Donald Trump's decision to declassify evidence given by ex-British spy Christopher Steele over the former president's alleged links with Russia led to the disappearance of two sources, Steele said.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Carl Sagan
I’m not disagreeing with you btw, just felt this quote from one of my favorite people ever was appropriate. I can literally hear him speaking this in my head.
It’s a good quote, but something that doesn’t sit quite right with me is that it seems to be excusing people for being bamboozled. I get that there are situations where the charlatan has some existing power over their victim - the victim depends on them for food, shelter, security, something they really cannot do without for very long, and have limited capability of acquiring without the charlatan providing it.
These American Fascists are not that. They watch TV. They listen to the radio. They go online. They seek out the content that resonates with them. They are not victims.
Many of them are looking for comfort in the otherwise precarious economic existence that out capitalist society has imposed on most of us. There are a lot more victims of bad circumstances that make them vulnerable to propaganda, than a lot of us want to admit. But there are also a lot of bigots, racists, and high scoring sociopaths in the mix.
The right wing has embraced most of the latter group. And the not insignificant bamboozled group may be stuck for the reason Sagan described.
I always took Sagan’s quote to be about religion, and that’s the tactic the Right has taken in their indoctrination too.
There is, I suppose, a certain level of control when an “in group / out group” mentality has been created, and where failure to join the in group excludes you from it in essentially all aspects of your life. Or when the in group makes it clear that they are willing to perform acts of violence against the out group.
Maybe that’s where we are now, but that’s not where we started.
I think Carl would be disgusted with where we’re at today if he were still alive, and he may want to revise the quote to be more fitting in today’s landscape.
Some of them are victims though I believe. Victims of being uneducated, which, of course, is by design. Many, or most, probably, are not victims, and choose to be ignorant, malicious, and filled with misplaced hatred.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Carl Sagan
I’m not disagreeing with you btw, just felt this quote from one of my favorite people ever was appropriate. I can literally hear him speaking this in my head.
It’s a good quote, but something that doesn’t sit quite right with me is that it seems to be excusing people for being bamboozled. I get that there are situations where the charlatan has some existing power over their victim - the victim depends on them for food, shelter, security, something they really cannot do without for very long, and have limited capability of acquiring without the charlatan providing it.
These American Fascists are not that. They watch TV. They listen to the radio. They go online. They seek out the content that resonates with them. They are not victims.
Many of them are looking for comfort in the otherwise precarious economic existence that out capitalist society has imposed on most of us. There are a lot more victims of bad circumstances that make them vulnerable to propaganda, than a lot of us want to admit. But there are also a lot of bigots, racists, and high scoring sociopaths in the mix.
The right wing has embraced most of the latter group. And the not insignificant bamboozled group may be stuck for the reason Sagan described.
I always took Sagan’s quote to be about religion, and that’s the tactic the Right has taken in their indoctrination too.
There is, I suppose, a certain level of control when an “in group / out group” mentality has been created, and where failure to join the in group excludes you from it in essentially all aspects of your life. Or when the in group makes it clear that they are willing to perform acts of violence against the out group.
Maybe that’s where we are now, but that’s not where we started.
I think Carl would be disgusted with where we’re at today if he were still alive, and he may want to revise the quote to be more fitting in today’s landscape.
Some of them are victims though I believe. Victims of being uneducated, which, of course, is by design. Many, or most, probably, are not victims, and choose to be ignorant, malicious, and filled with misplaced hatred.