Conservatism is a mental disorder. It must be. Otherwise, we wouldn't see the total lack of empathy, the paranoia, the delusional thinking, the refusal to (and perhaps inability to) learn from facts, the distrust of facts, the dedication to fairy tales and fairy tale leaders...
I've had it with conservatism. I've posted so many diaries here trying to explain how conservatives think, how to try to reach them, how to talk to them in their own language, and I've finally realized... their language is that of someone who is mentally ill.
You can't help a mentally ill person by talking in their language. All you can do is find ways to help them be not mentally ill anymore. Come with me past the fleur-de-Kos (a term I LOVE) for some discussion.
Recent work on conservatism has pointed out that conservatives have several symptoms in common with people who are mentally ill, including:
- Delusional thinking
- Paranoia
- Disconnection from others/lack of empathy
- Mental rigidity/closed-mindedness
- Uncertainty avoidance, intolerance for ambiguity, dichotomous thinking
- Compartmentalized thinking
Mental illness is seeing the world through a skewed filter, among other things. It's often caused by chemical imbalances, but there are also mental illnesses that seem to be triggered by social pressures, such as fear, anxiety, and uncertainty.
There are also things that might as well be mental illness and have to be treated the same way. Brainwashing into a cult comes to mind. That's certainly caused by social pressures, and that certainly looks like conservatism from where I'm sitting.
We have a nation full of cult victims, folks. And that's where we get to how to talk to them. We need to put them through what's sometimes called "intervention" or "exit therapy." Their skewed filters need to be altered. We need to help them with that.
Every single one of us knows a die-hard conservative who is paranoid, delusional, and afraid of the world (and probably angry with the world). That's a cult victim, folks. The cult is run by the dittohead hate radio scam artists.
The most essential component of intervening with people who have been in cult environments is to convince them that they were being controlled and brainwashed in the first place. Sounds like an impossible task, right?
I want to stress the difference between exit counseling and "deprogramming." Deprogramming is done by confining someone and forcing them to listen - essentially, reverse brainwashing. Exit counseling, on the other hand, involves challenging some of the beliefs with a person who's willing to talk to you, even if they're not willing to give up their beliefs. For example,
"He preaches love but he does hateful things. How do you reconcile that?"
"They say don't do X, but then they do what they said not to do. How do you reconcile that?"
And so forth.
It's crucial that the other person be allowed to state their views. They need to feel heard. They need to know that you care about them, even if they don't believe what you believe. This may be hard when their beliefs are "Obama is a Kenyan Muslim terrorist." But just let them say what they need to say. Then counter it. Ask them for their proof. Ask them how they reconcile that belief with the release of the long-form birth certificate. If they say "That's a false certificate!" ask them how they know. If they say Fox News told them, or Rush Limbaugh said it, go back to "And how do you know they're telling the truth? Show me how you know that's true." Ideally, some of their favorite authorities may already be on shaky ground credibility-wise at this point.
Eventually - it may take a while and it won't happen in one day - they may begin to realize that their fears are not rooted in anything real. That's when you start asking them why they want to believe these things. You'll hear a lot of things like fear, anger, inability to deal with difference - maybe not in those words, but that'll be the theme. Don't judge them. Just listen. When they've articulated what's going on in their heads, then talk. Ask them how you can help them handle their fear, anger, etc.
I speak as someone who was born wired to be a conservative, okay? I'm a high-functioning autistic. I don't like change - especially fast change. I don't like difference - it's hard to navigate through shades of grey, and I hate ambiguity. But I managed not to be a conservative, even so - at least partly because I don't like it when other people tell me what to do. Most conservatives prefer having a strong leader telling them how to live. I don't. I'm also not delusional. I see the world the way it really is.
But when someone talked to me about why I was so afraid of change, and why ambiguity bothers me so much, I finally had to admit that it was about control. I needed to control my environment, and any change or ambiguity made that more difficult. Over time, I've relaxed my need to control everything, but it's still hard, and I'm a freaking die-hard liberal progressive hippie-wannabe.
Now imagine how much harder it is for someone whose constant messaging from their media is "FEAR! HATE! BE AFRAID! BE ANGRY! HERE'S THE PEOPLE WHOSE FAULT IT IS! HATE THEM! FEAR THEM! HURT THEM!" Brainwashing much? Yeah, and it's no wonder that we have a nation full of cult victims. But we need to help them get over it, or we're sunk.
In comments, share your best "I managed to get this person out of the conservative cult mindset" story, and your best strategies. Let's work on this together.