In my essay The Right to Disagree at Urban Scoop I’d re-coined (having used it on my old blog) the term “Thought Splinters” which I define as short memes or questions (e.g., in a discussion) that – if they have an effect – are not meant to immediately convince someone of something, but rather be nagging little things that sooner or later fester intellectually and, hopefully, require addressing by conscious thought and research.
The whole thing being that while everyone has shields against thoughts outside their narrative, Thought Splinters are not bazookas attempting brute-force penetration – but rather minor irritants that slip through cracks in the shield; once in, they fester and irritate until they are taken out and examined. Building off the internet meme:
(Image source)
Similarly, a Thought Splinter that has been inserted into a conversation cannot be un-remembered, especially if formed as a non-yes/no question. Who, what, where, when, why, or how.
In this essay I’m going to collate a number of Thought Splinters through my life as key things in my move from Left to Right. But first, a little biographical information.
I was born in the “People’s Republic of Massachusetts” and grew up in the uber-liberal city of Cambridge. Both my parents were liberals – my father was more-or-less an FDR liberal, but I’d bet money my mother was a true-blue Socialist. She even subscribed me to that rag The Nation for a time. Now understand, I was as Democrat as it gets growing up. Name a Democrat position, I was on board. Don’t blame me – just as a fish doesn’t recognize it’s in water, I didn’t recognize I was in an ideological extreme environment. It was perfectly logical for me to agree with the Left position, as everyone I knew agreed as well. (The one exception: I had a crush on a girl at synagogue and wanted to ask her out, but my parents nixed it because “They’re… they’re… they’re Republicans” which, at the time, was one step away from evil incarnate. Enough for me to drop it. Alas, Dina, what might have been. *Sigh*)
But even then, some things didn’t strike me as “quite right”; time and again I found myself differing from the orthodoxy on some things. Now don’t mistake me: I was still a Democrat, but as I grew up, went to college, worked, then to grad school, worked more, numerous Thought Splinters occurred to irritate my mind and forced me to examine what I believed… resulting in shifts from Left to Right.
NO NUKES
I’ve always had an interest in nuclear energy and in a different life might well have pursued that interest as a nuclear engineering student (apparently U Mass / Lowell actually has a program). Because of that interest from early on, my (now late) sister gave me a book on nuclear engineering written for kids. Also, my (late) mother subscribed me to Fusion Magazine for several years.
So at the time the construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant was opposed by the Clamshell Alliance, and it was big-big-big in discussions in the social circles traveled by my parents. Most people I knew were very active members. As it happened, a local loonie-Leftie fellow high school student wrote a factually inaccurate screed against the plant for our newspaper, and… I had to respond in what was, IIRC, my very first letter to the editor. I countered his “misstatements” about nuclear power, and there I was – opposing The Narrative that nuclear power was bad.
But it was deeper than that. It was an awakening, in my looking at that letter and the Clamshell Alliance’s agitprop, that people were willing to lie, or at least cite untruths, in wanting to achieve their political goals. In parallel, even as the Union of Concerned Scientists had a speaker at our high school promoting total nuclear disarmament, and America’s need to “set the example” by doing so first, I was astonished at peoples’ naive responses when I would ask “What if the Soviets don’t”?
Thought Splinter: Are people really willing to distort or even lie to mislead others to cite those lies unvetted, to push their own agenda?
(Note: I cannot claim to have never cited information that later turned out to be untrue. But in all my essays I have never knowingly deceived… I always attempt to caveat what I do not know to be definitively true, and on the occasions where I’ve learned I’m wrong, I admit it. Humility… vs. Vanity, something on which I’ve repeatedly posted.)
And let’s not forget Walter Cronkite lying about the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, something that was a lynchpin in our eventual loss there.
A POLICE OFFICER’S RECOMMENDATION
To save time, I actually wrote about this experience here (back when I was guest blogging before I went and created my own blog, which is “because long story” now defunct – all formatting and links in original):
I was living in the Midwest when my police officer neighbor remarked that I should get a gun for self-defense. Having been raised, all my life, to believe that civilian gun ownership was wrong, it shocked me to my core that – of all people – a cop was telling me this.
Unlike most Leftists – and have no doubt that I still was one – I didn’t dismiss this as a flier data point stated by a knuckledraggingslopedforeheadredneck, but rather it made me think those great two words that often stand at the threshold of a new insight: That’s weird…
I started to pay more attention to the ads being put forth by the gun control lobby; data that, hitherto for, I had accepted at face value because they matched what I already thought (i.e., confirmation bias). I wrote to the NRA and what was then Handgun Control Inc. I would follow up with requests for more information on specific topics; e.g., I’d get something from one side, so I’d write the other side for their data on the same topic. I wrote to the researchers whose works were being cited to ask follow-up questions based on their works (most responded!). And I’d cross-check, compare, and lo and behold, I realized something very fundamental – something that, of course, the Rightward side already knows: In virtually every instance, the NRA was far more accurate and complete in its picture.
One egregious example was this famous ad [image shown under the section header] by gun controllers (multiple versions exist). Utterly convincing on its gut-reaction face, upon considered reflection I realized it did not normalize for the population size. Just that fact alone made me suspicious; years later I heard the phrase “Local instability means global instability” as related to my career – the same holds true for propaganda: once a side is shown to be not just biased (after all, every side puts forth information sympathetic to its argument!), but outright deceptive, all credibility falls away. I, like most people, have a strong aversion to being intentionally lied to.
As a result of this revelation, not only did I switch from being a ban-them-all gun controller, but it was one of the defining moments in my move away from the Left and towards the Right.
Thought Splinter: A cop telling me to get a gun for self-defense.
A BUMPER STICKER
I was pro-choice all my life. At least, right up until the time I was at the post office one day and I saw a bumper sticker:
(Image source)
Talk about the perfect Thought Splinter. It invaded my mind and I could not stop thinking about it. Understand, at the time, I was an atheist and – as I evolved politically – still in my libertarian phase. Personal choice and individual freedom? I was all over that. But this simple bumper sticker irritated me – it festered in my mind until I had to turn on it to address and resolve the irritation and dissonance it was causing me.
And while I was still an atheist as I wrestled with it, I found this concept, below – a graphic from much later – to be one of the perfect embodiments of the difficulty I had in remaining pro-choice as I realized that it was only the perception of the baby inside as non-human, just as my relatives and co-religionists in the Shoah were considered non-human, that allows abortion to continue.
Later, as I saw the first ultrasound of my older child and a few grains of static of that baby’s heart jumping on the monitor display along with the sound from the speakers, I broke down. Understand, I tend to be pretty stoic and unemotional. I wept openly at the joy of that sight as I realized I was soon to be given the ultimate responsibility: fatherhood.
Thought Splinter: A bumper sticker with a very simple message.
DEPOPULATION AGENDA
For the majority of my adult life I’ve been very concerned about the growth of the human population of the planet. I suppose that I still am, or at least I’m concerned that there is a naïve belief that nature is something to be plundered, but my membership in the Zero Population Growth movement has long, long, long since expired. It was a shock to me to discover that there really is a voluntary human extinction movement. Going far beyond even ZPG, this is a drive to see humanity choose to go extinct. But there really are people that not just want this but applaud it. Consider being in an auditorium where people give a standing ovation to a person who predicted and lauded the death of 90% of the humans alive:
An audience at the Texas Academy of Science was given a disturbing view into the mind and morals of a respected scientist on March 3 when Eric Pianka accepted the academy’s 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award.
Pianka, a professor at the University of Texas, described human beings as a “scourge” on the Earth, called for a police state to ensure mandatory sterilization of all U.S. citizens, and rooted for the lethal Ebola virus to mutate into an airborne form that might kill 90 percent of the people on Earth.
…
The most disturbing aspect of the speech, according to Mims, was not Pianka’s ideas, but rather the reaction of the university students and so-called intelligentsia in attendance.
Observed Mims, “There was a gravely disturbing side to that otherwise scientifically significant meeting, for I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth’s population by airborne Ebola.”
The ovation was nearly unanimous, Mims notes. “Almost every scientist, professor, and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90 percent of the human population,” Mims wrote. “Some even cheered. Dozens then mobbed the professor at the lectern to extend greetings and ask questions. … Five hours later, the distinguished leaders of the Texas Academy of Science presented Pianka with a plaque in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.”
It was hearing about this that made me suddenly start giving credence to those whom I’d formerly dismissed as utter loons, as in this interview with Jesse Ventura and Dr. Rima Laibow:
https://youtu.be/bi65Yor0Lco?t=42
What a whackjob! is what I thought when I first viewed this. Except, in light of other data, such as contained in my discussions here and subsequently here; the video, in the second link, has the former President of Malaysia speaking about the need to “kill many billions”. And then there’s this showing they’ve been planning population growth stopping / slowing for decades:
Poisoning The Food Supply | Real Climate Science
With this video in the comments:
Thought Splinter: Could there really be a plan to depopulate the earth? If not, how do I dismiss data and public statements like the above?
To be continued in Part II.
(Header image source)
