Musicmystery
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Joined: 3/14/2005
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1) Jesus emphasized there are two commandments: Love God, Love thy Neighbor
2) How did a thread on hysteria end up being an argument of what is Christianity?
quote:
ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Are people this gullible, or just drama queens, or just determined to be unhappy and find the blame elsewhere?
What's with all the hysteria? Not just difference of opinion -- hysteria.
Nor is it new:
- They're stealing our Christmas!
- They're ruining marriage!
- Obama is coming for your guns!
- Muslims are ready to attack at any moment!
To be fair, sure, there's hysteria on the left as well. But it's not this organized consistent talking point official hysteria: "Go riot now!"
It's...nutty, really. Willingfully ignoring factual evidence to the contrary.
Maybe it's what I do. In politics, I have opinions, like everyone else, but professionally, I have to be correct--or at least able to course correct--so that my clients see positive results. That means I'm actually *looking* for information indicating I might be off course, so I can correct early. Same thing financially -- I don't want to insist my predictions are correct: I want to be catching signs showing whether it's true or not, or has changed, so that I can adjust and continue to enjoy success.
But in politics, so many people seem committed to defending indefensible nonsense, and respond to factual evidence by:
- claiming the source is no good, so nothing there could possibility be accurate, even in part
- claiming to "know" the "truth" is just "not reported" or "under-reported" or "mis-reported" ("fake news" with no evidence it's fake)
- clinging to whatever original position they had, no matter what, no matter the evidence, no matter new information
- "refuting" primarily by sweeping dismissals (liberals, conservatives, political party, voting blocks)
- making up bizarre straw men to prop up their beliefs (ignoring anything showing otherwise).
- "Well what about _______," inserting any tangent whatsoever to avoid taking on the evidence presented (essentially meaning they can't actually refute it), but doubling down on their belief they are correct, even when this situation indicates that's unlikely.
That alone would be problematic, as no discussion or solutions will happen that have any basis in reality.
But it's not simply the stubborn close-mindedness -- it's the hysteria about insisting on it: "If we don't do this, Muslims will overrun our country, Obama will take our guns, marriage will be destroyed, Christmas will be gone, and so forth," without any justification.
Remember "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction!" Except...no, they didn't. Or "We have to be wary of Leninist/Soviet style authoritarian propagandist Russia!" while today Bannon is a self-proclaimed Leninist and Trump openly admires Putin's authoritarian style.
Was Hobbes right? Are people too weak to have democracies? Do they require kings? Trump's supporters, as a recent article shows (posted elsewhere in this forum), favor authoritarian approaches -- even as this treads on the Constitution (and defending it has become Liberal -- didn't that used to be Conservative?). And yet, aren't these the people crying "the problem is government?" Hysteria is actually ensuring that big government will become MORE of a problem.
It makes no sense. Of course, hysteria never does.
But I can't see that it furthers anyone's interests, other than convincing themselves of their own misinformation.
And that does not yield successful results.
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RE: What is it with the hysteria? - 
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