Jul 19, 2022·edited Jul 19, 2022Liked by Mark Changizi
Most of our opponents, many even friends and family, have no idea they've been manipulated by very powerful forces and science - behavioral science - to think and believe as they do. They sincerely believe they are the ones protecting civil liberties and freedom. Authoritarian regimes practice very clever wordplay and use symbolism to convince the masses they are virtuous in compelling obedience in their communities. Our friends, families, colleagues and strangers alike are all victims. Victims of their own trusting nature. Which is what authoritarians know and count on to rule. It's often hard to summon the compassion and patience necessary to bring them back to our bedrock national values of liberty and freedom.
Excerpts follow from an article describing who rebels against authoritarianism to protect civil liberties. Many readers of your Substack are in this category. But the science says we are in a minority in a society under the types of duress and coercion ours is today.
In my comment below I'll link to a resource that I have found useful in helping my communication strategies to reach our misguided and deceived friends and strangers alike.
Would You Stand Up to an Authoritarian Regime or Conform? Here's The Science
"...Human social interactions depend on our tendency to conform to unwritten rules of appropriate behaviour. Most of us are truthful, polite, don't cheat when playing board games and follow etiquette. We are happy to let judges or football referees enforce rules. A recent study showed we even conform to arbitrary norms.
The logic of appropriateness is self-enforcing – we disapprove of, ostracise or report people who lie or cheat. Research has shown that even in anonymous, experimental "games", people will pay a monetary cost to punish other people for being uncooperative.
The logic of appropriateness is therefore crucial to understanding how we can organise ourselves into teams, companies and entire nations. We need shared systems of rules to cooperate – it is easy to see how evolution may have shaped this.
The psychological foundations for this start early. Children as young as three will protest if arbitrary "rules" of a game are violated. And we all know how punishing it can be to "stick out" in a playground by violating norms of dress, accent or behaviour.
Authoritarian regimes
Both logics are required to create and maintain an authoritarian regime. To ensure that we make the "right" personal choices, an oppressive state's main tools are carrots and sticks – rewarding conformity and punishing even a hint of rebellion....
But personal gain (or survival) alone provides a fragile foundation for an oppressive state. It is easy to see how the logic of appropriateness fits in here, turning from being a force for cooperation to a mechanism for enforcing an oppressive status quo.
This logic asks that we follow the "rules" and make sure others do too – often without needing to ask why the rules are the way they are....
The authoritarian state is therefore concerned above all with preserving ideology – defining the "right" way to think and behave – so that we can unquestioningly conform to it.
This can certainly help explain the horrors of Nazi Germany – showing it's not primarily a matter of individual evil. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt famously argued, the atrocities of the Holocaust were made possible by normal people, manipulated into conforming to a horribly abnormal set of behavioural norms....
Would you rebel?
So how would you or I fair in Gilead? We can be fairly confident that most of us would conform (with more or less discomfort), finding it difficult to shake the feeling that the way things are done is the right and appropriate way....
A small number of us, however, would rebel – but not primarily, I suspect, based on differences in individual moral character. Rebels, too, need to harness the logic of appropriateness – they need to find different norms and ideals, shared with fellow members of the resistance, or inspired by history or literature. Breaking out of one set of norms requires that we have an available alternative.
That said, some people may have more naturally non-conformist personalities than others, at least in periods of their lives. Whether such rebels are successful in breaking out, however, may partly depend on how convincingly they can justify to themselves, and defend to others, that we don't want to conform....
How we react to unfairness may also affect our propensity to rebel. One study found that people who are risk averse and easily trust others are less likely to react strongly to unfairness. While not proven in the study, it may make such individuals more likely to conform.
Another factor is social circumstances. The upper and middle classes in Germany during the 1920s-1940s were almost twice as likely to join the Nazi party than those with lower social status.
So it may be that those who have the most to lose and/or are keen to climb the social ladder are particularly likely to conform. And, of course, if other members of your social circle are conforming, you may think it's the "appropriate" thing to do.
Few will fight Gilead after carefully weighing up the consequences – after all, the most likely outcome is failure and obliteration. What drives forward fights against an oppressive society is a rival vision – a vision of equality, liberty and justice, and a sense that these should be defended, whatever the consequences."
Most of our opponents, many even friends and family, have no idea they've been manipulated by very powerful forces and science - behavioral science - to think and believe as they do. They sincerely believe they are the ones protecting civil liberties and freedom. Authoritarian regimes practice very clever wordplay and use symbolism to convince the masses they are virtuous in compelling obedience in their communities. Our friends, families, colleagues and strangers alike are all victims. Victims of their own trusting nature. Which is what authoritarians know and count on to rule. It's often hard to summon the compassion and patience necessary to bring them back to our bedrock national values of liberty and freedom.
Excerpts follow from an article describing who rebels against authoritarianism to protect civil liberties. Many readers of your Substack are in this category. But the science says we are in a minority in a society under the types of duress and coercion ours is today.
In my comment below I'll link to a resource that I have found useful in helping my communication strategies to reach our misguided and deceived friends and strangers alike.
Would You Stand Up to an Authoritarian Regime or Conform? Here's The Science
Science Alert, October 12, 2019
https://www.sciencealert.com/would-you-stand-up-to-an-authoritarian-regime-or-conform-here-s-the-science
"...Human social interactions depend on our tendency to conform to unwritten rules of appropriate behaviour. Most of us are truthful, polite, don't cheat when playing board games and follow etiquette. We are happy to let judges or football referees enforce rules. A recent study showed we even conform to arbitrary norms.
The logic of appropriateness is self-enforcing – we disapprove of, ostracise or report people who lie or cheat. Research has shown that even in anonymous, experimental "games", people will pay a monetary cost to punish other people for being uncooperative.
The logic of appropriateness is therefore crucial to understanding how we can organise ourselves into teams, companies and entire nations. We need shared systems of rules to cooperate – it is easy to see how evolution may have shaped this.
The psychological foundations for this start early. Children as young as three will protest if arbitrary "rules" of a game are violated. And we all know how punishing it can be to "stick out" in a playground by violating norms of dress, accent or behaviour.
Authoritarian regimes
Both logics are required to create and maintain an authoritarian regime. To ensure that we make the "right" personal choices, an oppressive state's main tools are carrots and sticks – rewarding conformity and punishing even a hint of rebellion....
But personal gain (or survival) alone provides a fragile foundation for an oppressive state. It is easy to see how the logic of appropriateness fits in here, turning from being a force for cooperation to a mechanism for enforcing an oppressive status quo.
This logic asks that we follow the "rules" and make sure others do too – often without needing to ask why the rules are the way they are....
The authoritarian state is therefore concerned above all with preserving ideology – defining the "right" way to think and behave – so that we can unquestioningly conform to it.
This can certainly help explain the horrors of Nazi Germany – showing it's not primarily a matter of individual evil. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt famously argued, the atrocities of the Holocaust were made possible by normal people, manipulated into conforming to a horribly abnormal set of behavioural norms....
Would you rebel?
So how would you or I fair in Gilead? We can be fairly confident that most of us would conform (with more or less discomfort), finding it difficult to shake the feeling that the way things are done is the right and appropriate way....
A small number of us, however, would rebel – but not primarily, I suspect, based on differences in individual moral character. Rebels, too, need to harness the logic of appropriateness – they need to find different norms and ideals, shared with fellow members of the resistance, or inspired by history or literature. Breaking out of one set of norms requires that we have an available alternative.
That said, some people may have more naturally non-conformist personalities than others, at least in periods of their lives. Whether such rebels are successful in breaking out, however, may partly depend on how convincingly they can justify to themselves, and defend to others, that we don't want to conform....
How we react to unfairness may also affect our propensity to rebel. One study found that people who are risk averse and easily trust others are less likely to react strongly to unfairness. While not proven in the study, it may make such individuals more likely to conform.
Another factor is social circumstances. The upper and middle classes in Germany during the 1920s-1940s were almost twice as likely to join the Nazi party than those with lower social status.
So it may be that those who have the most to lose and/or are keen to climb the social ladder are particularly likely to conform. And, of course, if other members of your social circle are conforming, you may think it's the "appropriate" thing to do.
Few will fight Gilead after carefully weighing up the consequences – after all, the most likely outcome is failure and obliteration. What drives forward fights against an oppressive society is a rival vision – a vision of equality, liberty and justice, and a sense that these should be defended, whatever the consequences."
The word 'civil liberties' was introduced not long ago as a way to subvert the concept of liberty.
The word is just liberty.
'Civil' liberties are anti-liberties created by the corrupted state.
They've been doing the word perversion for a long time.