Mr. Pinchbeck, must I remind you that QAnon is not a political movement, as much as it is a form of mass insanity? (I suggest you read The Devils of Loudun, by Aldous Huxley, if you don't have a clear idea of what that means.) Your notion that QAnon believers are capable of the kind of "self-reflection" you talk about, is incredibly nai…
Mr. Pinchbeck, must I remind you that QAnon is not a political movement, as much as it is a form of mass insanity? (I suggest you read The Devils of Loudun, by Aldous Huxley, if you don't have a clear idea of what that means.) Your notion that QAnon believers are capable of the kind of "self-reflection" you talk about, is incredibly naive, for someone of your intelligence. These people aren't just badly mistaken, they are suffering from pathological, paranoid delusions. A rational argument between peers is not possible with them, as long as they act as a group, and as long as each individual believer cannot acknowledge that they are coming from a place of traumatic suffering, that has nothing to do with politics. Only a psychological approach can help them. The flagrantly-obvious, key theme in this delusive fantasy is an obsession with pedophelia, and other forms of severe child abuse. I would wager any amount of money that the vast majority of these individuals have experienced some form of severe traumatic abuse in their own childhood, which is either totally unconscious, or has been disguised, in the form of projection onto the world. As long as they are unwilling to at least look at the nature of their suffering, the only thing that can be done is to deliberately marginalize the movement, and put individuals in jail if they break the law — which a significant portion of this cult say they are willing to do, including violent acts.
My guess is that only when they see that their life is falling apart in many ways, and that it's connected with the time they spend in the game, will they begin to ask the right questions about their suffering, instead of looking at world events for clues.
Very interesting link! But it only reinforces my contention that these people are driven by unconscious trauma, which is evoked by the pedophelia meme. What else but keeps them playing such a silly game? Jim Stewartson offers no explanation of this. No un-traumatized person has any motivation for remaining there for as long as they do. The game may well be influenced by Russians, but without the pedophelia meme, it would have fallen apart long ago.
I agree that the power of QANON feeds on sexual repression and distortions of sex energy that are endemic in our society. However I don't think that it follows that the vast majority of the 30 million who are in the QANON field to some extent are victims of devastating childhood trauma. I think people are more brittle than we think and can be inflicted with mind shadows at any age. The psychological conditioning of QANON, as Stewartson talks about, actually creates trauma-response in the individual as part of the indoctrination. I think deconditioning, deprogramming, is possible for many. Not that it is an easy task.
But as I keep trying to express, their are reasons that people have such a strong intuition that they have invisible enemies... the energy of QANON could be re-directed toward this.
I disagree. Such "redirection" will sooner or later result in another "us vs. them" conspiracy theory (in the pejorative sense), as long as these people (or any people, for that matter) deny their own shadows. Shadow-denial, both individual and collective, is what Trumpism is all about, from the word Go. In my opinion, the only conspiracies we really need to address are those which are quite obvious to anyone who has read and understood the analyses of thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, for example. I'm not saying I agree with everything Chomsky says (he neglects the spiritual aspect of reality, for example), but I agree with his fundamental critique of conspiracist reasoning.
We don't need "conspiracy theory" to see how power is operating in the world today. The tech billionaires whose wealth has skyrocketed because of the pandemic. Karl Schwab starts the new virtual WEF conf with an address from Xi Jinping. Etc. The effort is to go from gamified conspiracy theory to sensible evidence based analysis which is enough to create the basis for a legitimate global insurrection. The travesty of health care and personal debt in the US, while the financial elite grow exponentially wealthier. All people need is to reflect on what is being done to them.
Exactly, Daniel! I confess, I'm relieved to hear you say that. I obviously misunderstood, when I thought you were hoping to rationally “re-direct” the arguments of deeply paranoid people. What you say now is very close to what Chomsky has been saying for decades, about the waste of energy (at BEST) when otherwise well-balanced and intelligent dissenters (which rules out Q-Anons and their ilk) start getting fascinated, and then obsessed by conspiracies. However, the weakness in Chomsky that I see (and I surmise you might agree with me here...) is his near-total neglect of the psycho-spiritual dimensions. He, and many intellectuals like him, seem to think that institutional analysis is sufficient, and that deep psychological insight (never mind spiritual...) is of secondary importance, at best — if I’m not mistaken, Noam even said that once, pretty much… Anyway, he’s mistaken, as are all the Progressives who think like this. The psychic and spiritual aspects are crucially important, if we are to understand what makes Americans, especially, so resistant to 1) acknowledging our huge national Shadow (as many European countries have begun to do), with regard to our history, right up to recent times; and 2) acknowledging the corrupt, oligarchical nature of the “1%” that rules our economy and our government, through the corporate stranglehold on both of them. I don’t want to ramble too much here, so I’ll try to sum it all up with a personal anecdote, which reveals much of this psychological problem revolving around our collective Shadow: A few years ago, I spoke to a relative of mine — a very intelligent, well-educated woman, who began to vote (and worse, think) Republican a decade or so ago. When she accused me of being an “America-hater”, I was inspired to turn the tables: “No. Not only am I not an America-hater — my love for it is realer and deeper than yours. You cannot bear to face America’s Shadow, as I do. You, and your fellow right-wingers, cannot imagine how it is possible to face the full horror of that Shadow, and the crimes it has committed ... and yet, still love this land, and keep faith in the potential it represents. You speak for the America of Reagan, Bush, and their ilk. I speak for the America of Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, and Mark Twain."
Mr. Pinchbeck, must I remind you that QAnon is not a political movement, as much as it is a form of mass insanity? (I suggest you read The Devils of Loudun, by Aldous Huxley, if you don't have a clear idea of what that means.) Your notion that QAnon believers are capable of the kind of "self-reflection" you talk about, is incredibly naive, for someone of your intelligence. These people aren't just badly mistaken, they are suffering from pathological, paranoid delusions. A rational argument between peers is not possible with them, as long as they act as a group, and as long as each individual believer cannot acknowledge that they are coming from a place of traumatic suffering, that has nothing to do with politics. Only a psychological approach can help them. The flagrantly-obvious, key theme in this delusive fantasy is an obsession with pedophelia, and other forms of severe child abuse. I would wager any amount of money that the vast majority of these individuals have experienced some form of severe traumatic abuse in their own childhood, which is either totally unconscious, or has been disguised, in the form of projection onto the world. As long as they are unwilling to at least look at the nature of their suffering, the only thing that can be done is to deliberately marginalize the movement, and put individuals in jail if they break the law — which a significant portion of this cult say they are willing to do, including violent acts.
I think it was a carefully engineered Psy Op. This article is quite good: https://link.medium.com/L9pUOuTlodb
Whether or not people can escape from it is an interesting question.
My guess is that only when they see that their life is falling apart in many ways, and that it's connected with the time they spend in the game, will they begin to ask the right questions about their suffering, instead of looking at world events for clues.
Very interesting link! But it only reinforces my contention that these people are driven by unconscious trauma, which is evoked by the pedophelia meme. What else but keeps them playing such a silly game? Jim Stewartson offers no explanation of this. No un-traumatized person has any motivation for remaining there for as long as they do. The game may well be influenced by Russians, but without the pedophelia meme, it would have fallen apart long ago.
I agree that the power of QANON feeds on sexual repression and distortions of sex energy that are endemic in our society. However I don't think that it follows that the vast majority of the 30 million who are in the QANON field to some extent are victims of devastating childhood trauma. I think people are more brittle than we think and can be inflicted with mind shadows at any age. The psychological conditioning of QANON, as Stewartson talks about, actually creates trauma-response in the individual as part of the indoctrination. I think deconditioning, deprogramming, is possible for many. Not that it is an easy task.
But as I keep trying to express, their are reasons that people have such a strong intuition that they have invisible enemies... the energy of QANON could be re-directed toward this.
I disagree. Such "redirection" will sooner or later result in another "us vs. them" conspiracy theory (in the pejorative sense), as long as these people (or any people, for that matter) deny their own shadows. Shadow-denial, both individual and collective, is what Trumpism is all about, from the word Go. In my opinion, the only conspiracies we really need to address are those which are quite obvious to anyone who has read and understood the analyses of thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, for example. I'm not saying I agree with everything Chomsky says (he neglects the spiritual aspect of reality, for example), but I agree with his fundamental critique of conspiracist reasoning.
We don't need "conspiracy theory" to see how power is operating in the world today. The tech billionaires whose wealth has skyrocketed because of the pandemic. Karl Schwab starts the new virtual WEF conf with an address from Xi Jinping. Etc. The effort is to go from gamified conspiracy theory to sensible evidence based analysis which is enough to create the basis for a legitimate global insurrection. The travesty of health care and personal debt in the US, while the financial elite grow exponentially wealthier. All people need is to reflect on what is being done to them.
Exactly, Daniel! I confess, I'm relieved to hear you say that. I obviously misunderstood, when I thought you were hoping to rationally “re-direct” the arguments of deeply paranoid people. What you say now is very close to what Chomsky has been saying for decades, about the waste of energy (at BEST) when otherwise well-balanced and intelligent dissenters (which rules out Q-Anons and their ilk) start getting fascinated, and then obsessed by conspiracies. However, the weakness in Chomsky that I see (and I surmise you might agree with me here...) is his near-total neglect of the psycho-spiritual dimensions. He, and many intellectuals like him, seem to think that institutional analysis is sufficient, and that deep psychological insight (never mind spiritual...) is of secondary importance, at best — if I’m not mistaken, Noam even said that once, pretty much… Anyway, he’s mistaken, as are all the Progressives who think like this. The psychic and spiritual aspects are crucially important, if we are to understand what makes Americans, especially, so resistant to 1) acknowledging our huge national Shadow (as many European countries have begun to do), with regard to our history, right up to recent times; and 2) acknowledging the corrupt, oligarchical nature of the “1%” that rules our economy and our government, through the corporate stranglehold on both of them. I don’t want to ramble too much here, so I’ll try to sum it all up with a personal anecdote, which reveals much of this psychological problem revolving around our collective Shadow: A few years ago, I spoke to a relative of mine — a very intelligent, well-educated woman, who began to vote (and worse, think) Republican a decade or so ago. When she accused me of being an “America-hater”, I was inspired to turn the tables: “No. Not only am I not an America-hater — my love for it is realer and deeper than yours. You cannot bear to face America’s Shadow, as I do. You, and your fellow right-wingers, cannot imagine how it is possible to face the full horror of that Shadow, and the crimes it has committed ... and yet, still love this land, and keep faith in the potential it represents. You speak for the America of Reagan, Bush, and their ilk. I speak for the America of Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, and Mark Twain."