conditions on what constitutes the "paranoid style", until he's able to isolate the phenomenon to mostly the right half of the political spectrum. Meanwhile one can make a career of blaming everything on capitalism, colonialism, racism, or whiteness [1], and remain safely in the clear.
The author already answered in the second paragraph:
"Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content."
Or here:
"In the history of the United States one find it, for example, in the anti-Masonic movement, the nativist and anti-Catholic movement, in certain spokesmen of abolitionism who regarded the United States as being in the grip of a slaveholders’ conspiracy, in many alarmists about the Mormons, in some Greenback and Populist writers who constructed a great conspiracy of international bankers, in the exposure of a munitions makers’ conspiracy of World War I, in the popular left-wing press, in the contemporary American right wing, and on both sides of the race controversy today, among White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims."
>Meanwhile one can make a career of blaming everything on capitalism, colonialism, racism, or whiteness [1], and remain safely in the clear.
Yeah, there is a difference between blaming things on a shadowy tiny hidden cabal of vaguely-defined conspirators whose existence you don't even attempt to prove, and blaming... you know... the people actually in charge.
I mean, the people in power during most of the last centuries and decades have been white, racist, colonialist and capitalists. That's a fact. That is how they defined themselves openly.
So, you are in effect saying that "reality has a well-known liberal bias".
>the immigration policy of the US is to make whites a minority
Did the immigration policy of the US was to make WASPs a minority? Time to deport or lynch those Papist "Guidos" and "Wops" before they destroy America, I guess.
>hope everyone forgets the former group, who has by now been proven correct
You post is just pure white racism: you openly wish the demographics of the USA to stay White forever. Because... Well, please do tell us why the USA must be majority White (a category Italians now belong, which wasn't the case before) forever.
But thank you for missing totally the point of this submission, which isn't about disagreements in policy or worldview, but turning to paranoid thinking that the other side doesn't do things because they manage to convince others in an open debate, but because they are "traitors" using "under-handed tricks" in secret to destroy the USA.
What seems uniquely american is less paranoia but meta-paranoia, a fear of other people's fear.
Fear of other people's fear is completely rational. The meta fear is that those with primary fear will allow (call for, even) rights to be dismantled in the name of security.
A scared dog is the most likely to bite.
There's research pointing out "the paranoid style" is everywhere in the world, just controlled or checked to various extents in different places and different times. Still a good read for perspective.
Sure, but the paranoid style in politics will manifest differently in different cultures. This is about the Paranoid style in American Politics.
Never going to NOT upvote this. Essential read on the US.
I first read this after hearing the band, The Paranoid Style.
Thanks for sharing this paper
The most interesting part of this article is there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence that the paranoid people were wrong. Europe has spent most of the last 200 years under the control of a relatively small number of families and it is just common sense that there would be conspiracies to seize control of the US government and change its ideology. People debate which of them should gain the ascendancy every election.
> John Robison ... saw [the Masons] as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights...
That is a pretty accurate description of where Europe ended up in the 1900s to today, so it seems a unreasonable to dismiss the man out of hand. 100 years for a big social project isn't that long a time given how slowly the world moved back then. It is reasonable to say that the Masons might have been a benign organisation - but they also might not have been. There is no contest that groups in Europe were trying and succeeding to push in that direction. The communists had their big breakout in the 1900s but the personality type always has and will exist and the intellectual groundwork was being laid at least as early as the 1850s.
There is this weird social dynamic where people dismiss the idea that radical change is possible in foresight then shrug it off and basically don't care in hindsight. It results in remarkably small groups being able to achieve some incredible things, but it is a bit frustrating an attitude to argue with.
Your post is like listing all the Jewish people in showbiz and politics to show that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion "might be reasonable".
>That is a pretty accurate description of where Europe ended up in the 1900s to today
Yes, women in Europe are very corrupted. Amazing insight there.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.
Indeed: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o...
My dad had a fun twist on this:
"I'm not paranoid, but there's a bunch of paranoid people following me around."
Overheard among insane asylum staff:
"Have you heard about the new guy Joe?"
"Yeah, he's the guy who thinks people are always talking about him, right?"
"Boy, what a nutcase."
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>The other problem is special pleading - the author adds more and more conditions on what constitutes the "paranoid style", until he's able to isolate the phenomenon to mostly the right half of the political spectrum. Meanwhile one can make a career of blaming everything on capitalism, colonialism, racism, or whiteness [1], and remain safely in the clear.
The author already answered in the second paragraph:
"Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content."
Or here:
"In the history of the United States one find it, for example, in the anti-Masonic movement, the nativist and anti-Catholic movement, in certain spokesmen of abolitionism who regarded the United States as being in the grip of a slaveholders’ conspiracy, in many alarmists about the Mormons, in some Greenback and Populist writers who constructed a great conspiracy of international bankers, in the exposure of a munitions makers’ conspiracy of World War I, in the popular left-wing press, in the contemporary American right wing, and on both sides of the race controversy today, among White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims."
>Meanwhile one can make a career of blaming everything on capitalism, colonialism, racism, or whiteness [1], and remain safely in the clear.
Yeah, there is a difference between blaming things on a shadowy tiny hidden cabal of vaguely-defined conspirators whose existence you don't even attempt to prove, and blaming... you know... the people actually in charge.
I mean, the people in power during most of the last centuries and decades have been white, racist, colonialist and capitalists. That's a fact. That is how they defined themselves openly.
So, you are in effect saying that "reality has a well-known liberal bias".
[flagged]
I'm confused by how you are so sure the author would disagree with your assessment.
>the immigration policy of the US is to make whites a minority
Did the immigration policy of the US was to make WASPs a minority? Time to deport or lynch those Papist "Guidos" and "Wops" before they destroy America, I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Italianism
>hope everyone forgets the former group, who has by now been proven correct
You post is just pure white racism: you openly wish the demographics of the USA to stay White forever. Because... Well, please do tell us why the USA must be majority White (a category Italians now belong, which wasn't the case before) forever.
But thank you for missing totally the point of this submission, which isn't about disagreements in policy or worldview, but turning to paranoid thinking that the other side doesn't do things because they manage to convince others in an open debate, but because they are "traitors" using "under-handed tricks" in secret to destroy the USA.