Hey it's no biggie they are exempt from all rules, norms, and principals. Their customers love it even more when rules are broken so this is more like a bonus for them.
Hey it's no biggie they are exempt from all rules, norms, and principals. Their customers love it even more when rules are broken so this is more like a bonus for them.
> Their customers love it even more when rules are broken so this is more like a bonus for them.
You joke, but this is actually a pattern I see a lot. Is there a term for this sort of brain dead contrarianism? Ive noticed it for years, mostly among GenX where they will zealously defend any idea/action they heard thats against mainstream narrative.
It’s like a “stick it to the man teenager” stereotype but these people are fucking 50+ years old now.
It is primarily this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism
Mixed more generally with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism
Someone who is anti-intellectual doesn't believe that their theory of the world being flat (or whatever) is actually a rigorous idea. Being "right" isn't even part of the thought process. They have an issue with science and the intellectual process itself and see those who practice it to be an outsider to their worldview.
This is why so many people fail to convince flat-earthers that the world is round. Because they don't really give a shit about what shape the earth is, they just have contempt for the intellectualism that says it is.
I suspect many of these people are insecure about their own lack of knowledge, and so by rejecting a mainstream narrative of science they can feel in-control of their own sense of intellect.
I think this is an unfortunate consequence of the state of politics in the US (and in many other countries tbh).
Collectively we should really be getting angry with wealth inequality but those with wealth stir up any number of other issues (e.g. race, religion, gender, etc) in order to divert attention from them continuing to get richer at our collective expense.
Those "distractions" would be brought up regardless of any wealth inequality. They're entirely unrelated.
Depending on who you ask, those same topics are considered distractions from any other topic including each other.
What you're really describing is the attention bottleneck in a western democratic society where everybody wants the world to see things their way. That's the wrong mindset for democracy to work. If you want people to believe something it's simple: don't be wrong. Don't be vague and don't be misleading. Stop assuming the opposing side is stupid. Just speak clearly.
We really should blame ourselves for coming to every discussion with trivially incorrect arguments. People are so lazy these days. Slacktivism and terrorism used to be the extremes reserved for the ignorant. We used to shame and mock those people.
(1) The relationship between economic and cultural issues has been the most controversial topic on the left since the 1970s. If you take Marxism seriously, for instance, cultural issues are very much a distraction from class conflict. In the 1980s many of us thought Reagan had pulled off a major gambit by prioritizing cultural issues like abortion to turn voters against social democracy. (Look at Thatcher in the UK for something that problematizes that opinion)
Today writers like Catherine Liu and Joan Williams will tell you all about how movements grounded in the “professional managerial class” fall flat with the working class.
In general viable political movements need something that appeals to people with money and something that appeals more broadly.
(2) These conflicts can be seen as often being zero sum conflicts over irreconcilable values and whether or not rational thought applies is beyond the point. E.g. if you think abortion is wrong you think abortion is wrong.
(3) The basic mistake people I think is that people look at causes through the same framework when in reality these are all different and if you try to treat them as the same… you lose people and in the end you lose.
> Collectively we should really be getting angry with wealth inequality
But individually we're unable to abandon YouTube, iPhones and Windows 11. America's biggest B2C companies can do whatever they want and we'll all lap it up.
You’re not going to believe this but I’m a windows, YouTube and iPhone user, and am still pretty angry at the state of things.
You can be a customer of large companies and still be angry that large capital holders are tremendously advantaged in many ways.
YouTube is essentially a social network so fair enough, but is some external force compelling you to use Windows or an iPhone?
Sure, but as a user don't expect to be able to change anything though, because companies know you won't switch away from their products.
Absolutely, I'm highlighting that you're a captive audience and every single FAANG exec knows it when they kiss the Trumpian ring.
Microsoft, Google and Apple all decided to side with the fed. Your outrage is inconsequential to them, and with the sum they spend on lobbying it's doubtful that your vote even matters to them either.
Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity hits the nail on the head here.
He argued that in WW2, the people who were not able to question what they were doing were enabling a lot of the cruelty [0].
[0] https://bigthink.com/thinking/bonhoeffers-theory-stupidity-e...
I think that's always been a feature of contrarianism itself. It's so much more difficult to be contrarian and correct than simply contrarian that it applies most of the time, especially if someone uses that label explicitly.
"Contrarianism" can't be the only qualifying term unless you mean to lump in the majority of HN commenters.
Yes it can
Boomers get all the hate but GenX really is the absolute worst. They took the me-me-me of Boomers without the civic minded temperance of their G.I./Silent grandparents. Life goals of that generation include climbing mount everest, writing a novel, really anything that would make you sound "cool" at a cocktail party, but they never realized that nobody cares unless you've made the world a better place for others.
We were told, non-stop and repeatedly, that we would probably all die in a nuclear holocaust before we reached adulthood. And yeah, lots of my generation decided that they'd rather spend their few remaining months touring South America rainforests or hiking Nepal than doing the "productive" things that the people likely to blow up the world wanted us to.
And then they didn't blow up the world. Well, crud. What do we do with ourselves now?
I'm not even slightly exaggerating, by the way. About half the popular media was depictions of how the US would blow up Russia, Russia would blow up the US, or what live would be like after the US and Russia blew each other up. Red Dawn. Most movies with Sylvester Stallone. The Day After. Threads. I assure you those weren't kitschy, ironic things we winked at. We generationally kinda reconciled ourselves to the idea we'd never grow old enough to drink. And then, we were labeled "slackers" for not having followed the same traditional routes as previous generations.
I'm hugely sympathetic to Gen Alpha. I get it, kiddos. I see you there, and I understand.
Well you didn't die of nuclear holocaust, but the mindset stuck anyways. I call foul.
I strongly disagree with this assessment. (I am GenX so take this with a grain of salt).
GenX grew up during an era when hyper-capitalism began to take off. Manufacturing was offshored and layoffs became commonplace. Government institutions were privatized and subcontracting gave companies ways to abdicate responsibility. The corporate world didn't care about building a company and brand for the long haul, it was shareholder value and quarterly earnings. We watched our parents work their assess off for companies and then get tossed out in the name of a few more cents per share. So no one was motivated to follow the traditional Western dream when there was no assurance of any sustainable life at the end of that grind.
GenX was far more civic minded than you give them credit for. The term "political correctness" entered the lexicon because of the work GenX college students were doing to try to combat racism, sexism, and homophobia. We marched against apartheid, raised money for Amnesty International and Greenpeace, and AIDS awareness. We were the first to carry around reusable mugs for coffee and drinks and got recycling mainstreamed.
Generational warfare, like class warfare, is designed to keep us at each others' throats instead of realizing that, no matter what generation, a wealthy few hold the true power.
Gen X was the peak of lifetime lead poisoning contamination.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2118631119
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/117h6n5/ge...
I like "...lead is responsible for the loss of 824,097,690 IQ points as of 2015" which is something I never hear from the people who are so interested in IQ and who can't stand it that the rest of us aren't.
Generation <mine - 1> is really the worst!
Also, drivers in <my city> are really the worst.
Life goals of that generation include climbing mount everest, writing a novel, really anything that would make you sound "cool" at a cocktail party, but they never realized that nobody cares unless you've made the world a better place for others.
Replace "cocktail party" with "social media" and you've described Millennials.
> Is there a term for this sort of brain dead contrarianism?
Reactionary[0]? Trump and the MAGA movement embody this desire to return to the "golden age" which is an idealized period in the 1950s where you had a factory job, a house, a family, and a simple life. Of course, "idealized" is the keyword there because it ignores the state of civil rights, medicine, workplace & car safety, etc. at that point in time.
Anyway, I think that's the term you're looking for. Contrarians are annoying, reactionaries are more akin to cult followers.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary
That's pretty good, but the Wiki page is far more diplomatic about definitions than my understanding of the word.
They have decades of Fox News brainwashing them into radicalization. The groups they hate are "plotting against them and looking down on them." The concept of returning to some idealized past is a superficial veneer over their actual desires: to harm the groups they disdain.
This has nothing to do with contrarianism, but all to do with the foundations of right-wing and fascist psychology, and more precisely, hierarchy.
Things like this allow you to prove for one that your leader is above you, and that you are loyal, unlike some other people who hence are beneath you.
This is why evangelicals can stomach Trump, he gives them an opportunity to have someone above them and for them to struggle with loyalty. It is more important to them than whether he has pressured someone to have an abortion or somesuch that does not fit the ethics they promote.
It is also why so many on the right and in fascist movements endure suffering caused by their leaders and don't hold them accountable to their promises. The ongoing wars of aggression that the US is partaking in is splitting the MAGA movement into the more conservative wing that isn't as uncompromising with their lust for hierarchy as the fully neo-fascist wing, who are going to try and weather pretty much any absurdities, any suffering they are exposed to.
When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the PII.
comment of the year award
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