Been noticing that (neo)liberals, not even just fascists/conservatives, dont know what words mean. Its becoming harder and harder to talk to people when they dont know how words even work. Twice this week people have stumbled into conversations I’m having and either havent read the conversation or just only a response and fucked their way into refuting their own point.
Its driving me up a wall to have some one say “The west is liberalism personified. Its the best thing ever” for me to respond “that doesnt make any sense, how would you even justify that? what about the world wars, imperialism, slavery, 400 years of liberal history of primitive accumulation and exploitation” and then for another dipshit to come in and say “you seem to be conflating the west and liberalism commiecuck.”
What. What the fuck did you just say. That was the basis of the entire conversation. This person isnt responding to the OP, refuting the OP, and even follows the OP and likes their posts. Are these people radioactive? Is interacting with these people and dunking on them just a memetic hazard at this point?
I dont see how someone or anyone can operate on a daily basis while being unable to parse something like that. It makes me feel like these people are just bot accounts, operating purely on hallucinations post to post. And this was just one of two this week, I’ve had a few others but the brain seepage seems to be accelerating out of control.
tl;dr America is cooked when even the smug “brain geniuses” cant seem to function.
It’s hard to say if this is a lack of literacy skills and comprehension skills, or a lack of general argumentative and critical thinking skills, or just plain old stubborn ignorance and a refusal to “lose” an argument.
From my experience talking to Americans, there do seem to be a lot of people over there who will just flat out refuse to ever admit that they don’t understand something, or don’t know something, and will insist that they are “right” regardless of what the actual circumstances of the conversation are, even if they literally refute their own points, it doesn’t matter, they are right, you are wrong, shut up. It’s a culture of self-indulgence and narcissism.
So much this - as someone who lives in the US, I find some solace discussing matters with people who don’t, because apart from a few exceptions, it’s exactly like you said. There is no critical thinking, only “winning”. I try to stay grounded and remind myself that I’m not insane by interacting outside of the US.
It’s incredibly demoralizing watching the people around you actively support a fascist pedophile simply out of a complete unwillingness to admit they were wrong. Even people who I know are legitimately very intelligent cannot admit they could ever be wrong when it comes to politics specifically, and are willing to make a complete fool of themselves in the process of trying to “win”.
And no wonder, we have a culture that actively conditions that into people. It’s all about “owning the [insert political party here]”. There is no compromise, no mutual understanding, no learning, and no changing of minds. Just endless, spiteful arguing while we slowly get fucked by the rich.
I’m convinced it’s completely intentional. Americans are stupid because they’re trained to be.
I see it as extreme individualism. People have been made to think that they and their opinions not just matter, but need to be taken seriously, regardless of how misinformed or ignorant they are. And refuting their beliefs is an attack on not just those beliefs, but everything about them as a person.
I’ve heard this sort of thing described as “My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge” before.