Corporate Detox

We, the ordinary people, are forced during every waking hour to see the world from the perspective of villains. We accept that perspective as reality as much as it suits us and as little as our intellect allows us to penetrate the veil.

Similarly, there are those who watch The Sopranos and, seeing the world through Tony’s eyes, start pulling for him. His fans gloss over his faults. They focus on his struggles with his enemies. They hope he succeeds in evading the law. They cheer for murder.

Then there are those who ingest mainstream news, corporate TV, advertisements, government provided history textbooks, etc., and start pulling for the corporate interests that run America. They root for successful air strikes on Iraqi villages, think poor countries should be happy to receive exploitative loans, and get pissed off at Russia for not wanting American missiles in its backyard.

The following is a brief overview of ways to build consensus by providing perspective through discussions with fellow countrypeople on some key topics. In the end, using refined arguments may be the equivalent of decorating the pebbles you throw at Tony Soprano’s advancing tank but…(I don’t know, but I don’t know).

Nationalism

Emphasize the distinction between U.S. government and U.S. citizens.

• Ask “What is America?” (best source: common sense; correct answer: it’s us.)
• Demonstrate that the United States is not a functioning democracy. (best source: public opinion polls)
• Explain U.S. imperialist history in terms that convey the difference between normal American citizens and the decision makers who claim to represent us. (best sources: Zinn, Chomsky, etc.)
• Emphasize the Constitution. It does generally side with the people, after all, in spite of being written by rich racists. Sure, no one’s read it, but it’s good in the same way that freedom and justice are good. (best source: The Constitution)
• When Americans think about war they generally think of sexy machines nobly conquering bearded evildoers. This is a lie. For every vanquished evildoer, there are hundreds of vanquished innocents. The American people do not approve of killing civilians. They never have. Studies show it. (a source: Tom Engelhardt analyzes the U.S. government’s use of air power against civilians here.)

Religion

Corporate/government behavior is the cause of most major problems social conservatives blame on the left.

• Abortion– a socio-economic problem, the main causes being the wealth gap, the so-called drug war, and dehumanizing corporate TV programs, among other things.
• Hollywood and MTV are not pushed on us by wacky hippy liberals but by amoral corporations. You know, the rich people who own all that stuff and make the actual decisions? Dumbasses like Tom Green wouldn’t have careers without rich corporate assholes.
• Video game violence– hmm…who’s behind that? Rich corporate assholes? What do you fuckin know!
• The breakdown of the family? Rich corporate assholes.
• Homosexuality? Oh whoops, never mind. Let’s forget I mentioned it.

Economics

Kill Horatio Alger.

• Demonstrate that objective and subjective factors in SES determination are not mutually exclusive. In other words, when Mariah Carey claims to be living proof that believing in oneself and following one’s dreams (subjective factors) are sufficient to achieve superstardom, she neglects to mention the causal role played by musical DNA and the high demand for singing prostitutes (objective factors). Both are important. Similarly, confident, driven athletes are more likely to perform than self-doubting, don’t-give-a-damn athletes while genetically gifted athletes are more likely to perform than less gifted athletes. Sounds pretty obvious, no? Pathetically, the (sometimes complete) denial of objective factors’ causal role in SES determination is one of the major pillars upholding our faux meritocracy.
• Being born into poverty is the primary cause of poverty. Bad character is not.
• Objective factors such as the drug war (waged by corporations for profit) and poverty (which is what happens when corporations have all the money) are indisputably more relevant and readily addressed causes of crime than bad character, which in turn is a major cause of corporate success.

beyond good and saddam

Let’s say someone murders your best friend. (Now that’s how you start a blog post.) Your outrage overcomes you and you want the murderer hanged from the highest thing that you can hang a murderer from. Understandable, sure. In such a case, your ability to consider the series of causes that led to the murderer’s actions is limited, to say the least.  It’s inhibited by strong emotional forces.  To approach the matter with an inquisitive mind involves crossing into a state of empathy with the killer.  Your feeling of outrage toward the killer, on the other hand, is comforting.  It reaffirms your somewhat shattered world picture, that it was right and the killer’s violent intrusion wrong.  Hate of the other is glue for the self.

The concept of evil, on the other hand, doesn’t require empathy.  It doesn’t require understanding either, as it’s simply the explanation given to what can’t be understood.  It also happens to be ridiculous.

Saddam Hussein had people killed habitually because the pleasure it afforded his ego (by helping him maintain power over millions of people, among possibly other things) outweighed the displeasure it forced on his conscience.  The events of his childhood, in combination with his DNA, a number of bad habit-forming decisions, etc., culminated in an antisocial menace with a conscience smaller than his balls.  The iron law of decision making – the (un)pleasure principle – doesn’t take plays off.  It doesn’t tell the coach it needs a breather and that evil should get his ass in the game.

Even suggesting this much in mainstream American discourse is unacceptable.  It breaks the no empathy rule.  You do have to, in a very abstract way, see the world from the madman’s perspective to understand him.

The goal of Propagantidote is to analyze the emotional points of resistance that prevent people, including myself, from thinking clearly on political issues and cause them to vote against their own interests.  More on evil and the us versus them mentality in the future.

the burden of desirable consequences

If an oil company claims that its actions are unrelated to environmental change, most people sense that the oil company has something to gain and counts this fact against it.  Of course, it’s a corporate PR person’s job to mislead.  Similarly, when Roger Clemens claims he never took performance enhancing drugs, we don’t trust him because it’s in his interest to deny.  These are obvious cases of claims that are less likely to hold up to scrutiny by virtue of the perceived dubious motives of the people who make them.  Clemens has to overcome the burden of desirable consequences.

Let’s say you’re asked to consider, “Is your mom a good person?”  There are infinitely many answers to this question but the one that should be treated with the greatest skepticism – if you’re really interested in finding the most accurate answer – is any variant of “yeah, she’s awesome!” insofar as this is likely what you most want to believe.  (Of course your mom IS awesome and approaching such questions with rigorous rationality would be misguided and sad.)

One should be similarly skeptical of mice that claim cats are evil and of white, affluent, straight, male, Christians who fear brown-skinned terrorists, unions, homosexuals, women bosses, and atheists (I’m talking to you Limbaugh!).  Terrorism is no laughing matter and it may well be that women bosses are to be feared.  On the other hand, people who consistently and systematically appropriate beliefs that have desirable emotional consequences can be well described as fundamentalists.
As opposed to reflections on one’s mother’s virtues, political ideas do need to hold up to rational scrutiny.  If they don’t, they don’t need to be taken seriously.