The eco-socialists are not above trying to manipulate your emotions to get you to do what they want. Didn’t nagging moms do this? And how well did it work as you got older?
My Mom was a master but once I hit my mid-teens, I just gave her a surly look and she realized that her #1 technique to get me to do something was no longer effective.
Treehuggers, however, think they can “nudge” (a la Obama’s Cass Sunstein who believed that Government SHOULD manipulate you into doing the things they thought were “right”) adults as if we all are little children (emphasis mine):
Guilt Is Good for Fixing the Climate
Rather than dismissing the use of guilt or shame, we should instead learn to understand how they work.
Yep, they are not above making you feel bad about yourself ALL THE TIME. What a way to go through life – and what a life to live whose only purpose is to make other people feel bad about themselves.
…When I was writing my upcoming book last year, I interviewed Jennifer Jacquet—author of the book “Is Shame Necessary?”—about whether guilt and shame can be useful in generating meaningful social change. Her response was unequivocal: She told me that these emotions have gotten a bad rap. Rather than dismissing the use of guilt or shame, we should instead learn to understand how they work, and we should harness them as one part of a broader emotional toolbox:
E.g., for THEIR Eco-Socialist Agenda and not just what we used to think of as traditional mores or norms. Norms are Society’s version of Laws – keeping people from doing bad things. Here, however, they want to, as the Left is wont to do, CHANGE those norms. And it is ALL about punishment as they realize that they have no carrot to offer in getting people to live with less:
Guilt is the best way to regulate society and individual behavior because it’s the cheapest form of punishment. If you think about it from a game theory perspective, punishment is costly. You have to take some sort of risk, or pay for a state apparatus to do punishment. If you can get the individual to regulate their own behavior through what we would call a conscience, and if you can get them to internalize social norms, then that’s ideal. But anyone who’s a parent knows there are a lot of stages to actually achieving that.
And there you go – THEY are the parents and we are the mere toddlers to be manipulate. And note, too, the idea that punishment is just a tool – and not even one to be used just lightly. Torturers look upon punishment and pain as “mere tools” to get what they want – you can take THAT statement anyway you want.
In other words, it would actually be quite helpful if more of us felt more guilty more of the time about the less-than-optimal choices we make. (This is especially true for people in positions of power.) The trouble, however, is not just how to generate new social norms where polluting behaviors are frowned on, but also how to do so without distracting us from what matters most.
You see, they aren’t happy with the norms YOU currently follow – like all good Socialists, they want to replace YOUR’S that may make you often happy with THEIR’S that make you feel bad. Such a choice?
And here is where they really let it all hang out:
…We can and must move beyond whether this or that emotion is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for our cause. The climate crisis is all-encompassing, and our responses are going to need to be all-encompassing too. The trick is not whether to harness a particular emotion, but rather what do I harness it for, and what will the likely outcome be?
I predict utter rage from adults that will go “HELL No!” when they realize what is being done to them (and as an aside, make no doubt about it – the Biden Administration is trying to change ALL of our norms all at once). Several of us let the writer, Sami Grover, know that this is doomed to failure:
Vindaloo Bugaboo (aka, VB): Shaming only works on weak-minded people, Sami.
Thank you for finding my previous comments important enough to write a whole new post covering the topic, but your argument is fraught with all kinds of errors – errors which I do not care to expound upon via correction.
What I will say is that of logos, ethos, and pathos, quite often the debate you and others here make for addressing climate change ignore entirely the realm of logos, attempts to justify the veracity of the claimed ethos, and relies wholly upon pathos (i.e. the “feels”) to denigrate, coerce, and effect change. Until you understand those three and how people respond to each one, you’re going to continue to fail.
There’s also a difference between being authentic and being psychopathic, relying on charm and manipulation to achieve one’s end goals. Those who aren’t weak-minded can see through the charm and manipulation and will stand against it; those who are, will not, and instead become useful pawns for others to sow dissention and malcontent.
I upvoted that. However, there were three people who downvoted that – proving that these folks have no problem in forcefully adjusting your outlook on life (instead of leaving you alone). What kinds of people ARE these? At the sake of breaking Godwin’s Law, I ask: are they vying to be Emotional Nazis in trying to remake you into some Frankenstein of their own design – making you not you any more?
Indeed, VB. Most of the people I hang with aren’t going to put up with being emotionally manipulated – exactly what Sami is saying a “common good” because “agenda”.
I’m actually rather horrified that otherwise nice sounding people would revert to becoming mere “emotional abusers” to achieve such an agenda.
Really, Sami, you really want to go there? Way to kill off “trust”.
There’s already a lack of trust in a lot of institutions today and much of it goes back to them trying to manipulate the masses for their own purposes. People see that and go “Up Yours!“.
And I think that is a splendid way to end this comment.
The only thing that I’m surprised about is that they let the comment stand.
I look around and it is clear that this is one of the Left’s main tools – changing our norms to them. Just look at the names they call us: xenophobe, Christianist, climate denier, misogynist, homohobe, transphobe, RACIST. All of these (and a lot more, a LOT more) are all meant to induce guilt and shame even as we follow traditional norms. Vary even a tittle (of “jot or” fame) from theirs and you are scum of the earth. OUR norms are not to be used to defend ourselves with – only theirs matter. It IS the Way.
Or, theirs, anyways.
That’s why, long ago, I started to just laugh at them every time they tried it. Except for the most hard core of them, they got this deer-in-headlight look on their face, completely astonished that 1) someone didn’t feel guilty, 2) didn’t wholeheartedly accept their premise, and 3) had no idea how to handle someone ridiculing / laughing at them.
And that’s the best time to have a camera on them (hopefully by a friend) to catch the next bit in which they start saying REALLY stupid things as you continue to logically keep “poking them with their own emotional stick”.