“Prove to the World You’ve Lost Your Son”
June 15, 2022 10:11 AM Subscribe
In an excerpt from her upcoming book Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, author Elizabeth Williamson interviews leading Sandy Hook truther Kelley "gr8mom" Watt, to explore the mentality that would lead someone to hold the belief that one of the bloodiest school shootings never happened. (SLSlate)
Believing is always far more expeditious than going to the trouble to discern the facts...
posted by jim in austin at 10:36 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 10:36 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
I looked at an excerpt from TFA (so, an excerpt of an excerpt, which was about all I could stand) and thought "This is the Great Filter, right here." The place where I read it had a comments thread, and the comments were full of condemnation of the person that was profiled. And also there were a lot of people with the conviction that some well-directed violence could solve the problem.
The problem outlined in TFA is not solvable. The solution to the problem is to not build Facebook in the first place, and leave the gatekeepers of discourse in place by not destroying the traditional news media. Humans as a whole are not wise or good enough for mass many-to-many disintermediated communication, and we will use it to kill our whole planet.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:39 AM on June 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
The problem outlined in TFA is not solvable. The solution to the problem is to not build Facebook in the first place, and leave the gatekeepers of discourse in place by not destroying the traditional news media. Humans as a whole are not wise or good enough for mass many-to-many disintermediated communication, and we will use it to kill our whole planet.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:39 AM on June 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
Fox News and Murdoch Media and all those other right wing outlets are "traditional news media." Authoritarianism doesn't need social media to spread.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
That was a fascinating read, thanks for sharing. I was particularly struck by the daughter's analysis of her mother. Such a contrast in the insight she displays, utterly different from the mother's dishonesty and lack of curiosity about anything that doesn't fit her narrative.
posted by Zumbador at 10:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by Zumbador at 10:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
Nice article (and book excerpt).
I had some experience with people who had way too much faith. I was a scambuster, and may have had a role taking down some of the larger internet Ponzi schemes in the last 10-20 years. I wrote articles explaining the problems with the illusions the scammers were weaving, and very often, I was challenged by the same sort of rhetoric from people in full denial of their situation, usually because they have money invested and thus sunk cost fallacy.
The fascinating thing is people who believe with their whole heart, i.e. "true believers", invest their entire ego and reputation on the line, and when their message was amplified by the algorithms in social media, it boosted their ego and encouraged them to be even MORE outrageous, for ever more eyeballs. Their egos are stroked by every upvote, every "attaboy/girl" comment, every repost. They decided this is the cause they will fight for that will make them either rich or famous and finally gain them the validation they desperately crave.
They made it PERSONAL, and social media was complicit in enabling them.
posted by kschang at 10:54 AM on June 15, 2022 [66 favorites]
I had some experience with people who had way too much faith. I was a scambuster, and may have had a role taking down some of the larger internet Ponzi schemes in the last 10-20 years. I wrote articles explaining the problems with the illusions the scammers were weaving, and very often, I was challenged by the same sort of rhetoric from people in full denial of their situation, usually because they have money invested and thus sunk cost fallacy.
The fascinating thing is people who believe with their whole heart, i.e. "true believers", invest their entire ego and reputation on the line, and when their message was amplified by the algorithms in social media, it boosted their ego and encouraged them to be even MORE outrageous, for ever more eyeballs. Their egos are stroked by every upvote, every "attaboy/girl" comment, every repost. They decided this is the cause they will fight for that will make them either rich or famous and finally gain them the validation they desperately crave.
They made it PERSONAL, and social media was complicit in enabling them.
posted by kschang at 10:54 AM on June 15, 2022 [66 favorites]
I was sorry that the portrait of Watt is so flat -- she remains such a cipher. I kind of get the conspiratorial mindset, having circled that abyss a few times, and I think a lot of the attraction is the idea that holding "the secret knowledge" makes you more real, more important, and allows you to "own" a point in history, but the depiction of Watt doesn't really get at the most troubling aspect -- that she repeatedly calls the parents of murdered children and tries to enlist them as props in her own narrative. Is it simply that "Dark Triad" men with access to money and status become heads of firms or politicians while "Dark Triad" women with few economic options act out their need for control like this?
Always assuming that those traits are the issue. Williams, as far as I know, and certainly I, have no standing or opportunity to diagnose. "She's malevolently crazy and a victim and perpetrator of social-media-spread fantasies" is simultaneously unsatisfying and the best answer we will ever approach....
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:57 AM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
Always assuming that those traits are the issue. Williams, as far as I know, and certainly I, have no standing or opportunity to diagnose. "She's malevolently crazy and a victim and perpetrator of social-media-spread fantasies" is simultaneously unsatisfying and the best answer we will ever approach....
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:57 AM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
Damn. Daughter and wife of engineers. It's contagious.
It sounds like you are conflating “engineer’s disease” with narcissistic, evil, sociopathy. I don’t really see the connection
Even taking into account that the author is (understandably) not trying to present the woman in a good light, that woman is just a horrible person. I really want bad things to happen to her, but that would hurt other, not-horrible, people, so I am at a loss as to how to deal with her and people like her. But they should definitely have their guns taken away.
posted by TedW at 10:58 AM on June 15, 2022 [31 favorites]
It sounds like you are conflating “engineer’s disease” with narcissistic, evil, sociopathy. I don’t really see the connection
Even taking into account that the author is (understandably) not trying to present the woman in a good light, that woman is just a horrible person. I really want bad things to happen to her, but that would hurt other, not-horrible, people, so I am at a loss as to how to deal with her and people like her. But they should definitely have their guns taken away.
posted by TedW at 10:58 AM on June 15, 2022 [31 favorites]
I was sorry that the portrait of Watt is so flat.
That is the ironic thing about this article, and a lot of "we need to take these people seriously" journalism. There is an implicit promise of insight with each detailed personal profile, but usually there doesn't seem to be much that is worth understanding. The details are unsurprising, pretty much what you would imagine, and at the end you are in the same place you were before you read it.
posted by anhedonic at 11:12 AM on June 15, 2022 [59 favorites]
That is the ironic thing about this article, and a lot of "we need to take these people seriously" journalism. There is an implicit promise of insight with each detailed personal profile, but usually there doesn't seem to be much that is worth understanding. The details are unsurprising, pretty much what you would imagine, and at the end you are in the same place you were before you read it.
posted by anhedonic at 11:12 AM on June 15, 2022 [59 favorites]
It reads like a description of a person suffering a large accumulation of small mental health issues over time, rather than one big treatable issue. Any one of them is solvable, but because they reinforce one another, the stable whole is an untreatable hot mess.
I don’t think I can feel much pity for her, simply because her sociopathy is so overwhelming. I do feel sorry for the people subjected to it and hope that they remain strong and somehow unaffected by her actions.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:12 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
I don’t think I can feel much pity for her, simply because her sociopathy is so overwhelming. I do feel sorry for the people subjected to it and hope that they remain strong and somehow unaffected by her actions.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:12 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Just...damn. People like this woman have truly and literally lost contact with reality. "Believing" such utter garbage is one thing - but literally harassing other people - school/civic leaders, parents of dead children - elevates it to a form of sociopathy.
posted by davidmsc at 11:13 AM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by davidmsc at 11:13 AM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
>> the most troubling aspect -- that she repeatedly calls the parents of murdered children and tries to enlist them as props in her own narrative.
Personally, it's theater. She may or may not have ideated it initially as theater, but I can propose a chain of thought that could lead to her present state.
* She was already primed for various conspiracy theories due to downfall of circumstances (blame others, not self)
* She was in denial about the shooting (some people deal with grief with denial / bargaining, etc. Ross-Kubler)
* Thus, anyone who affirms the shooting must be a liar ("logical" extrapolation)
* And anyone showing pain and grief over the loss must be acting ("logical" extrapolation)
* She will "expose" the liars by confronting them. Any denial just "proves" her opinions.
* While her "bravery" in her confrontations would exalt her in the eyes of her followers, mainly because most people won't do dumb things like that.
In other words, her needs for validation and her belief that she's right and others are wrong, made her ignore EVERY social propriety and common sense. She built a conspiracy bubble around her ideas, and anything counter to that simply proves the conspiracy is grand, instead if non-existence.
posted by kschang at 11:13 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Personally, it's theater. She may or may not have ideated it initially as theater, but I can propose a chain of thought that could lead to her present state.
* She was already primed for various conspiracy theories due to downfall of circumstances (blame others, not self)
* She was in denial about the shooting (some people deal with grief with denial / bargaining, etc. Ross-Kubler)
* Thus, anyone who affirms the shooting must be a liar ("logical" extrapolation)
* And anyone showing pain and grief over the loss must be acting ("logical" extrapolation)
* She will "expose" the liars by confronting them. Any denial just "proves" her opinions.
* While her "bravery" in her confrontations would exalt her in the eyes of her followers, mainly because most people won't do dumb things like that.
In other words, her needs for validation and her belief that she's right and others are wrong, made her ignore EVERY social propriety and common sense. She built a conspiracy bubble around her ideas, and anything counter to that simply proves the conspiracy is grand, instead if non-existence.
posted by kschang at 11:13 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Damn. Daughter and wife of engineers. It's contagious.
I think the conflation is that someone who’s family members are smart at engineering somehow ought to be good at critical thinking.
posted by Jon_Evil at 11:13 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
I think the conflation is that someone who’s family members are smart at engineering somehow ought to be good at critical thinking.
posted by Jon_Evil at 11:13 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
In general there is a perception out there that engineers have a tendency to embrace bad ideas due to a sort of hubris that comes from being good at engineering. Googling "engineers disease" brings you to this metafilter post as the second result!
In the past I've certainly heard that the engineering departments at universities are where you will find a lot of dedicated Creationists and other kinds of conservatives. So anyway, that was certainly the point of the comment (he said confidently.)
posted by anhedonic at 11:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
In the past I've certainly heard that the engineering departments at universities are where you will find a lot of dedicated Creationists and other kinds of conservatives. So anyway, that was certainly the point of the comment (he said confidently.)
posted by anhedonic at 11:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
I think of myself as fairly tough-minded, but I find myself less and less willing to read things like this. Not the fault of the author, but you don't really learn anything, and contemplating such grotesque distortion of the human spirit only makes me feel despair.
posted by praemunire at 11:26 AM on June 15, 2022 [88 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 11:26 AM on June 15, 2022 [88 favorites]
Engineer here,
She sounds like a party girl who hooked up with someone who "had prospects" (i.e. money). She had privlidge and attention, and didn't want it to stop.
We have Ted Kaczynski to deal with, this one ain't on us.
posted by The Power Nap at 11:28 AM on June 15, 2022 [28 favorites]
She sounds like a party girl who hooked up with someone who "had prospects" (i.e. money). She had privlidge and attention, and didn't want it to stop.
We have Ted Kaczynski to deal with, this one ain't on us.
posted by The Power Nap at 11:28 AM on June 15, 2022 [28 favorites]
In the interest of re-railing the thread away from a discussion of Engineer's Disease, I wonder whether Sartre's observation from Anti-Semite and Jew that a problem with reacting to the antisemite (in this case, the conspiracy theorist) is that they are, fundamentally, unserious. Not in the sense that they don't do serious things and have terrible effects, but that they are, on some level, playing -- thus, they can always move the goalposts, throw out new "theories" and "evidence" and refuse to play by the conventions of serious discussion.
Maybe that's some sort of hedge against the random and uncontrollable world, but I don't know.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:36 AM on June 15, 2022 [80 favorites]
Maybe that's some sort of hedge against the random and uncontrollable world, but I don't know.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:36 AM on June 15, 2022 [80 favorites]
I read this book and found it ... lacking. There is so obviously a right and wrong here that the wrong side is uniformly portrayed as buffoonish and "how could anyone..." and while that is also how I feel, it really isn't helpful. We need to preach not to the choir but to those outside the church (this is a metaphor).
posted by chavenet at 11:36 AM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 11:36 AM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
“My whole life has been about kids,” she said. “That’s my biggest regret in life. I should have been a teacher. I would have been a really good first grade teacher.”Yeah, I don’t think it’s going too far out on a limb to conclude that she would not have made a good first grade teacher.
Watt has a Pinterest board called “Beautiful Children.” She had posted more than 100 photos there of babies, toddlers, and prepubescent girls, many of them twins. They wear fur-trimmed hoods, chic berets, oversize bows, earrings. Their hair is often flowing, framing enormous eyes with irises in unusual colors. They smile and hug, peek through doorways—a fantastical, eerie ideal for how children should look and live.
…
She judged the parents as “too old to have kids that age.” She found their clothes dowdy, their hairstyles dated. Where were their “messy buns,” “cute torn jeans,” their “Tory Burch jewelry”? She mocked their broken stoicism. Their lives had fallen to pieces, but in Watt’s mind they seemed “too perfect,” and also not perfect enough.
posted by eviemath at 11:42 AM on June 15, 2022 [101 favorites]
See also:
”If Jordan died, I wouldn’t be in Washington lobbying,” she added.posted by eviemath at 11:45 AM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
It was a strange thing to say. When Watt’s children were young, she ignored them, obsessed with saving families from imagined government plots while her own family unraveled around her.
She judged the parents as “too old to have kids that age.” She found their clothes dowdy, their hairstyles dated. Where were their “messy buns,” “cute torn jeans,” their “Tory Burch jewelry”? She mocked their broken stoicism. Their lives had fallen to pieces, but in Watt’s mind they seemed “too perfect,” and also not perfect enough.
To the extent that this is what she actually thinks, it seems like it points to a literal breakdown in the ability to discern the difference between reality and TV, like people who think that soap opera stars actually are their characters and stalk them accordingly. I mean, the only reason you would expect all parents of young children to have Tory Burch jewelry and messy buns is if TV/the internet is overwhelmingly realer than what you see around you - I don't believe I've ever seen a piece of Tory Burch jewelry in my life, for instance, and I see parents of small children all the time. I seldom see adults with children wearing trendy-distressed clothing though I do see parents dressed very fashionably. Where does one see the jeweled torn-jeans parents? TV dramas, real housewives, etc. No one functioning normally in the world actually expects to see Real Housewives walking down the street.
I actually found that one sentence about as genuinely eerie/creepy as anything in the article - it was like a glimpse into the void.
posted by Frowner at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [88 favorites]
To the extent that this is what she actually thinks, it seems like it points to a literal breakdown in the ability to discern the difference between reality and TV, like people who think that soap opera stars actually are their characters and stalk them accordingly. I mean, the only reason you would expect all parents of young children to have Tory Burch jewelry and messy buns is if TV/the internet is overwhelmingly realer than what you see around you - I don't believe I've ever seen a piece of Tory Burch jewelry in my life, for instance, and I see parents of small children all the time. I seldom see adults with children wearing trendy-distressed clothing though I do see parents dressed very fashionably. Where does one see the jeweled torn-jeans parents? TV dramas, real housewives, etc. No one functioning normally in the world actually expects to see Real Housewives walking down the street.
I actually found that one sentence about as genuinely eerie/creepy as anything in the article - it was like a glimpse into the void.
posted by Frowner at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [88 favorites]
It’s the same sort of issue that my grandmother suffered from for a while as the wife of a fairly high ranking military officer. He had power and influence and some of that reflected onto her. Of course, it didn’t mean much when he retired to a rural community in Central Texas and that was a fairly harsh lesson delivered over a long time. It eventually was learned, though and she fit in much better with the community around her.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Aaaand it gets worse from there. Oof. I do get the sense though, GenjiandProust, that the profile is two-dimensional only because the subject doesn’t have the capacity for self-reflection that would enable more dimensionality, and the author doesn’t want to play armchair psychiatrist. On preview, also what Frowner said.
posted by eviemath at 11:52 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 11:52 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
Further to Frowner’s point:
Watt watches true crime shows on TV, and when she talks about Sandy Hook, she adopts their narrators’ sonorous tone.posted by eviemath at 11:55 AM on June 15, 2022 [18 favorites]
Did anyone else get stuck at this line?
Today, one-fifth of Americans believe all major mass shootings are staged, according to Joe Uscinski an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies political conspiracy theories.
This can't possibly be close to true...right?? It has to be some kind of faulty polling method?
posted by randomnity at 11:55 AM on June 15, 2022 [33 favorites]
Today, one-fifth of Americans believe all major mass shootings are staged, according to Joe Uscinski an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies political conspiracy theories.
This can't possibly be close to true...right?? It has to be some kind of faulty polling method?
posted by randomnity at 11:55 AM on June 15, 2022 [33 favorites]
I don't believe I've ever seen a piece of Tory Burch jewelry in my life, for instance, and I see parents of small children all the time. I seldom see adults with children wearing trendy-distressed clothing though I do see parents dressed very fashionably. Where does one see the jeweled torn-jeans parents?
None of this seems weird to me. 'Parents' encompasses a group from 19 years old to 55 years old, so they dress accordingly, with kids in tow and without. Maybe these (Tory Burch, torn jeans) are the generic markers of young upper middle class parents in Oklahoma, who could be copying TV. Micheal Koors is basically the same income profile. That stuff is common.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:02 PM on June 15, 2022
None of this seems weird to me. 'Parents' encompasses a group from 19 years old to 55 years old, so they dress accordingly, with kids in tow and without. Maybe these (Tory Burch, torn jeans) are the generic markers of young upper middle class parents in Oklahoma, who could be copying TV. Micheal Koors is basically the same income profile. That stuff is common.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:02 PM on June 15, 2022
Much in the same vein as school-shooting-denialism (but with someone alive, rather than dead), I recently started listening to the "Tiffany Dover is Dead" podcast. The person named in the title is a very-much alive nurse who received one of the first covid vaccine shots live on tv - but fainted and was taken off camera for a few minutes.
The denialists jumped on this and claimed she died, and any evidence to the contrary is picked apart ("Her hair is completely different!" "She hasn't posted on social media!") or denied ("They're covering up the autopsy report!"), with unending harassment of the hospital and family. They actually interview one of the denialists in one of the episodes.
posted by meowzilla at 12:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
The denialists jumped on this and claimed she died, and any evidence to the contrary is picked apart ("Her hair is completely different!" "She hasn't posted on social media!") or denied ("They're covering up the autopsy report!"), with unending harassment of the hospital and family. They actually interview one of the denialists in one of the episodes.
posted by meowzilla at 12:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
the author doesn’t want to play armchair psychiatrist. O
Yeah, although the author did let the daughter say her piece:
“There’s a great deal of narcissism in this idea that ‘everyone’s got it wrong and we’re in this select group of people that knows.’ It would explode her own persona to allow any doubt to come in. Her whole identity has been built on this for so many years. She’s invested so much.”
posted by ghost phoneme at 12:13 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Yeah, although the author did let the daughter say her piece:
“There’s a great deal of narcissism in this idea that ‘everyone’s got it wrong and we’re in this select group of people that knows.’ It would explode her own persona to allow any doubt to come in. Her whole identity has been built on this for so many years. She’s invested so much.”
posted by ghost phoneme at 12:13 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
None of this seems weird to me. 'Parents' encompasses a group from 19 years old to 55 years old, so they dress accordingly, with kids in tow and without. Maybe these (Tory Burch, torn jeans) are the generic markers of young upper middle class parents in Oklahoma, who could be copying TV. Micheal Koors is basically the same income profile. That stuff is common.
I don't imagine you sympathize with the denialists. but I still find this comment weird. I am not American. There are loads of things I can't identify with when I see American parents on TV. But I don't doubt their experiences because they do not wear European styles or use European language.
posted by mumimor at 12:17 PM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
I don't imagine you sympathize with the denialists. but I still find this comment weird. I am not American. There are loads of things I can't identify with when I see American parents on TV. But I don't doubt their experiences because they do not wear European styles or use European language.
posted by mumimor at 12:17 PM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
I think the lede was buried: (This was before the decline of local media and the rise of Facebook’s news feed, back when trusted community outlets had the power to shut down verifiably cuckoo claims.)
This person is a nut, I sincerely apologize if people find this word dismissive of mental illness but I don't know what other word to use. We might be able to tidy it up by fencing her in with some kind of DSM vocabulary but fundamentally she is not well and the uncomfortable assaultive kind of unwell. I am at sufficient distance from the harm she is perpetrating that I can resist my impulse to judge her but I don't know what we are supposed to do with the hatred that this kind of behavior engenders or even the behavior. Fundamentally social media has handed out the speaking trumpets to everyone and promotes, (and we as a whole flock to,) the most deranged voices.
And randomnity I was brought to a halt when I read that statistic and had the same thoughts as you.
posted by Pembquist at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
This person is a nut, I sincerely apologize if people find this word dismissive of mental illness but I don't know what other word to use. We might be able to tidy it up by fencing her in with some kind of DSM vocabulary but fundamentally she is not well and the uncomfortable assaultive kind of unwell. I am at sufficient distance from the harm she is perpetrating that I can resist my impulse to judge her but I don't know what we are supposed to do with the hatred that this kind of behavior engenders or even the behavior. Fundamentally social media has handed out the speaking trumpets to everyone and promotes, (and we as a whole flock to,) the most deranged voices.
And randomnity I was brought to a halt when I read that statistic and had the same thoughts as you.
posted by Pembquist at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
I read Williams' book last month, as it was available in my local library. It was a very, very difficult read, and took me the better part of 2 weeks to get through it, little bits at a time. The rage I felt toward these terrible people was just too much at times (the book profiles many of the truthers who committed numerous despicable acts of harassment on the Sandy Hook parents). I remember thinking that if I were one of the victims of harassment, I probably would have committed violence on them. I have no empathy, no pity, no tolerance for these people. None. Also, I live about 10 miles from Sandy Hook and know folks who were affected by the tragedy, so I'm pretty biased to begin with.
Reading the book also shed a LOT more light on Alex Jones, who is the one that started the rumors that led to the harassment of these parents. I hope he burns in whatever hell may exist.
posted by sundrop at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [34 favorites]
Reading the book also shed a LOT more light on Alex Jones, who is the one that started the rumors that led to the harassment of these parents. I hope he burns in whatever hell may exist.
posted by sundrop at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [34 favorites]
Maybe these (Tory Burch, torn jeans) are the generic markers of young upper middle class parents in Oklahoma
It doesn't matter how parents in Oklahoma are dressing, what comes across as creepy is that Watt is so obsessed with making something so arbitrary as dress a sufficient condition for determining parenthood. It reminds me of the crap logic that gender essentialists use to enforce 'boy'-coded things and 'girl'-coded things.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [32 favorites]
It doesn't matter how parents in Oklahoma are dressing, what comes across as creepy is that Watt is so obsessed with making something so arbitrary as dress a sufficient condition for determining parenthood. It reminds me of the crap logic that gender essentialists use to enforce 'boy'-coded things and 'girl'-coded things.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [32 favorites]
This can't possibly be close to true...right?
I think there's an interpretation error, one that catches a lot of people. You're reading that stat as something akin to "1/5 of Americans have an earnest belief that all major mass shootings are staged". It's an understandable mistake, since that's clearly what's prompted on its face.
The problem is, that's not what's meant. Instead, translate it as "1/5 of Americans are willing to state that they believe that all major mass shootings are staged, in line with their political beliefs" (assuming the polling methodology is sound, for the time being)
Start from the belief/party affiliation, then work backwards. Democrats are making noise about mass shootings. However, Democrats fundamentally can't be right about things. They want to tell you what to do. And that's as un-American as it gets, you're the one who gets to tell *them* what to do, a la herrenvolk democracy. So what would set them off/own-the-libs best in this situation? Some good ol' "fuck your feelings" style throwing the premise in their face. So you get this sort of stat.
Think of it as a weaponized version of the long bandied-about "27% crazification" threshold (could probably use a better name these days), where no matter how off-the-wall a survey question is, you can probably get about 27% of respondents to affirm it. Aliens probed them? Sure! Angels personally beseeched them? Absolutely!
Now make that cultural, make it organized party policy that the order of the day is "own/trigger-the-libs". If they react, you win.
It's not worth trying to dig down to some core of 'earnest beliefs' to try and reason with people, at this level. That way only lies pain. It's all expressions of power. They can state that mass shootings are all a hoax, and the rest of us have to deal with that and work around them and treat them as if their statements are a good-faith part of political discourse.
posted by CrystalDave at 12:20 PM on June 15, 2022 [62 favorites]
I think there's an interpretation error, one that catches a lot of people. You're reading that stat as something akin to "1/5 of Americans have an earnest belief that all major mass shootings are staged". It's an understandable mistake, since that's clearly what's prompted on its face.
The problem is, that's not what's meant. Instead, translate it as "1/5 of Americans are willing to state that they believe that all major mass shootings are staged, in line with their political beliefs" (assuming the polling methodology is sound, for the time being)
Start from the belief/party affiliation, then work backwards. Democrats are making noise about mass shootings. However, Democrats fundamentally can't be right about things. They want to tell you what to do. And that's as un-American as it gets, you're the one who gets to tell *them* what to do, a la herrenvolk democracy. So what would set them off/own-the-libs best in this situation? Some good ol' "fuck your feelings" style throwing the premise in their face. So you get this sort of stat.
Think of it as a weaponized version of the long bandied-about "27% crazification" threshold (could probably use a better name these days), where no matter how off-the-wall a survey question is, you can probably get about 27% of respondents to affirm it. Aliens probed them? Sure! Angels personally beseeched them? Absolutely!
Now make that cultural, make it organized party policy that the order of the day is "own/trigger-the-libs". If they react, you win.
It's not worth trying to dig down to some core of 'earnest beliefs' to try and reason with people, at this level. That way only lies pain. It's all expressions of power. They can state that mass shootings are all a hoax, and the rest of us have to deal with that and work around them and treat them as if their statements are a good-faith part of political discourse.
posted by CrystalDave at 12:20 PM on June 15, 2022 [62 favorites]
Hang on a second....
What if the people that theorists like Watt are harassing started fighting back by calling the theorists' local police to do wellness checks on them?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:25 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
What if the people that theorists like Watt are harassing started fighting back by calling the theorists' local police to do wellness checks on them?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:25 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
What if the people that theorists like Watt are harassing started fighting back by calling the theorists' local police to do wellness checks on them?
This may be why that won't work.
The police would just be another (probably sympathetic) audience for her to preach her ideas to.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:29 PM on June 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
This may be why that won't work.
Schnitt snorted. “Whoa, you’re calling my show, and you’re gonna sit here with a straight face and say the Sandy Hook tragedy—that 20 kids were not shot and killed? What the hell—what are you talking about?”
“Absolutely,” she said. Watt told him about her calls to Connecticut, where “there was no blood to clean up, all right?”
“Oh my God,” Schnitt erupted. “You know what scares the crap out of me? People like you, psychos and kooks who believe this conspiracy crap.”
Schnitt hung up on her, furious. Watt was elated—she just wanted the documentary to spread.
The police would just be another (probably sympathetic) audience for her to preach her ideas to.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:29 PM on June 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
What she wants is to be intellectually important, to have all the pleasure of being a researcher and being correct without actually reading books, exposing herself to other arguments, or letting go of her premises for one second. It's a pretty common malady, especially in America.
There are some cases in which it's genuinely pitiful, because the conspiracist really could have gone to school and learned to do things properly if not for racism, poverty, etc. But this lady? Fuck her. Sure, she had hard times, but she has no excuse for this behavior except, as her daughter says, that she can no longer afford to stop believing in it. I bet it's no coincidence that this daughter, the pretty one who was supposed to be in beauty pageants, moved to Europe.
I think the value of profiles like this are not in seeking common ground with such a person, but in understanding what creates one and how to recognize them, especially if they are only yet in danger of becoming so bad. The world is full of dull-minded people who are impossible to argue with and yet are decent people, more or less. When did she stop being one of them? Or was she ever? It's important to understand how someone becomes predisposed to become a monster like this woman.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:34 PM on June 15, 2022 [32 favorites]
There are some cases in which it's genuinely pitiful, because the conspiracist really could have gone to school and learned to do things properly if not for racism, poverty, etc. But this lady? Fuck her. Sure, she had hard times, but she has no excuse for this behavior except, as her daughter says, that she can no longer afford to stop believing in it. I bet it's no coincidence that this daughter, the pretty one who was supposed to be in beauty pageants, moved to Europe.
I think the value of profiles like this are not in seeking common ground with such a person, but in understanding what creates one and how to recognize them, especially if they are only yet in danger of becoming so bad. The world is full of dull-minded people who are impossible to argue with and yet are decent people, more or less. When did she stop being one of them? Or was she ever? It's important to understand how someone becomes predisposed to become a monster like this woman.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:34 PM on June 15, 2022 [32 favorites]
There are loads of things I can't identify with when I see American parents on TV. But I don't doubt their experiences because they do not wear European styles or use European language.
Americans don't seem to have a lot of exposure to other countries and cultures. In 2017, international departures per capita from the USA were lower than Russia (source) and far behind most European countries. Combined with the fact that a lot of the wealth is concentrated on the coasts along with a dose of nationalism, there are millions of people living in tiny bubbles.
posted by meowzilla at 12:34 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Americans don't seem to have a lot of exposure to other countries and cultures. In 2017, international departures per capita from the USA were lower than Russia (source) and far behind most European countries. Combined with the fact that a lot of the wealth is concentrated on the coasts along with a dose of nationalism, there are millions of people living in tiny bubbles.
posted by meowzilla at 12:34 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
The police would just be another (probably sympathetic) audience for her to preach her ideas to.
There is a big difference between how a talk show host responds to a crank call, and how police respond to a request for a wellness check.
I unfortunately speak from experience - not from being the person being checked, but being one of the people who had to make that call. The police who responded were there to do a very specific job - ascertaining someone's emotional well-being - and weren't paying any attention whatsoever to the exact content of what they were saying, only whether the person was responding to questions in a lucid manner. In my case, the person was NOT responding lucidly and was in an agitated state, so they very quickly tuned out the things they were saying and were like "welp, okay, let's get some pants on you and you can come down to our squad car here and we'll take a ride to a psych ER." They didn't offer themselves as an "audience" in any way, shape, or form.
I suspect that with someone like Watt they might state that they were there for a wellness check and ask some basic questions ("what day is it, what year is it, who's the president" kinds of things) and then be all "okay, sounds good, sorry to bother ya" and leave. Or - maybe when they said that "we were asked to do a wellness check on you" Watt might say "what, is it because of Sandy Hook?" and freak out, and then hey, look, she's agitated, let's get her to a psych ward.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:36 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
There is a big difference between how a talk show host responds to a crank call, and how police respond to a request for a wellness check.
I unfortunately speak from experience - not from being the person being checked, but being one of the people who had to make that call. The police who responded were there to do a very specific job - ascertaining someone's emotional well-being - and weren't paying any attention whatsoever to the exact content of what they were saying, only whether the person was responding to questions in a lucid manner. In my case, the person was NOT responding lucidly and was in an agitated state, so they very quickly tuned out the things they were saying and were like "welp, okay, let's get some pants on you and you can come down to our squad car here and we'll take a ride to a psych ER." They didn't offer themselves as an "audience" in any way, shape, or form.
I suspect that with someone like Watt they might state that they were there for a wellness check and ask some basic questions ("what day is it, what year is it, who's the president" kinds of things) and then be all "okay, sounds good, sorry to bother ya" and leave. Or - maybe when they said that "we were asked to do a wellness check on you" Watt might say "what, is it because of Sandy Hook?" and freak out, and then hey, look, she's agitated, let's get her to a psych ward.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:36 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
And to add the point I forgot -
I know that if all the police do on an individual wellness check is ask a few questions and then leave, that doesn't seem like much.
But imagine what it would be like for Watt when it's like the TWENTY-EIGHTH time.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:41 PM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
I know that if all the police do on an individual wellness check is ask a few questions and then leave, that doesn't seem like much.
But imagine what it would be like for Watt when it's like the TWENTY-EIGHTH time.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:41 PM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
FWIW, there's a 20-year gap between me and my baby sister. My sister got married a few years back. My mom did NOT birth me in her teens. And my sister was a bit of a miracle baby.
So the idea that "they're too old to have kids that young" just points to Watt's conspiracy ideation and ad hoc justification. Women are birthing later and later. But she's set in her prejudice because in HER world, women give birth early. She does NOT want to believe the truth, and she WANTS to believe the castle in the sky fiction she had constructed in her mind, no matter how many facts you give her. She insulated herself from facts because they don't fit in her worldview, thus it must be a part of the conspiracy.
But it's really her, unable to accept that the world had passed her by.
posted by kschang at 12:47 PM on June 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
So the idea that "they're too old to have kids that young" just points to Watt's conspiracy ideation and ad hoc justification. Women are birthing later and later. But she's set in her prejudice because in HER world, women give birth early. She does NOT want to believe the truth, and she WANTS to believe the castle in the sky fiction she had constructed in her mind, no matter how many facts you give her. She insulated herself from facts because they don't fit in her worldview, thus it must be a part of the conspiracy.
But it's really her, unable to accept that the world had passed her by.
posted by kschang at 12:47 PM on June 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
It sounds like it’s also partly wrapped up in some conservative/religious beliefs she has of who should be parents and how parents should behave too, though.
posted by eviemath at 12:57 PM on June 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 12:57 PM on June 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
The part where Watts seems to believe on some level that she drove her ex-husband to drink (which eventually led to his death; and emphasizing that this is a statement about Watts’ belief, but that everything I’ve read about substance abuse indicates that, I guess outside of people who caused trauma that someone might unhealthily self-medicating for, people are not responsible for their loved ones’ addiction struggles) yet seems rather unconcerned with that outcome is also a bit chilling.
posted by eviemath at 1:04 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 1:04 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
The only thing I’ve ever seen “work” on people like this is to hook them onto a different, more benign conspiracy. Of course, no conspiracy is benign and they all have direct roads to hate and ignorance and cruelty, but some are a bit more detached than others. I have an aunt (not technically, she’s the aunt of someone I consider family) who went from deeply destructive religious fundamentalism, animal hoarding, and 9/11 denialism to reiki, flat eartherism, and a bunch of stuff about quantum physics she has completely misunderstood. Sometimes the pipeline can go the other way, basically. She is by all accounts a nice person to be around now and has her hoarding behaviors well under control with a large support system and a family who cares about her. Of course, most people get into that kind of stuff and go directly to fascism and white supremacy and anti-semitism. And I’m sure a lot of her family support is in the form of checking to see if she’s headed that way too. I guess I just hope that people like the woman this article is about can find increasingly less harmful focuses.
posted by Mizu at 1:14 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Mizu at 1:14 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
I don't imagine you sympathize with the denialists. but I still find this comment weird. I am not American. There are loads of things I can't identify with when I see American parents on TV. But I don't doubt their experiences because they do not wear European styles or use European language.
No, I'm saying those are non-factors. If everyone dressed like StarTrek, she'd just make up something else. I find it weirder that she is calling up people with dead kids and harassing them but people seriously find the fashion comments a bridge too far?
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, I'm saying those are non-factors. If everyone dressed like StarTrek, she'd just make up something else. I find it weirder that she is calling up people with dead kids and harassing them but people seriously find the fashion comments a bridge too far?
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Countess Elena: What she wants is to be intellectually important, to have all the pleasure of being a researcher and being correct without actually reading books, exposing herself to other arguments, or letting go of her premises for one second. It's a pretty common malady, especially in America.
I think you are probably right but there may be a simpler interpretation underneath it all. She craves attention (to a hideously disordered degree)- doesn't matter what sort. She will make you notice her. You will react to her.
I was suddenly reminded of kids in the playground - when I was four of five. It would be boys, almost always, who would creep up behind you - then suddenly clap their hands or yell in your ear and run off screaming in jubilation: "Haha! I made you blink! I made you blink!!"
posted by Jody Tresidder at 1:20 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
I think you are probably right but there may be a simpler interpretation underneath it all. She craves attention (to a hideously disordered degree)- doesn't matter what sort. She will make you notice her. You will react to her.
I was suddenly reminded of kids in the playground - when I was four of five. It would be boys, almost always, who would creep up behind you - then suddenly clap their hands or yell in your ear and run off screaming in jubilation: "Haha! I made you blink! I made you blink!!"
posted by Jody Tresidder at 1:20 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
In my earlier years this kind of person would have fascinated me. I would read this book. I would want to understand what made this person the way they are. Why do they believe such nonsense. If only we could understand why then we could find a fix. But we can't really. It's like when we find out who a mass shooter is. Our instinct is to find something in their past that is a logical cause of the horror.
But it never works that way. Sure you can find abuse and mental illness but millions of other people experience abuse and mental illness and do not become violent or harass people who have suffered such horrible loss. I think that we have very little understanding of the brain and treatment of mental illness. We are basically still in the dark ages.
posted by Justin Case at 1:23 PM on June 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
But it never works that way. Sure you can find abuse and mental illness but millions of other people experience abuse and mental illness and do not become violent or harass people who have suffered such horrible loss. I think that we have very little understanding of the brain and treatment of mental illness. We are basically still in the dark ages.
posted by Justin Case at 1:23 PM on June 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
No, I'm saying those are non-factors. If everyone dressed like StarTrek, she'd just make up something else. I find it weirder that she is calling up people with dead kids and harassing them but people seriously find the fashion comments a bridge too far?
Ah, that makes sense. I think I (we?) are trying to figure out how her brain works. In order to make brains work better.
and well, look at the comment above
posted by mumimor at 1:25 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ah, that makes sense. I think I (we?) are trying to figure out how her brain works. In order to make brains work better.
and well, look at the comment above
posted by mumimor at 1:25 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
It’s the same sort of issue that my grandmother suffered from for a while as the wife of a fairly high ranking military officer. He had power and influence and some of that reflected onto her
From Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff:
posted by kirkaracha at 1:32 PM on June 15, 2022 [31 favorites]
From Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff:
The classic and often-told story of service wives concerned the wives of a group of Navy pilots who had just been transferred to a new base. A commander designated to give the wives an orientation lecture says: "First, would you ladies please rearrange yourselves by rank, with the highest-ranking wives sitting in the first row and so on back to the rear." It takes about fifteen minutes for the women to sort themselves out and change their seats, since very few of them know one another. Once the process has been completed, the commander fixes a stern glare upon them and says: "Ladies, I want you to know that I have just witnessed the most ridiculous performance I have ever seen in my entire military career. Allow me to inform you that no matter who your husbands are, you have no rank whatsoever. You are all equals, and you should kindly remember to conduct yourselves as such in all dealings with one another." That was not the end of the story, however. The wives stared back at their instructor with looks of utter bemusement and, as if with a single mind, said to themselves: "Who is this idiot and what planet has he been stationed on?" For the inexpressible provisions of the Military Wife's Compact were well known to all. A military officer's wife rose in rank with her husband and immediately took on all the honors and perquisites pertaining thereto, and only a fool or the sort of simpleminded jerk who was assigned to give orientation lectures to wives could fail to comprehend this.I love this book, but kid could throw in some paragraph breaks.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:32 PM on June 15, 2022 [31 favorites]
It's hard for me to imagine a human being so lacking in empathy that they'd antagonize grieving parents like this. She's not alone, though, and I really feel it's spreading. But maybe it's just a lot of other things, once covert but now allowed to be openly carried to use as a way to intimidate others into silence.
posted by tommasz at 1:33 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 1:33 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
The problem is, that's not what's meant. Instead, translate it as "1/5 of Americans are willing to state that they believe that all major mass shootings are staged, in line with their political beliefs"
Honestly, this sounds no more plausible than the original framing. If nearly 70 million Americans will go on record (for whatever reason) that they believe all mass shooting are staged, I’d love to see their evidence.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:03 PM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Honestly, this sounds no more plausible than the original framing. If nearly 70 million Americans will go on record (for whatever reason) that they believe all mass shooting are staged, I’d love to see their evidence.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:03 PM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
The only thing I’ve ever seen “work” on people like this is to hook them onto a different, more benign conspiracy.
I keep thinking about this reddit relationships post I first saw last February. The OP's formerly left-wing liberal aunt became a Q-Anon wingnut and seemed to have gone hopelessly around the bend on it... until she got very into the Korean pop band BTS. Whereupon she promptly reverted to her former liberal values.
Perhaps some of these obsessive conspiracy nuts just need something healthier and more positive to obsess over.
posted by orange swan at 2:06 PM on June 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
I keep thinking about this reddit relationships post I first saw last February. The OP's formerly left-wing liberal aunt became a Q-Anon wingnut and seemed to have gone hopelessly around the bend on it... until she got very into the Korean pop band BTS. Whereupon she promptly reverted to her former liberal values.
Perhaps some of these obsessive conspiracy nuts just need something healthier and more positive to obsess over.
posted by orange swan at 2:06 PM on June 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
I'm splitting hairs here, but she doesn't acknowledge/believe that they're grieving parents.
It's still incredibly shitty: she's either 1) so convinced that she's smarter than everyone else that she must be right, so there's no chance her actions are impacting actual grieving people, or 2) she acknowledges internally maybe she could be wrong, but the emotional pay off she's getting is worth the gamble (because she doesn't care enough about other people).
Honestly, I wonder if she acknowledges that other people exist outside of how they relate to her.
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's still incredibly shitty: she's either 1) so convinced that she's smarter than everyone else that she must be right, so there's no chance her actions are impacting actual grieving people, or 2) she acknowledges internally maybe she could be wrong, but the emotional pay off she's getting is worth the gamble (because she doesn't care enough about other people).
Honestly, I wonder if she acknowledges that other people exist outside of how they relate to her.
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's hard for me to imagine a human being so lacking in empathy that they'd antagonize grieving parents like this.
Well that's the thing, isn't it? According to her, they aren't grieving at all. They're not only not-grieving, they're pretending to grieve, stealing the valor of actual grieving parents, and using it toward some nefarious end.
This is something I had to think a lot about during my years involved in the reproductive justice movement, this utter conviction that is fundamentally flawed but often nothing short of sincere.
Yeah, sure, the supreme court justices and the senators and the big money people...they don't really give a shit about fetal life. They don't give a shit about shit. But the people standing outside the clinics, the people going to the anti-choice meetings? They do. Or anyway, they care about a thing that they have been TOLD is "life." They truly believe that a horrible, monstrous thing is taking place every single day, protected by law, generally considered to be not a big deal. What would it say about them if they truly, sincerely believed this and said nothing, did nothing?
Mass shooting truthers are not exactly the same as this, because we don't know what happens after we die but we sure as shit do know what happens while we're alive and the shooting truthers are, objectively, WRONG. Moreover, I don't know if this particular person is sincere about anything. I'm not entirely sure this particular person is...in touch with the world at all, frankly, it kind of sounds like she'd just say anything that gets any response out of anyone. But the actions of these people are both objectively monstrous AND completely reasonable within the (batshit, wildly incorrect) worldview of the actors.
I...have no idea what we do with this. All I know is that when it came to the antichoicers, we did not win.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:10 PM on June 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
Well that's the thing, isn't it? According to her, they aren't grieving at all. They're not only not-grieving, they're pretending to grieve, stealing the valor of actual grieving parents, and using it toward some nefarious end.
This is something I had to think a lot about during my years involved in the reproductive justice movement, this utter conviction that is fundamentally flawed but often nothing short of sincere.
Yeah, sure, the supreme court justices and the senators and the big money people...they don't really give a shit about fetal life. They don't give a shit about shit. But the people standing outside the clinics, the people going to the anti-choice meetings? They do. Or anyway, they care about a thing that they have been TOLD is "life." They truly believe that a horrible, monstrous thing is taking place every single day, protected by law, generally considered to be not a big deal. What would it say about them if they truly, sincerely believed this and said nothing, did nothing?
Mass shooting truthers are not exactly the same as this, because we don't know what happens after we die but we sure as shit do know what happens while we're alive and the shooting truthers are, objectively, WRONG. Moreover, I don't know if this particular person is sincere about anything. I'm not entirely sure this particular person is...in touch with the world at all, frankly, it kind of sounds like she'd just say anything that gets any response out of anyone. But the actions of these people are both objectively monstrous AND completely reasonable within the (batshit, wildly incorrect) worldview of the actors.
I...have no idea what we do with this. All I know is that when it came to the antichoicers, we did not win.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:10 PM on June 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
The_Vegetables, Frowner wasn’t saying that no parent ever was as Watts described (though they were noting that it was uncommon enough that it didn’t describe any real person in their own experience). They were saying that the things that Watts picked out as signifying being a parent were ludicrously insufficient for that purpose, in what would be a very obvious way to any reasonable observer who didn’t live in a complete bubble.
posted by eviemath at 2:17 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 2:17 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
(Which is an observation that I think we all agree on, if I’m understanding everyone’s comments fully.)
posted by eviemath at 2:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 2:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Her Pinterest board is the first Google result and yes, creeeepy.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:27 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 2:27 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
She believed the reforms masked the government’s true intent: “dumbing down the population.”
The irony
posted by gottabefunky at 2:29 PM on June 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
The irony
posted by gottabefunky at 2:29 PM on June 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
Everyone is confused about what to do with this woman and I'm just wondering why she isn't in jail for harassment. Or in a psych ward, after being involuntarily committed.
This woman is harming people. She's doing real harm to society. And yet it feels like a conversation about locking her away would be so far from reality, at least here in the US, that it's not even worth having.
posted by imabanana at 2:37 PM on June 15, 2022 [28 favorites]
This woman is harming people. She's doing real harm to society. And yet it feels like a conversation about locking her away would be so far from reality, at least here in the US, that it's not even worth having.
posted by imabanana at 2:37 PM on June 15, 2022 [28 favorites]
"Sandy Hook is my baby," she told me.
But like, also, whatever, sincerity and worldviews aside: jesus tapdancing christ.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:39 PM on June 15, 2022 [50 favorites]
But like, also, whatever, sincerity and worldviews aside: jesus tapdancing christ.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:39 PM on June 15, 2022 [50 favorites]
I'm just wondering why she isn't in jail for harassment.
Yes, indeed, I wonder white. I mean, why.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:05 PM on June 15, 2022 [75 favorites]
Yes, indeed, I wonder white. I mean, why.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:05 PM on June 15, 2022 [75 favorites]
This woman is harming people. She's doing real harm to society. And yet it feels like a conversation about locking her away would be so far from reality, at least here in the US, that it's not even worth having.
And if she doesn’t have a jailhouse change-of-heart, we just throw away the key? This lady’s a grade-A asshole, but I still don’t want to live in a country where being a delusional jerk gets you a life sentence.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 3:10 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
And if she doesn’t have a jailhouse change-of-heart, we just throw away the key? This lady’s a grade-A asshole, but I still don’t want to live in a country where being a delusional jerk gets you a life sentence.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 3:10 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm not a psychologist, and I'm thoroughly unqualified and short on information to do any diagnosis of Watt. I think it's dangerous to declare that she is mentally ill, because I don't think it requires a specific mental condition to adopt delusional thinking, and there are plenty of people with significant mental illness who avoid doing the harm she has done and is continuing to do. It's a ceap way to make her a monster. Not that I am calling for forgiveness or even sympathy; whatever the underlying causes, she is very deep into a bad state of mind and she's doing real harm to people and society.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:14 PM on June 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:14 PM on June 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
With the woman's comments about the parents who can't be parents because they don't have messy buns:
It's like if someone said, "that person says she's a lawyer, but where are her Chanel suit and her Ferragamo heels? She must be a con artist!" I mean sure, there are presumably lawyers who have couture suits and very fancy shoes, but no one believes that all lawyers have those things, or that most lawyers have those things, or that if you don't have those things you cannot be a lawyer. It's not even like saying, "she can't have a baby, where is her diaper bag", where you're pointing to something useful for the job that many people do in fact have - you're insisting that the proof of identity lies in something that is not necessary to the job and that most people do not have.
The only reason to think that all lawyers wear couture suits is if you watch a lot of rich people courtroom dramas and you literally think that TV dramas are more real than the varied and complex world you actually inhabit....which is extremely creepy.
posted by Frowner at 3:16 PM on June 15, 2022 [26 favorites]
It's like if someone said, "that person says she's a lawyer, but where are her Chanel suit and her Ferragamo heels? She must be a con artist!" I mean sure, there are presumably lawyers who have couture suits and very fancy shoes, but no one believes that all lawyers have those things, or that most lawyers have those things, or that if you don't have those things you cannot be a lawyer. It's not even like saying, "she can't have a baby, where is her diaper bag", where you're pointing to something useful for the job that many people do in fact have - you're insisting that the proof of identity lies in something that is not necessary to the job and that most people do not have.
The only reason to think that all lawyers wear couture suits is if you watch a lot of rich people courtroom dramas and you literally think that TV dramas are more real than the varied and complex world you actually inhabit....which is extremely creepy.
posted by Frowner at 3:16 PM on June 15, 2022 [26 favorites]
Where there groups of people like this in history, over various topics? I'm kind of lost as to how to search for this.
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:32 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:32 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds?
The delusions I remember were mostly about how to get rich but also sometimes of people it was okay to attack.
posted by clew at 3:53 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
The delusions I remember were mostly about how to get rich but also sometimes of people it was okay to attack.
posted by clew at 3:53 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Where there groups of people like this in history, over various topics?
Keep in mind that, for the vast majority of history, the vast majority of people didn't travel all that far and did not have much chance to share their weird ideas with other people. Once in a while, they would convince people they were right; other times, they would get killed. Or, they kicked of the Taiping Rebellion and got 10s of Millions of people killed. TL: DR -- no one knows.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:05 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Keep in mind that, for the vast majority of history, the vast majority of people didn't travel all that far and did not have much chance to share their weird ideas with other people. Once in a while, they would convince people they were right; other times, they would get killed. Or, they kicked of the Taiping Rebellion and got 10s of Millions of people killed. TL: DR -- no one knows.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:05 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
True enough, but I am interested in what instances of this kind of denial of reality + attacking those affected might have happened before. Even if they are amplified now because of the internet.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:08 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:08 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
(Someone knows)
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:08 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:08 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
> tiny frying pan: "Where there groups of people like this in history, over various topics?"
The ones that come to mind for me are the anti-Catholic Know Nothings. They ended up forming (for a relatively brief period) a political party that won a handful of seats and also managed to disrupt the construction of the Washington Monument.
posted by mhum at 4:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
The ones that come to mind for me are the anti-Catholic Know Nothings. They ended up forming (for a relatively brief period) a political party that won a handful of seats and also managed to disrupt the construction of the Washington Monument.
posted by mhum at 4:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Mhum, yes!
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:12 PM on June 15, 2022
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:12 PM on June 15, 2022
Abraham Lincoln:
posted by kirkaracha at 4:12 PM on June 15, 2022 [26 favorites]
I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.Fortunately the Know-Nothings were 19th-century whackadoos and their backwards racist ideology has faded into obscurity.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:12 PM on June 15, 2022 [26 favorites]
The OP's formerly left-wing liberal aunt became a Q-Anon wingnut and seemed to have gone hopelessly around the bend on it... until she got very into the Korean pop band BTS. Whereupon she promptly reverted to her former liberal values.
God damn people are weird.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:14 PM on June 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
God damn people are weird.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:14 PM on June 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
This lady’s a grade-A asshole, but I still don’t want to live in a country where being a delusional jerk gets you a life sentence.
In part because of this woman's behavior, a number of Sandy Hook parents are serving a "life sentence" of having to watch their back and hide themselves lest some stochastic terrorist encouraged by the lies pushed by this woman find them and kill them.
We need to stop diminishing the harm these people do.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [58 favorites]
In part because of this woman's behavior, a number of Sandy Hook parents are serving a "life sentence" of having to watch their back and hide themselves lest some stochastic terrorist encouraged by the lies pushed by this woman find them and kill them.
We need to stop diminishing the harm these people do.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [58 favorites]
Fortunately the Know-Nothings were 19th-century whackadoos and their backwards racist ideology has faded into obscurity.
2022, maybe 2024: Hold my beer.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:22 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
2022, maybe 2024: Hold my beer.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:22 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
Fortunately the Know-Nothings were 19th-century whackadoos and their backwards racist ideology has faded into obscurity.
didn't they just elect a president a few years back?
posted by pyramid termite at 4:26 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
didn't they just elect a president a few years back?
posted by pyramid termite at 4:26 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
Yeah, seems to me that speculation about her mental wellness is not so helpful, but it’s quite clear that she has a very long history of engaging in harmful harassment, which is certainly something that our legal system could potentially do something about. (I’ve never heard of life sentences for harassment; not sure where that came from?)
posted by eviemath at 4:31 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 4:31 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
That came from the fact that there’s a good likelihood that she’ll never back down from these delusions. If that’s the case, what are the realistic alternatives to “let her keep doing this shit” and “imprison/institutionalize her until she’s fixed”?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:43 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:43 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
(I’ve never heard of life sentences for harassment; not sure where that came from?)
It's that this woman, much like the Canadian woman who used legalized extortion websites to run harassment campaigns against those who got on her wrong side, won't stop unless the keyboard is taken from her physically and permanently. I'm reminded of the point CS Lewis made about tyranny:
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:46 PM on June 15, 2022 [25 favorites]
It's that this woman, much like the Canadian woman who used legalized extortion websites to run harassment campaigns against those who got on her wrong side, won't stop unless the keyboard is taken from her physically and permanently. I'm reminded of the point CS Lewis made about tyranny:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.She believes she is doing right, and as such will not be deterred.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:46 PM on June 15, 2022 [25 favorites]
That came from the fact that there’s a good likelihood that she’ll never back down from these delusions. If that’s the case, what are the realistic alternatives to “let her keep doing this shit” and “imprison/institutionalize her until she’s fixed”?
Why do we need an alternative? Because your argument here is that this woman be allowed to continue to abuse and torment people who have done nothing wrong - whose only "crime" was to lose their children in a horrific act of violence - out of a call to some "greater good". If she won't stop hurting them and putting their lives in danger, then why shouldn't society do so?
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:54 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Why do we need an alternative? Because your argument here is that this woman be allowed to continue to abuse and torment people who have done nothing wrong - whose only "crime" was to lose their children in a horrific act of violence - out of a call to some "greater good". If she won't stop hurting them and putting their lives in danger, then why shouldn't society do so?
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:54 PM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
This reminds me of when I used to spend time arguing with creationists on the internet, but manifested into real life with all the most self-degrading aspects of it multiplied tenfold.
military officer's wife rose in rank with her husband
My grandfather used to talk about how when they announced certain things at the naval base they would ‘officers and their ladies, enlisted men and their wives….”
posted by bq at 5:08 PM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
military officer's wife rose in rank with her husband
My grandfather used to talk about how when they announced certain things at the naval base they would ‘officers and their ladies, enlisted men and their wives….”
posted by bq at 5:08 PM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
The OP's formerly left-wing liberal aunt became a Q-Anon wingnut and seemed to have gone hopelessly around the bend on it... until she got very into the Korean pop band BTS. Whereupon she promptly reverted to her former liberal values.
Ian Danskin has written quite a bit about the alt-right being like an abusive relationship - albeit a relationship with a group rather than a person. What you get, I think, is a high number of "self-organizing high-control groups" - effectively, leaderless cults where members are kept in line by the power of groupthink and the fact that the group provides members with the illusion of friendship and community while cutting them off from all other sources of friendship and community because once you go down that road of conspiratorial thinking, you start alienating a ton of your friends and family. Groups where you get status by being the loudest, most fiery, the most radical, so members tend to get radicalized. And once you're in, it's hard to get out because you're losing your whole community without any community to go back to.
None of this is to excuse Watt or anyone like her. You don't get that far down that road without having made a lot of really bad choices. (And once you're in a group like that, you're as much an instigator as a victim, because it becomes your role to punish doubters, questioners, and anyone who looks like they might want to leave.)
But I do think that people are not paying enough attention to how good social media is at creating these self-organizing (or semi-decentralized) high-control groups, and how good they are at creating the illusion of community for lonely and disconnected people. And sometimes it is as simple as being able to find that community (or even an illusion of community!) in a more benign place.
posted by Jeanne at 5:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
Ian Danskin has written quite a bit about the alt-right being like an abusive relationship - albeit a relationship with a group rather than a person. What you get, I think, is a high number of "self-organizing high-control groups" - effectively, leaderless cults where members are kept in line by the power of groupthink and the fact that the group provides members with the illusion of friendship and community while cutting them off from all other sources of friendship and community because once you go down that road of conspiratorial thinking, you start alienating a ton of your friends and family. Groups where you get status by being the loudest, most fiery, the most radical, so members tend to get radicalized. And once you're in, it's hard to get out because you're losing your whole community without any community to go back to.
None of this is to excuse Watt or anyone like her. You don't get that far down that road without having made a lot of really bad choices. (And once you're in a group like that, you're as much an instigator as a victim, because it becomes your role to punish doubters, questioners, and anyone who looks like they might want to leave.)
But I do think that people are not paying enough attention to how good social media is at creating these self-organizing (or semi-decentralized) high-control groups, and how good they are at creating the illusion of community for lonely and disconnected people. And sometimes it is as simple as being able to find that community (or even an illusion of community!) in a more benign place.
posted by Jeanne at 5:09 PM on June 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
A former friend of mine is a right wing extremist, one who has warranted the occasional mention on the Canadian Anti-Hate Network's twitter account and website, and I suspect she's probably also known to the Toronto police/RCMP.
We were close friends for six years in my twenties, but haven't spoken since late 2001. She was in an abusive relationship that she not only refused to leave but was trying to double down on by pushing the guy into marrying her. She was so consumed with her shitty relationship that she was mentally deteriorating as a person in a way that was heartrending to watch, and she was also using her problems as justification to act like an asshole. Finally I woke up to the reality that I not only couldn't help her but that I hadn't gotten anything positive out of our friendship for the previous three years, and I walked away from it. I've kept a virtual eye on her via occasional google searches ever since, at first out of a long lingering yearning to help her as well as fear that the man she was involved with might actually kill her, but based on what I saw online my concern gradually morphed into what I can only describe as a somewhat morbid fascination with what she's become.
She and her abusive, controlling boyfriend married and had children, and she became a stay-at-home mom. When Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto, she was a big supporter, and I think perhaps connecting with other Rob Ford supporters online drew her into other extremist groups, such as the Yellow Vests. She is consistently on the batshit side of every issue. I remember seeing photos of her demonstrating against female genital mutilation at Queen's Park. It was probably the only legitimate cause she has espoused in the time I've been monitoring her political engagement, but I found myself thinking sure, I'm against FGM too, however FGM is already illegal in Canada and there's no data on whether it's even being practiced in the country, so what exactly is she protesting against and what does she hope to achieve by protesting? The answer, of course, is that the protest is merely an outcropping of her Islamophobia and a way to demonize the Canadian Muslim community. I thought that at least she'd get that Trump was bad when he began campaigning for president, but no, she promptly became a fervent Trump supporter too. She's an anti-vaxxer because of course she is, and when the Freedom Convoy was a thing last winter, she was one of the dimbulbs gathering on a Toronto-area overpass to cheer on traffic, and she claimed on her Facebook page that it was a sign that "something had shifted".
I was taken aback by this development at first, because she used to identify as a liberal when I knew her, but it made sense when I thought more about it, because she had never understood the underlying principles of politics or how the political system worked, and worse, she didn't seem to have much capacity for learning such things. She never read anything but romance novels and the more trite, simplistic kind of self-help books. Her post-secondary education consisted of a community college diploma in journalism, but she had never worked in journalism, and in the six years I knew her she never once said anything to indicate that she knew anything at all about journalism. She didn't know the difference between the deficit and the debt, and would conflate being politically right- or left-wing with being right- or left-brained. Whenever I tried to explain some of these concepts to her, she would just look at me blankly, and then make the same mistake the next time it came up.
I realized that she had always been a reactionary, and lacking the grounding a genuine grasp of political principles would have given her, she had simply become another kind of reactionary. Her husband had a very ignorant knee-jerk "the government just takes your money and they don't do anything for you" kind of attitude towards politics when I knew him, and I suppose pivoting towards his point of view would have reduced the amount of conflict between them and gave them a shared interest. And then too, becoming part of right wing extremist groups gave her things like a sense of purpose, community, positive attention/admiration, and an outlet for all the anger and emotional pain she carries over the trauma and abuse she has suffered in her life, and at herself for her own failure to accomplish the things she wanted.
If she were left wing, no one would listen to her because she doesn't have any intelligent or interesting insights into anything, but she can go to little right-wing extremist gatherings of 20 to 40 people and make a cobbled-together, borderline incoherent, scream-y speech full of meaningless platitudes and inaccurate information and in which she compares Justin Trudeau to a chocolate chip muffin (I am NOT making that analogy of hers up -- there's actual video of her doing exactly that at a rally in Ottawa) and everyone there will applaud enthusiastically and tell her her speech is wonderful and that she's soooo smart and pretty. (She is physically very attractive and there's always a disturbingly creepy element to the response she gets from the men in her wingnut cohort at rallies and in online comments.) She has no concept of the real work of political change, and probably couldn't point to a single concrete thing that she's accomplished in over a decade of what she probably considers to be political activism. However, sharing a lot of embarrassingly childish and ignorant memes on Facebook, giving speeches at the sad, tiny rallies she organizes, occasionally meeting the people she supports such as Faith Goldy in person, and making unhinged videos with her best friend, a woman who is literally brain-damaged (I've seen a newspaper article about how she sustained a TBI over a decade ago), makes her feel like a political mover and shaker.
Because I knew her so well and know how her mind works and what her life circumstance have been, she has become my window into right wing extremism. I see so many parallels between her and Kelley Watt. I don't know what the answer is to helping or managing people like them, though certainly things like better mental health care systems and getting Facebook and YouTube and other social media platforms to become more responsible about stamping out hate groups and the dissemination of false information would help. People like Watt and my former friend are fringe elements and have very little influence, and the monied oligarchs who fund deliberate misinformation campaigns to foment gullible people like them in order to get their useful idiots elected and destabilize society are the real root of the problem... but are they ever a thorn in the side of our society.
posted by orange swan at 5:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [54 favorites]
We were close friends for six years in my twenties, but haven't spoken since late 2001. She was in an abusive relationship that she not only refused to leave but was trying to double down on by pushing the guy into marrying her. She was so consumed with her shitty relationship that she was mentally deteriorating as a person in a way that was heartrending to watch, and she was also using her problems as justification to act like an asshole. Finally I woke up to the reality that I not only couldn't help her but that I hadn't gotten anything positive out of our friendship for the previous three years, and I walked away from it. I've kept a virtual eye on her via occasional google searches ever since, at first out of a long lingering yearning to help her as well as fear that the man she was involved with might actually kill her, but based on what I saw online my concern gradually morphed into what I can only describe as a somewhat morbid fascination with what she's become.
She and her abusive, controlling boyfriend married and had children, and she became a stay-at-home mom. When Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto, she was a big supporter, and I think perhaps connecting with other Rob Ford supporters online drew her into other extremist groups, such as the Yellow Vests. She is consistently on the batshit side of every issue. I remember seeing photos of her demonstrating against female genital mutilation at Queen's Park. It was probably the only legitimate cause she has espoused in the time I've been monitoring her political engagement, but I found myself thinking sure, I'm against FGM too, however FGM is already illegal in Canada and there's no data on whether it's even being practiced in the country, so what exactly is she protesting against and what does she hope to achieve by protesting? The answer, of course, is that the protest is merely an outcropping of her Islamophobia and a way to demonize the Canadian Muslim community. I thought that at least she'd get that Trump was bad when he began campaigning for president, but no, she promptly became a fervent Trump supporter too. She's an anti-vaxxer because of course she is, and when the Freedom Convoy was a thing last winter, she was one of the dimbulbs gathering on a Toronto-area overpass to cheer on traffic, and she claimed on her Facebook page that it was a sign that "something had shifted".
I was taken aback by this development at first, because she used to identify as a liberal when I knew her, but it made sense when I thought more about it, because she had never understood the underlying principles of politics or how the political system worked, and worse, she didn't seem to have much capacity for learning such things. She never read anything but romance novels and the more trite, simplistic kind of self-help books. Her post-secondary education consisted of a community college diploma in journalism, but she had never worked in journalism, and in the six years I knew her she never once said anything to indicate that she knew anything at all about journalism. She didn't know the difference between the deficit and the debt, and would conflate being politically right- or left-wing with being right- or left-brained. Whenever I tried to explain some of these concepts to her, she would just look at me blankly, and then make the same mistake the next time it came up.
I realized that she had always been a reactionary, and lacking the grounding a genuine grasp of political principles would have given her, she had simply become another kind of reactionary. Her husband had a very ignorant knee-jerk "the government just takes your money and they don't do anything for you" kind of attitude towards politics when I knew him, and I suppose pivoting towards his point of view would have reduced the amount of conflict between them and gave them a shared interest. And then too, becoming part of right wing extremist groups gave her things like a sense of purpose, community, positive attention/admiration, and an outlet for all the anger and emotional pain she carries over the trauma and abuse she has suffered in her life, and at herself for her own failure to accomplish the things she wanted.
If she were left wing, no one would listen to her because she doesn't have any intelligent or interesting insights into anything, but she can go to little right-wing extremist gatherings of 20 to 40 people and make a cobbled-together, borderline incoherent, scream-y speech full of meaningless platitudes and inaccurate information and in which she compares Justin Trudeau to a chocolate chip muffin (I am NOT making that analogy of hers up -- there's actual video of her doing exactly that at a rally in Ottawa) and everyone there will applaud enthusiastically and tell her her speech is wonderful and that she's soooo smart and pretty. (She is physically very attractive and there's always a disturbingly creepy element to the response she gets from the men in her wingnut cohort at rallies and in online comments.) She has no concept of the real work of political change, and probably couldn't point to a single concrete thing that she's accomplished in over a decade of what she probably considers to be political activism. However, sharing a lot of embarrassingly childish and ignorant memes on Facebook, giving speeches at the sad, tiny rallies she organizes, occasionally meeting the people she supports such as Faith Goldy in person, and making unhinged videos with her best friend, a woman who is literally brain-damaged (I've seen a newspaper article about how she sustained a TBI over a decade ago), makes her feel like a political mover and shaker.
Because I knew her so well and know how her mind works and what her life circumstance have been, she has become my window into right wing extremism. I see so many parallels between her and Kelley Watt. I don't know what the answer is to helping or managing people like them, though certainly things like better mental health care systems and getting Facebook and YouTube and other social media platforms to become more responsible about stamping out hate groups and the dissemination of false information would help. People like Watt and my former friend are fringe elements and have very little influence, and the monied oligarchs who fund deliberate misinformation campaigns to foment gullible people like them in order to get their useful idiots elected and destabilize society are the real root of the problem... but are they ever a thorn in the side of our society.
posted by orange swan at 5:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [54 favorites]
There is no "thought crime" currently in Western justice. 1984's dystopia had seen to that.
And she can always hide behind the 1st Amendment, i.e. "I was merely expressing my opinion!"
Watts is guilty of thoughtcrime... which is not technically a crime. UNLESS she directly harasses the families.
The only way to really control her ilk is to stop the algorithms from digging them up and promoting them. And you know the tech giants won't do that.
posted by kschang at 5:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
And she can always hide behind the 1st Amendment, i.e. "I was merely expressing my opinion!"
Watts is guilty of thoughtcrime... which is not technically a crime. UNLESS she directly harasses the families.
The only way to really control her ilk is to stop the algorithms from digging them up and promoting them. And you know the tech giants won't do that.
posted by kschang at 5:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Trying to think what can be done for and about such people -- and, as a free society, what should be done.
The bare minimum is to mitigate any harm they do to others. Apparently, one of the Sandy Hook parents did create a non-profit, HONR Network to help victims of online harassment, in part by working with social media platforms to remove abusive contact.
A larger goal is to make it more difficult for them to recruit others into the hoax. Even if we can't change their minds, we can try to contain the spread to keep more people from becoming infected by their viral content.
And, finally, there's the matter of bringing the believers out of their bubbles so they can recover.
I have no answers for how to do any of these things, but are these the right directions to be looking?
posted by cheshyre at 6:12 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
The bare minimum is to mitigate any harm they do to others. Apparently, one of the Sandy Hook parents did create a non-profit, HONR Network to help victims of online harassment, in part by working with social media platforms to remove abusive contact.
A larger goal is to make it more difficult for them to recruit others into the hoax. Even if we can't change their minds, we can try to contain the spread to keep more people from becoming infected by their viral content.
And, finally, there's the matter of bringing the believers out of their bubbles so they can recover.
I have no answers for how to do any of these things, but are these the right directions to be looking?
posted by cheshyre at 6:12 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
It sounds like you are conflating “engineer’s disease” with narcissistic, evil, sociopathy. I don’t really see the connection
Nah. Closer to what anhedonic said.
Engineers, especially electrical engineers, have a weird tendency to fall down conspiracy rabbit holes as a general piece of modern Internet wisdom. If you meet someone who is highly educated but believes HIV isn’t real or the earth is 6,000 years old or denies the Holocaust, that advanced degree always seems to be in engineering. The Salem Hypothesis is too limited.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:52 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
Nah. Closer to what anhedonic said.
Engineers, especially electrical engineers, have a weird tendency to fall down conspiracy rabbit holes as a general piece of modern Internet wisdom. If you meet someone who is highly educated but believes HIV isn’t real or the earth is 6,000 years old or denies the Holocaust, that advanced degree always seems to be in engineering. The Salem Hypothesis is too limited.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:52 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
UNLESS she directly harasses the families.
… according to the article I read, that is exactly what she did: both to Sandy Hool families and to a variety of more local people relating to more local issues for many years beforehand. Before the internet even.
what are the realistic alternatives to “let her keep doing this shit” and “imprison/institutionalize her until she’s fixed”?
Well, the way it usually works in real life when someone is convicted of criminal harassment, in the cases that go beyond just imposing a restraining order (which can be rather ineffective), is that they get either imprisoned or prohibited from eg. using the internet for a set period of time aligned with sentencing guidelines in whatever jurisdiction. My understanding is that imprisonment is rare. But if someone is sentenced to jail for criminal harassment, or has conditions that actually effectively prevent them from contacting their targets, then during that period of time the targets of their harassment have a respite and can get on with their lives.
After the period of time is up, in some cases the harasser has moved on to other obsessions or grievances, they then harass someone else similarly, and get convicted again with possibly longer consequences for being a repeat offender. Or they resume harassing the same victims, and then get convicted again, etc. Every so often they aren’t a repeat offender. In some jurisdictions, depending on the exact charge, they may face ongoing restrictions on select activities such as owning a firearm. Sometimes that doesn’t happen and they escalate their behavior to more direct harm.
It’s definitely not perfect. Likely something that involves counselling or other options for restitution might be helpful additions in some cases. Also, of course, actually getting a conviction for criminal harassment, or consequences beyond an ineffective restraining order, happens less often than it arguably should - especially in domestic violence cases. Actually taking harassment seriously and using the full sentencing power available when setting consequences, including imprisonment for a set length of time shorter than a life sentence, or something that requires police or a probation officer or someone to actively monitor to ensure that the harassment is not ongoing, would be big positive steps that would also fall into that extensive middle ground between doing nothing and life imprisonment.
posted by eviemath at 7:05 PM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
… according to the article I read, that is exactly what she did: both to Sandy Hool families and to a variety of more local people relating to more local issues for many years beforehand. Before the internet even.
what are the realistic alternatives to “let her keep doing this shit” and “imprison/institutionalize her until she’s fixed”?
Well, the way it usually works in real life when someone is convicted of criminal harassment, in the cases that go beyond just imposing a restraining order (which can be rather ineffective), is that they get either imprisoned or prohibited from eg. using the internet for a set period of time aligned with sentencing guidelines in whatever jurisdiction. My understanding is that imprisonment is rare. But if someone is sentenced to jail for criminal harassment, or has conditions that actually effectively prevent them from contacting their targets, then during that period of time the targets of their harassment have a respite and can get on with their lives.
After the period of time is up, in some cases the harasser has moved on to other obsessions or grievances, they then harass someone else similarly, and get convicted again with possibly longer consequences for being a repeat offender. Or they resume harassing the same victims, and then get convicted again, etc. Every so often they aren’t a repeat offender. In some jurisdictions, depending on the exact charge, they may face ongoing restrictions on select activities such as owning a firearm. Sometimes that doesn’t happen and they escalate their behavior to more direct harm.
It’s definitely not perfect. Likely something that involves counselling or other options for restitution might be helpful additions in some cases. Also, of course, actually getting a conviction for criminal harassment, or consequences beyond an ineffective restraining order, happens less often than it arguably should - especially in domestic violence cases. Actually taking harassment seriously and using the full sentencing power available when setting consequences, including imprisonment for a set length of time shorter than a life sentence, or something that requires police or a probation officer or someone to actively monitor to ensure that the harassment is not ongoing, would be big positive steps that would also fall into that extensive middle ground between doing nothing and life imprisonment.
posted by eviemath at 7:05 PM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
it points to a literal breakdown in the ability to discern the difference between reality and TV, like people who think that soap opera stars actually are their characters and stalk them accordingly
- Frowner -
Disneyland produces a clear cut distinction between reality and imagination. Disneyland can be thought of as a second order simulacra, one in which reality is somehow reflected in its representation and the way American ideology is manifested there can be studied. But this distinction between the real and imaginary in Disneyland is nothing but a desperate attempt to hide the fact that there is no difference. According to Baudrillard, all of America is Disneyland. Reality is not distorted in some Marxian fashion (see The German Ideology), it is the cultural code that pre-establishes life in America which is manifested in Disneyland. Disneyland doesn’t let you be a child; it hides that fact that you are a child. - Baudrillard
Although Baudrillard refers specifically to America, by now it's obvious this "Disney reality" is a Western thing not at all limited to the USA. According to a recent poll more than a third of Canadians believe in some version of the replacement theory. For me, this all looks like an increase in a kind of tribalism - a xenophobic code and worldview. Simply, we agree with what we recognize and reject what we don't; a narcissism of small differences.
It's protectionism in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, where social media silos are towers of defence in the infowars.
I keep hoping that all this is a last gasp of labour in the birth of a new social order ... but likely climate change will take that all apart first.
posted by kneecapped at 7:13 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
- Frowner -
Disneyland produces a clear cut distinction between reality and imagination. Disneyland can be thought of as a second order simulacra, one in which reality is somehow reflected in its representation and the way American ideology is manifested there can be studied. But this distinction between the real and imaginary in Disneyland is nothing but a desperate attempt to hide the fact that there is no difference. According to Baudrillard, all of America is Disneyland. Reality is not distorted in some Marxian fashion (see The German Ideology), it is the cultural code that pre-establishes life in America which is manifested in Disneyland. Disneyland doesn’t let you be a child; it hides that fact that you are a child. - Baudrillard
Although Baudrillard refers specifically to America, by now it's obvious this "Disney reality" is a Western thing not at all limited to the USA. According to a recent poll more than a third of Canadians believe in some version of the replacement theory. For me, this all looks like an increase in a kind of tribalism - a xenophobic code and worldview. Simply, we agree with what we recognize and reject what we don't; a narcissism of small differences.
It's protectionism in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, where social media silos are towers of defence in the infowars.
I keep hoping that all this is a last gasp of labour in the birth of a new social order ... but likely climate change will take that all apart first.
posted by kneecapped at 7:13 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Her Pinterest board is the first Google result and yes, creeeepy.
I have a feeling that person's Pinterest isn't hers....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 PM on June 15, 2022
I have a feeling that person's Pinterest isn't hers....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:00 PM on June 15, 2022
I think it's dangerous to declare that she is mentally ill, because I don't think it requires a specific mental condition to adopt delusional thinking, and there are plenty of people with significant mental illness who avoid doing the harm she has done
Thanks for articulating this for me. I guess it goes to the heart of what we consider to be mental illness?
From what we've seen, there seems to be a way to derail all kinds of people into conspiracy thinking. Some of them take it further and do vicious and violent things.
Is the mechanism that hooks people into conspiracy thinking the equivalent of an infection, so that a previously well person is now [insert mental health diagnosis here]?
Or is it the willingness and ability to harm that's prompting the diagnosis?
Is the diagnosis helpful if we don't know what causes it, can't agree how to treat (or punish?) it, and it doesn't have a cure?
Or is it just a convenient way to find what feels like an explanation for something we don't understand, so that we don't have to keep struggling with the mystery of it?
posted by Zumbador at 9:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thanks for articulating this for me. I guess it goes to the heart of what we consider to be mental illness?
From what we've seen, there seems to be a way to derail all kinds of people into conspiracy thinking. Some of them take it further and do vicious and violent things.
Is the mechanism that hooks people into conspiracy thinking the equivalent of an infection, so that a previously well person is now [insert mental health diagnosis here]?
Or is it the willingness and ability to harm that's prompting the diagnosis?
Is the diagnosis helpful if we don't know what causes it, can't agree how to treat (or punish?) it, and it doesn't have a cure?
Or is it just a convenient way to find what feels like an explanation for something we don't understand, so that we don't have to keep struggling with the mystery of it?
posted by Zumbador at 9:19 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't know that mental illness is the right category, but maybe the problem is compulsive hostility more than the conspiratorial thinking.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:25 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:25 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
It's always risky to diagnose people based on secondhand accounts, but it seems very likely that she would pass the diagnosis criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder if you combine the self importance and utter lack of empathy. So I would probably describe her as "mentally ill" but that is definitely not the whole explanation. There are many pleasant, productive, and successful people with NPD but she clearly isn't one of them.
It's honestly REALLY DIFFICULT to figure out what is true in a complicated social environment like modern society where everyone has really complex motivations, and our brains do the best that they can. We all build a mental model of how society works based on our experiences growing up, and those experiences now include a lot of conspiracy theories and true crime. For most people, natural human empathy causes us to believe people who are showing strong emotions like grief, but that isn't true for a minority. Personally, I don't have a ton of emotional empathy but my life experiences have left me with an understanding of society that is much more forgiving (and accurate) then Sandy Hook truthers.
I think cases like this come from a combination of 4 factors:
This doesn't mean that things are hopeless, because anything we do to counteract those 4 factors is really important! If we try to teach kids to embrace empathy, learn the difference between conspiracy media and reality, avoid overconfident conclusions, and watch out for dangerous social media we can probably get at least ONE of those ideas to stick.
posted by JZig at 10:38 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's honestly REALLY DIFFICULT to figure out what is true in a complicated social environment like modern society where everyone has really complex motivations, and our brains do the best that they can. We all build a mental model of how society works based on our experiences growing up, and those experiences now include a lot of conspiracy theories and true crime. For most people, natural human empathy causes us to believe people who are showing strong emotions like grief, but that isn't true for a minority. Personally, I don't have a ton of emotional empathy but my life experiences have left me with an understanding of society that is much more forgiving (and accurate) then Sandy Hook truthers.
I think cases like this come from a combination of 4 factors:
- Some mental illness or other issue that gets in the way of experiencing empathy
- Exposure to conspiracy-minded fiction and other media that makes something like a Sandy Hook conspiracy seem plausible
- Flawed reasoning about cause and effect that is driven by overconfidence and denial (engineer's disease)
- Some social feedback loop (Facebook and local community groups both work) that encourages taking extreme positions
This doesn't mean that things are hopeless, because anything we do to counteract those 4 factors is really important! If we try to teach kids to embrace empathy, learn the difference between conspiracy media and reality, avoid overconfident conclusions, and watch out for dangerous social media we can probably get at least ONE of those ideas to stick.
posted by JZig at 10:38 PM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
> Reading the book also shed a LOT more light on Alex Jones, who is the one that started the rumors that led to the harassment of these parents.
FYI I just listened to two recent episodes of the Behind the Bastards podcast about Alex Jones. Those episodes are a nice complement to this article and also a (very rare!) example of someone getting actual, very well earned comeuppance for this type of behavior.
posted by flug at 12:03 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
FYI I just listened to two recent episodes of the Behind the Bastards podcast about Alex Jones. Those episodes are a nice complement to this article and also a (very rare!) example of someone getting actual, very well earned comeuppance for this type of behavior.
posted by flug at 12:03 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Speaking of , Elizabeth Williamson was interviewed by Dan and Jordan of Knowledge Fight (they were the guests on Behind the Bastards talking about Alex Jones) back in March.
posted by LostInUbe at 1:05 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by LostInUbe at 1:05 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Where there groups of people like this in history, over various topics? ... I am interested in what instances of this kind of denial of reality + attacking those affected might have happened before.
The Witch trials. Precipitating event: living while female.
And taken broadly... All the misogynistic, racist, homophobic, exploitative, and corrupt strains of Christianity, which is most of them at some or all times.
I keep hoping that all this is a last gasp of labour in the birth of a new social order ...
No way. Abort. Nothing socially positive can be borne from this woman and her similars.
posted by Thella at 1:33 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Witch trials. Precipitating event: living while female.
And taken broadly... All the misogynistic, racist, homophobic, exploitative, and corrupt strains of Christianity, which is most of them at some or all times.
I keep hoping that all this is a last gasp of labour in the birth of a new social order ...
No way. Abort. Nothing socially positive can be borne from this woman and her similars.
posted by Thella at 1:33 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
As a general thing, there are limited prison sentences for a lot of crimes, even though there's a chance that the person will do it again.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:15 AM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:15 AM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
I’ve been reading Michael Taussig’s book Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man for a course and it just strikes me deep how the whole “El Dorado must be real, and I, conqueror, deserve its riches so I am going to slaughter and enslave huge populations of people in order to seize it, and by the way, use Christianity to explain why I deserve it and am on a holy mission from God and if you oppose me you are going to hell, by the way, your drugs prove to this day you are uncivilized except when I need a mystic journey” errr, thing is.
So right now it doesn’t really surprise me that within Western society there are bunches of people trying to establish these narratives where they have The Truth and others are Trying To Keep Them From It. The road to El Dorado indeed. I dunno how we heal it.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:56 AM on June 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
So right now it doesn’t really surprise me that within Western society there are bunches of people trying to establish these narratives where they have The Truth and others are Trying To Keep Them From It. The road to El Dorado indeed. I dunno how we heal it.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:56 AM on June 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
If you meet someone who is highly educated but believes HIV isn’t real or the earth is 6,000 years old or denies the Holocaust, that advanced degree always seems to be in engineering.
Counterexample: my mother (Masters in oriental philology, not technically inclined at all, and went through generic Murdochian anti-socialism conspiracy theory into the full QAnon/globalist/5G vaccine chip thing).
posted by acb at 3:58 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Counterexample: my mother (Masters in oriental philology, not technically inclined at all, and went through generic Murdochian anti-socialism conspiracy theory into the full QAnon/globalist/5G vaccine chip thing).
posted by acb at 3:58 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
For my own understanding I’ve been turning to some of the ideas of philosopher Peter Sloterdijk
Sloterdijk, Peter. Critique of Cynical Reason (1988)
For example Sloterdijk discusses the rationale of cynicism and social discontent.
Sloterdijk describes the difficulty of an argument with someone intent on lying to you. Take that a step further. Its an order of magnitude more difficult to find agreement with someone who has a false belief (ie. a witness to an event who has a false belief because of a unconscious bias). Finally, he defines “ideology” as an personal and internal idea—unexpressed—of how the world works.
At which point an argument is really turning in an unexpected way into being very personal
posted by xtian at 4:24 AM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
Sloterdijk, Peter. Critique of Cynical Reason (1988)
For example Sloterdijk discusses the rationale of cynicism and social discontent.
Sloterdijk describes the difficulty of an argument with someone intent on lying to you. Take that a step further. Its an order of magnitude more difficult to find agreement with someone who has a false belief (ie. a witness to an event who has a false belief because of a unconscious bias). Finally, he defines “ideology” as an personal and internal idea—unexpressed—of how the world works.
At which point an argument is really turning in an unexpected way into being very personal
posted by xtian at 4:24 AM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
Just came to say that this engineer thing seems lazy to me. Hella MDs and JDs and landscapers and farmers and interior designers and crossing guards are on this ride.
posted by drowsy at 4:57 AM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by drowsy at 4:57 AM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
Reading the article, I got a very strong vibe of a certain personality I used to encounter while working in bookstores. The way she talked about how she had everybody spellbound while haranguing them on a boat dock or whatever. You probably get this if you're a bartender too, but there is something about the crowd that frequents bookstores. Someone would come into the children's department and start pointing out things that suggested conspiracy to them, like stickers on award-winning books. There would be this weird kind of war between complicity and hostility in their demeanor. Once they were sure I disagreed, they would often go into sort of extinction burst mode. It was like they had almost a physical need to get as much of this crap out as possible. I'm feeling ill just thinking about this.
For better or worse, I think a lot of people who act this way are pretty careful about doing nothing to actually land them in jail. And I hate the American prison system anyway. On the other hand, it's shameful the way crime victims end up being stigmatized and blamed. If I'd lost my kid to a crime and I was being targeted by someone like this, I confess my impulse would be to threaten them with lawsuits again and again.
posted by BibiRose at 4:59 AM on June 16, 2022 [15 favorites]
For better or worse, I think a lot of people who act this way are pretty careful about doing nothing to actually land them in jail. And I hate the American prison system anyway. On the other hand, it's shameful the way crime victims end up being stigmatized and blamed. If I'd lost my kid to a crime and I was being targeted by someone like this, I confess my impulse would be to threaten them with lawsuits again and again.
posted by BibiRose at 4:59 AM on June 16, 2022 [15 favorites]
This person is a nut, I sincerely apologize if people find this word dismissive of mental illness but I don't know what other word to use.
"27% crazification" threshold (could probably use a better name these days)
I'd appreciate it if people could use language that doesn't further the stigma against people suffering from mental illness. Some ideas:
"This is a wild situation / belief"
"This woman is mentally ill"
"This woman is an asshole"
"This woman is a serial harasser"
etc.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:15 AM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
"27% crazification" threshold (could probably use a better name these days)
I'd appreciate it if people could use language that doesn't further the stigma against people suffering from mental illness. Some ideas:
"This is a wild situation / belief"
"This woman is mentally ill"
"This woman is an asshole"
"This woman is a serial harasser"
etc.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:15 AM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
Where there groups of people like this in history, over various topics? ... I am interested in what instances of this kind of denial of reality + attacking those affected might have happened before.
I'm not sure whether this fits, (not really examples of attacking those affected) but a couple of examples.
The South African prophet Nongqawuse, who convinced her followers that if they killed all their cattle, then the spirits would sweep the colonist European settlers into the sea. More than 300000 cattle were killed, and a famine followed in which many died.
There was the children's crusade in 13th century France and Germany (apparently 2 separate crusades) in which tens of thousands of people, many of them children, left their homes to join the crusade in the belief that the sea would part for them, and that they would be able to walk to the holy land and convert the "heathens" peacefully.
In terms of conspiracy theories, those have been around for a very long time, the blood libel being a particularly pernicious example. (The lie that Jews use the blood of Christian children in religious rituals).
posted by Zumbador at 8:17 AM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure whether this fits, (not really examples of attacking those affected) but a couple of examples.
The South African prophet Nongqawuse, who convinced her followers that if they killed all their cattle, then the spirits would sweep the colonist European settlers into the sea. More than 300000 cattle were killed, and a famine followed in which many died.
There was the children's crusade in 13th century France and Germany (apparently 2 separate crusades) in which tens of thousands of people, many of them children, left their homes to join the crusade in the belief that the sea would part for them, and that they would be able to walk to the holy land and convert the "heathens" peacefully.
In terms of conspiracy theories, those have been around for a very long time, the blood libel being a particularly pernicious example. (The lie that Jews use the blood of Christian children in religious rituals).
posted by Zumbador at 8:17 AM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
That a messy bun and some specific kind of jeans are "generic markers of young upper middle class parents in Oklahoma" is probably true and probably telling.
I think this person suffers from multiple disconnects. There's the regional one. She doesn't believe* the Northeast exists and that Sandy Hook happened There, as opposed to Here. For her, the whole world is like that Steinberg New Yorker cover, except the foreground is the view from her porch in her OKC suburb.
There's a temporal disconnect that just keeps widening the farther we get from the when of it all. Sandy Hook happened Then, as opposed to Now, but she doesn't really believe* in Then.
Then there's the reality disconnect. Sandy Hook happened in The World as opposed to On Facebook. But she doesn't really believe* in The World.
*Where "believe" and "want to believe" are the same thing. See also Trump. He was TOLD the election didn't go his way by umptynine advisors, thus every political commentator the past few weeks has been repeating that he acted in a way inconsistent with his belief--or lied. However, Trump's capacity to believe whateverthefuck he wants is, like this woman's capacity to believe whateverthefuck she wants, formidable. So is he lying? Can he lie? Can she? No matter: they both can slander and libel like champions. Why can't they be prosecuted for that?
posted by Don Pepino at 8:20 AM on June 16, 2022 [17 favorites]
I think this person suffers from multiple disconnects. There's the regional one. She doesn't believe* the Northeast exists and that Sandy Hook happened There, as opposed to Here. For her, the whole world is like that Steinberg New Yorker cover, except the foreground is the view from her porch in her OKC suburb.
There's a temporal disconnect that just keeps widening the farther we get from the when of it all. Sandy Hook happened Then, as opposed to Now, but she doesn't really believe* in Then.
Then there's the reality disconnect. Sandy Hook happened in The World as opposed to On Facebook. But she doesn't really believe* in The World.
*Where "believe" and "want to believe" are the same thing. See also Trump. He was TOLD the election didn't go his way by umptynine advisors, thus every political commentator the past few weeks has been repeating that he acted in a way inconsistent with his belief--or lied. However, Trump's capacity to believe whateverthefuck he wants is, like this woman's capacity to believe whateverthefuck she wants, formidable. So is he lying? Can he lie? Can she? No matter: they both can slander and libel like champions. Why can't they be prosecuted for that?
posted by Don Pepino at 8:20 AM on June 16, 2022 [17 favorites]
Agreed, my apologies bile and syntax. Caught between "I know this isn't ideal, but I'm paraphrasing a named concept that used to be quoted fairly regularly on here", I took the easy route out without actually improving things.
posted by CrystalDave at 8:24 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by CrystalDave at 8:24 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
She judged the parents as “too old to have kids that age.” She found their clothes dowdy, their hairstyles dated. Where were their “messy buns,” “cute torn jeans,” their “Tory Burch jewelry”? She mocked their broken stoicism. Their lives had fallen to pieces, but in Watt’s mind they seemed “too perfect,” and also not perfect enough.
The horrifying, staggering gap in empathy aside -- and what a thing to put aside -- there seems to be a failure to understand across social classes and cultures. It feels like, to Watt, these people are supposed to be the rich, grieving parents of dead children, right?
But they don't dress the way that Watt thinks rich people dress, or rather, the way that she thinks they should perform wealth and class due. "Messy buns" "cute torn jeans" "Tory Burch jewelry" "emotionally falling apart in acceptable ways" are all keystones of a certain rich Momfluencer vibe frequently seen on, yes, Pinterest and also Instagram. Watt either didn't pick up or actively misunderstood the other socioeconomic signs of being upper-middle class in the Boston-DC megalopolis, like having kids late in life and being able to live in Sandy Hook and send them to a nice, suburban, mostly white public school.
And since these people don't match Watt's ideas of how to be rich, they can't be the grieving parents of real dead children either.
I'm also noting that while TFA opens with her harassing a father, the quote above is deeply gendered -- it's all about how the women failed to perform their status and class correctly by her measures.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:27 AM on June 16, 2022 [16 favorites]
The horrifying, staggering gap in empathy aside -- and what a thing to put aside -- there seems to be a failure to understand across social classes and cultures. It feels like, to Watt, these people are supposed to be the rich, grieving parents of dead children, right?
But they don't dress the way that Watt thinks rich people dress, or rather, the way that she thinks they should perform wealth and class due. "Messy buns" "cute torn jeans" "Tory Burch jewelry" "emotionally falling apart in acceptable ways" are all keystones of a certain rich Momfluencer vibe frequently seen on, yes, Pinterest and also Instagram. Watt either didn't pick up or actively misunderstood the other socioeconomic signs of being upper-middle class in the Boston-DC megalopolis, like having kids late in life and being able to live in Sandy Hook and send them to a nice, suburban, mostly white public school.
And since these people don't match Watt's ideas of how to be rich, they can't be the grieving parents of real dead children either.
I'm also noting that while TFA opens with her harassing a father, the quote above is deeply gendered -- it's all about how the women failed to perform their status and class correctly by her measures.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:27 AM on June 16, 2022 [16 favorites]
I was surprised by how much open contempt the author had for Watts, I usually expect there to be a little more effort made to understand how a person ends up this way. But I don't really think there's a lot you can do with a person like this, she sets off all of my malignant narcissist warning bells. On some level, I believe she is jealous of how much attention a mother gets if her first grader is gunned down at school and enjoys trying to take these parents down a few pegs. Jesus Christ.
posted by cakelite at 8:49 AM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by cakelite at 8:49 AM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
Aardvark Cheeselog: "Humans as a whole are not wise or good enough for mass many-to-many disintermediated communication, and we will use it to kill our whole planet."
As I read more and more of these stories, exasperation winnows my nuanced takes until only one remains:
We do not have enough tools for coping with narcissists. This recent four-year case study with a prominent narcissist in a prominent position didn't teach us much about what to do when confronted with narcissists in our everyday lives. We don't know how to convince a narcissist that they have a personality disorder. We don't really know how to warn the uninitiated not to hitch their wagons to narcissists — that the charisma and boldness they sometimes display may have dark underbellies.
The nature of the disorder may be such that these problems simply don't have solutions, but I hold out hope. If someone were to figure out a series of tactics to convince even twenty percent of narcissists of their own disorder, I'd want them to get the Nobel Prize in Medicine permanently. We'd have to create a new, not-nearly-as-prestigious award to give in subsequent years. It would be made out of recycled plastic.
I agree that humans were not built for communicating this way, but I choose to believe that we can learn to do so, if someone smarter than I were to figure out how to teach it to everyone.
posted by savetheclocktower at 8:50 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
As I read more and more of these stories, exasperation winnows my nuanced takes until only one remains:
We do not have enough tools for coping with narcissists. This recent four-year case study with a prominent narcissist in a prominent position didn't teach us much about what to do when confronted with narcissists in our everyday lives. We don't know how to convince a narcissist that they have a personality disorder. We don't really know how to warn the uninitiated not to hitch their wagons to narcissists — that the charisma and boldness they sometimes display may have dark underbellies.
The nature of the disorder may be such that these problems simply don't have solutions, but I hold out hope. If someone were to figure out a series of tactics to convince even twenty percent of narcissists of their own disorder, I'd want them to get the Nobel Prize in Medicine permanently. We'd have to create a new, not-nearly-as-prestigious award to give in subsequent years. It would be made out of recycled plastic.
I agree that humans were not built for communicating this way, but I choose to believe that we can learn to do so, if someone smarter than I were to figure out how to teach it to everyone.
posted by savetheclocktower at 8:50 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
It's more like everyone doing this is their own aspirational cult leader, with no real central leader except "research" done online.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:53 AM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:53 AM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
We do not have enough tools for coping with narcissists. This recent four-year case study with a prominent narcissist in a prominent position didn't teach us much about what to do when confronted with narcissists in our everyday lives. We don't know how to convince a narcissist that they have a personality disorder.
You know what, this sounds like all the more reason to use the "wellness check" route as a pushback if you're the target. I mean, after all, we regular yutzes aren't equipped to handle a narcissist ourselves, much less judge whether that is in fact what they are - so we're calling in people who are qualified to make that judgement, so if they really are a narcissist they can be helped in the best possible way. It's out of concern, don't you see?....
(And yes, I know that the practical upshot of this is that the narcissist is going to just schmooze and talk their way out of the situation until the next time they're visited for a wellness check. But it's like the people who draw telemarketers into super-long phone calls - every minute an online narcissist is stuck trying to talk the police out of taking them to a psych ward is a minute that they aren't harassing a gun violence survivor, and I say that's a good thing.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:35 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
You know what, this sounds like all the more reason to use the "wellness check" route as a pushback if you're the target. I mean, after all, we regular yutzes aren't equipped to handle a narcissist ourselves, much less judge whether that is in fact what they are - so we're calling in people who are qualified to make that judgement, so if they really are a narcissist they can be helped in the best possible way. It's out of concern, don't you see?....
(And yes, I know that the practical upshot of this is that the narcissist is going to just schmooze and talk their way out of the situation until the next time they're visited for a wellness check. But it's like the people who draw telemarketers into super-long phone calls - every minute an online narcissist is stuck trying to talk the police out of taking them to a psych ward is a minute that they aren't harassing a gun violence survivor, and I say that's a good thing.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:35 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
There's a certain sort of belief - like folks in a cult who are convinced that the world will be destroyed on a certain day - where challenges to that like that day passing without the end of the world just serve to somehow drive them deeper into their beliefs.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:46 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 9:46 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
CrystalDave, no worries at all - we all mess up, we all have to work on it, and as acknowledged in both posts I quoted, sometimes it's just that we're not sure how to say things better. What matters is to be kind where we can and keep working on ourselves and the world around us.
posted by bile and syntax at 9:55 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by bile and syntax at 9:55 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
Where there groups of people like this in history, over various topics?
Religon in general - this is about belief and not facts.
posted by rozcakj at 9:59 AM on June 16, 2022
Religon in general - this is about belief and not facts.
posted by rozcakj at 9:59 AM on June 16, 2022
Hmmm - so, 1 in 5 Americans also live with a mental illness of some sort....
Coincidence or consipiracy?
You don't need to be mentally ill to be a massive asshole
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:04 AM on June 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
Coincidence or consipiracy?
You don't need to be mentally ill to be a massive asshole
posted by LindsayIrene at 10:04 AM on June 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
>Today, one fifth of all Americans believe all mass shootings are staged ...
>>Hmmm - so, 1 in 5 Americans also live with a mental illness of some sort
>>Coincidence or conspiracy?
As an American who has major depression and who also has never doubted the veracity of any of the reported mass shootings, I'd appreciate not being lumped in with denialists and conspiracy theorists.
posted by virago at 10:04 AM on June 16, 2022 [38 favorites]
>>Hmmm - so, 1 in 5 Americans also live with a mental illness of some sort
>>Coincidence or conspiracy?
As an American who has major depression and who also has never doubted the veracity of any of the reported mass shootings, I'd appreciate not being lumped in with denialists and conspiracy theorists.
posted by virago at 10:04 AM on June 16, 2022 [38 favorites]
I agree that humans were not built for communicating this way, but I choose to believe that we can learn to do so, if someone smarter than I were to figure out how to teach it to everyone.
Humans weren’t built any particular way. I think it’s a form of self-soothing to form stories around people like this to help us live with something unknowable. (That’s a lot of what I see her doing, too, it’s just that her subsequent conclusions and actions are deeply antisocial.)
Anyway, I just want to gently push back on your statement here about hoping for someone smarter to teach everyone. Because in the course of human history there has never been one person like this. Some person many thousands of years ago didn’t wholesale come up with a writing system and teach it to everyone. Some person didn’t invent language and establish it across their home town all at once. Any form of communication is collaborative. It is by its very nature dependent on more than one party, separated by being different people or being in different times.
To throw up our hands and declare “me am play gods, me go too far!” and simply hope for an ultra empathic Miss Honey to save us all from the conspiracy sinkhole of being online is to toss out the whole incredible history of human adaptability and innovation. It also ignores all the small moments of empathy and connection people can experience and take part in without making huge commitments every day.
I agree with you that we can learn to communicate like this, but the difference is that I believe we are literally figuring out that problem right here, collaboratively, and also in many other places. And the more open we are about that, the more willing we are to adjusting expectations and communication styles for format and tone and audience all that, the faster we can get to a less trap-filled place.
I guess my point is, a smarter person can’t teach us how to live with each other, because crucially they aren’t us. It’s on us all to figure it out, one little step at a time. For people like the woman in the article, there is no one thing that makes them like that, and helping them is always going to be a whole huge complex pile of little persistent steps made by all kinds of different people.
posted by Mizu at 10:20 AM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
Humans weren’t built any particular way. I think it’s a form of self-soothing to form stories around people like this to help us live with something unknowable. (That’s a lot of what I see her doing, too, it’s just that her subsequent conclusions and actions are deeply antisocial.)
Anyway, I just want to gently push back on your statement here about hoping for someone smarter to teach everyone. Because in the course of human history there has never been one person like this. Some person many thousands of years ago didn’t wholesale come up with a writing system and teach it to everyone. Some person didn’t invent language and establish it across their home town all at once. Any form of communication is collaborative. It is by its very nature dependent on more than one party, separated by being different people or being in different times.
To throw up our hands and declare “me am play gods, me go too far!” and simply hope for an ultra empathic Miss Honey to save us all from the conspiracy sinkhole of being online is to toss out the whole incredible history of human adaptability and innovation. It also ignores all the small moments of empathy and connection people can experience and take part in without making huge commitments every day.
I agree with you that we can learn to communicate like this, but the difference is that I believe we are literally figuring out that problem right here, collaboratively, and also in many other places. And the more open we are about that, the more willing we are to adjusting expectations and communication styles for format and tone and audience all that, the faster we can get to a less trap-filled place.
I guess my point is, a smarter person can’t teach us how to live with each other, because crucially they aren’t us. It’s on us all to figure it out, one little step at a time. For people like the woman in the article, there is no one thing that makes them like that, and helping them is always going to be a whole huge complex pile of little persistent steps made by all kinds of different people.
posted by Mizu at 10:20 AM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
As far as past practice, white supremacy is a long-running disinformation campaign that too many have believed in fervently despite evidence. With violent results.
posted by zenzenobia at 10:36 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by zenzenobia at 10:36 AM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
Where there groups of people like this in history, over various topics?
Religon in general - this is about belief and not facts.
Not interested in generalities, we all know them already. I am curious about the weird things like this that are unique to history and sometimes region.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Religon in general - this is about belief and not facts.
Not interested in generalities, we all know them already. I am curious about the weird things like this that are unique to history and sometimes region.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Repeating myself slightly, there was a big famous book on this in 1841, and everything in it was well known enough long enough to be monographed, debunked, reinstated, reified, and generally beanplated for a hundred years.
posted by clew at 12:13 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by clew at 12:13 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
1841 - people were as bowled over by cheap print and universal literacy as we are by the Internet.
posted by clew at 12:14 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 12:14 PM on June 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
My imp's name is Pyewackett
posted by kirkaracha at 12:58 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by kirkaracha at 12:58 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
The OP's formerly left-wing liberal aunt became a Q-Anon wingnut and seemed to have gone hopelessly around the bend on it... until she got very into the Korean pop band BTS. Whereupon she promptly reverted to her former liberal values.
Oh crap. Intrigued, I googled BTS, only to find out they broke up yesterday.
Am currently in the thrall of some sublime combo of distanced worry and awe. Do we have a word for this emotion yet?
posted by feral_goldfish at 1:40 PM on June 16, 2022
Oh crap. Intrigued, I googled BTS, only to find out they broke up yesterday.
Am currently in the thrall of some sublime combo of distanced worry and awe. Do we have a word for this emotion yet?
posted by feral_goldfish at 1:40 PM on June 16, 2022
@genjiandproust I think you're onto something. Like a lot of other internet trolls, the game remains the same even if the victims and the arenas change.
posted by koucha at 1:57 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by koucha at 1:57 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
>Today, one fifth of all Americans believe all mass shootings are staged ...
>>Hmmm - so, 1 in 5 Americans also live with a mental illness of some sort
>>Coincidence or conspiracy?
We JUST had a MetaTalk on how the Metafilter community could be less ableist. This is a glaring example of why that was so necessary. Casually equating mental illness with this sort of bullshit polling is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if the mentally "well" even see me as fully human. I didn't ask for this brain chemistry, and I never agreed to be the butt of your clever clever jokes. Just stop already.
posted by epj at 2:19 PM on June 16, 2022 [23 favorites]
>>Hmmm - so, 1 in 5 Americans also live with a mental illness of some sort
>>Coincidence or conspiracy?
We JUST had a MetaTalk on how the Metafilter community could be less ableist. This is a glaring example of why that was so necessary. Casually equating mental illness with this sort of bullshit polling is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if the mentally "well" even see me as fully human. I didn't ask for this brain chemistry, and I never agreed to be the butt of your clever clever jokes. Just stop already.
posted by epj at 2:19 PM on June 16, 2022 [23 favorites]
As I've said above, I don't like the "she's crazy" approach because:
1. It's not really explanatory, even if it's better couched in more polite language. There are plenty of people with mental illnesses that don't cause a fraction of the devastation that Watt has. This "explanation" also ignores the various forces pushing paranoid narratives for political gain. How can we identify delusions caused by a diagnosable illness and delusions caused by political, social, or religious fervor?
2. As people on the internet, we are extremely ill-equipped to diagnose, even if we have the relevant training (I certainly don't). I can say "Watt is odd," "Watt is malignant," and even "Watt seems stuck in her own head" with some confidence, but I can't do much more than that. TFA says that her daughter describes her as narcissistic, but that's a colloquial observation, not a diagnosis of a specific disorder (even given some of the issues people have with the way psychiatry operates).
3, It risks becoming circular: "She's crazy." "Why?" "Because she believes crazy things." "Why are those things crazy?" "Because only a crazy person would believe them." We can't go anywhere from that.
4. It doesn't offer any solutions.
I really liked the suggestion above (by joyceanmachine and Don Pepino) that Watt is very much inside her own head, that she ahs specific ideas about How Things Are and that things that don't behave that way are somehow wrong or false. She also seems to have some of the characteristics of (Colin Wilson's?) the Right Man, a person (usually, but not always, male) who must be right at all times and feels that they can proclaim the truth and have it accepted by virtue of their exceptional (pick as many as you like) knowledge/wisdom/percention/clarity/etc.
I also liked BibiRose's suggestion of a type who thrives on a sort of "group frenzy" and pushing to be slightly more extreme than their neighbors.
Several people noted a distinct lack of empathy.
So, we are building a collection of characteristics that might point towards why Watts is the way she is, without assuming specific (or non-specific) mental illness, which is a more useful place to begin thinking about how and why people are susceptible to what seem like easily-disprovable and wildly implausible conspiracies.
I'd also like to second flug's recommendation of the recent Behind the Bastards episodes on Alex Jones. There are some amazing sequences where the prosecutor tears their arguments apart by pointing out that their statements contradict evidence they supplied or statements they literally just made, and Jones and Co flounder because they have never been held to account in a venue where they couldn't just change the subject.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:56 PM on June 16, 2022 [17 favorites]
1. It's not really explanatory, even if it's better couched in more polite language. There are plenty of people with mental illnesses that don't cause a fraction of the devastation that Watt has. This "explanation" also ignores the various forces pushing paranoid narratives for political gain. How can we identify delusions caused by a diagnosable illness and delusions caused by political, social, or religious fervor?
2. As people on the internet, we are extremely ill-equipped to diagnose, even if we have the relevant training (I certainly don't). I can say "Watt is odd," "Watt is malignant," and even "Watt seems stuck in her own head" with some confidence, but I can't do much more than that. TFA says that her daughter describes her as narcissistic, but that's a colloquial observation, not a diagnosis of a specific disorder (even given some of the issues people have with the way psychiatry operates).
3, It risks becoming circular: "She's crazy." "Why?" "Because she believes crazy things." "Why are those things crazy?" "Because only a crazy person would believe them." We can't go anywhere from that.
4. It doesn't offer any solutions.
I really liked the suggestion above (by joyceanmachine and Don Pepino) that Watt is very much inside her own head, that she ahs specific ideas about How Things Are and that things that don't behave that way are somehow wrong or false. She also seems to have some of the characteristics of (Colin Wilson's?) the Right Man, a person (usually, but not always, male) who must be right at all times and feels that they can proclaim the truth and have it accepted by virtue of their exceptional (pick as many as you like) knowledge/wisdom/percention/clarity/etc.
I also liked BibiRose's suggestion of a type who thrives on a sort of "group frenzy" and pushing to be slightly more extreme than their neighbors.
Several people noted a distinct lack of empathy.
So, we are building a collection of characteristics that might point towards why Watts is the way she is, without assuming specific (or non-specific) mental illness, which is a more useful place to begin thinking about how and why people are susceptible to what seem like easily-disprovable and wildly implausible conspiracies.
I'd also like to second flug's recommendation of the recent Behind the Bastards episodes on Alex Jones. There are some amazing sequences where the prosecutor tears their arguments apart by pointing out that their statements contradict evidence they supplied or statements they literally just made, and Jones and Co flounder because they have never been held to account in a venue where they couldn't just change the subject.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:56 PM on June 16, 2022 [17 favorites]
As far as past practice, white supremacy is a long-running disinformation campaign that too many have believed in fervently despite evidence. With violent results.
This. People are absorbing this stuff and making decisions as fully-conscious adults to believe it, even when confronted with solid evidence to the contrary.
The problem is not one of "mental illness" -- the problem is that of heinous ideologies and people who stand to profit or gain political power, social standing/notoriety from promulgating them and translating them into direct action, public policy, or a business model of some kind.
In no particular order here are a few of these people who jump to mind: the Koch family, Henry Ford, Vladimir Putin, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, Pierre Poilievre...
People like Watts are just the foot soldiers for them. True believers, yeah, and they should be given no quarter and no sympathy whatsoever. But she's the shmoe who would attend a Bund meeting and then go attack people on the street. The real leaders and beneficiaries of this shit get to sit back and watch, unscathed.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
This. People are absorbing this stuff and making decisions as fully-conscious adults to believe it, even when confronted with solid evidence to the contrary.
The problem is not one of "mental illness" -- the problem is that of heinous ideologies and people who stand to profit or gain political power, social standing/notoriety from promulgating them and translating them into direct action, public policy, or a business model of some kind.
In no particular order here are a few of these people who jump to mind: the Koch family, Henry Ford, Vladimir Putin, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, Pierre Poilievre...
People like Watts are just the foot soldiers for them. True believers, yeah, and they should be given no quarter and no sympathy whatsoever. But she's the shmoe who would attend a Bund meeting and then go attack people on the street. The real leaders and beneficiaries of this shit get to sit back and watch, unscathed.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:05 PM on June 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
I'm not sure why we need to look at her mental health when "this person is irredeemably evil" will do. I couldn't give less of a shit about her inner turmoil.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:29 PM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:29 PM on June 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm not sure why we need to look at her mental health when "this person is irredeemably evil" will do.
This is almost as bad as "she's crazy" (once we factor out the feelings of people struggling with mental health issues).
OK, she's evil. Where do we go from there? Can we test for evil? Treat evil? I'm sort of ok with idea of her sitting in her house and thinking evil thoughts, if she would stop calling up and haranguing grieving parents. She can marinate in her own misery if she wants, but... "evil" isn't a diagnosis, either.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:16 PM on June 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is almost as bad as "she's crazy" (once we factor out the feelings of people struggling with mental health issues).
OK, she's evil. Where do we go from there? Can we test for evil? Treat evil? I'm sort of ok with idea of her sitting in her house and thinking evil thoughts, if she would stop calling up and haranguing grieving parents. She can marinate in her own misery if she wants, but... "evil" isn't a diagnosis, either.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:16 PM on June 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
The point is that we need to be less caught up in the redemption narrative and more focused on stopping the harm she does. There's a temptation to try to figure out why people abuse others, in order to try to prevent it - and this is not a bad thing! But there's a temptation to focus on that and forget that the goal is to stop the harm.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:30 PM on June 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:30 PM on June 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
But there's a temptation to focus on that and forget that the goal is to stop the harm.
Fair, but nebulous statements about "crazy" and "evil" neither shed light nor stop the harm. So there's that.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:21 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Fair, but nebulous statements about "crazy" and "evil" neither shed light nor stop the harm. So there's that.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:21 PM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is yet another example of Bonhoeffer stupidity in action.
This much is certain, stupidity is in essence not an intellectual defect but a moral one. There are human beings who are remarkably agile intellectually yet stupid, and others who are intellectually dull yet anything but stupid.posted by flabdablet at 7:57 PM on June 16, 2022 [10 favorites]
The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or rather, they allow this to happen to them.
It further seems to me that Bonhoeffer stupidity is the natural consequence of a strong attachment to the Just World delusion and the conservatism that naturally flows from it.
Some people simply cannot deal with the manifestly obvious truth that spending your life doing your best to be a good person does not and cannot guarantee that bad things will not happen to you. Such people are therefore forced to construct elaborate and fanciful justifications for the bad things that obviously happen to manifestly innocent people, and when there clearly is no such justification, have no remaining option but total refusal to believe that the bad thing happened at all.
The idea that justice is a natural feature of the Universe or of some overarching Godlike consciousness presumed to be in charge of it, rather than justice being an ideal whose approximate realization requires endless human vigilance and struggle, is one I've always considered intellectually lazy and socially toxic. There is no Great Automatic Balancer, in my view and in my experience; there is only us.
posted by flabdablet at 8:13 PM on June 16, 2022 [17 favorites]
Some people simply cannot deal with the manifestly obvious truth that spending your life doing your best to be a good person does not and cannot guarantee that bad things will not happen to you. Such people are therefore forced to construct elaborate and fanciful justifications for the bad things that obviously happen to manifestly innocent people, and when there clearly is no such justification, have no remaining option but total refusal to believe that the bad thing happened at all.
The idea that justice is a natural feature of the Universe or of some overarching Godlike consciousness presumed to be in charge of it, rather than justice being an ideal whose approximate realization requires endless human vigilance and struggle, is one I've always considered intellectually lazy and socially toxic. There is no Great Automatic Balancer, in my view and in my experience; there is only us.
posted by flabdablet at 8:13 PM on June 16, 2022 [17 favorites]
Ugh, you’re right about Just World. In fact this reminds me of a tweet I saw recently where someone talked about their friend who didn’t believe the germ theory of disease. Because if it was true, would people have spent all this time going to concerts and hanging out and touching each other and breathing the same air?
If school shootings are real, would we really still be sending our kids to school? Wouldn’t parents rise up in anger and revolt and break the system?
It’s so baffling and enraging to exist in this terrible world that I suddenly understand the impulse tp believe that instead of living in this world where elementary schools get attacked by mass murderers we live in a world where vast conspiracies stage fake shootings. Is one inherently more absurd than the other?
Makes me fucking cry guys
posted by bq at 8:20 PM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
If school shootings are real, would we really still be sending our kids to school? Wouldn’t parents rise up in anger and revolt and break the system?
It’s so baffling and enraging to exist in this terrible world that I suddenly understand the impulse tp believe that instead of living in this world where elementary schools get attacked by mass murderers we live in a world where vast conspiracies stage fake shootings. Is one inherently more absurd than the other?
Makes me fucking cry guys
posted by bq at 8:20 PM on June 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
A random search brought me to Politifact's 2019 article "Why do some people think mass shootings are staged?"
TL;DR
* to gain knowledge and certainty when there aren't any
* to feel safe and secure
* to feel good about self and group identity (we know the "truth")
* to find target to blame for own ills or society's ills
* to find causes that aligns with one's core beliefs (distrust of X)
EX: it's easier to believe "it's a false flag operation to erode our gun-owning rights" than "some nutcase just killed a bunch of kids".
Before social media (esp. Facebook) such people are isolated. Now they have pre-built echo chambers for group reinforcement of their beliefs on social media, and no fact-checkers (like newspaper or news programs) to stop them.
Seems to fit Watt to a T. Her own life isn't going so well, so instead of solving her own problems, she decided to invent a different problem so she can feel better about oneself. Guess I should go read the book.
posted by kschang at 8:54 PM on June 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
TL;DR
* to gain knowledge and certainty when there aren't any
* to feel safe and secure
* to feel good about self and group identity (we know the "truth")
* to find target to blame for own ills or society's ills
* to find causes that aligns with one's core beliefs (distrust of X)
EX: it's easier to believe "it's a false flag operation to erode our gun-owning rights" than "some nutcase just killed a bunch of kids".
Before social media (esp. Facebook) such people are isolated. Now they have pre-built echo chambers for group reinforcement of their beliefs on social media, and no fact-checkers (like newspaper or news programs) to stop them.
Seems to fit Watt to a T. Her own life isn't going so well, so instead of solving her own problems, she decided to invent a different problem so she can feel better about oneself. Guess I should go read the book.
posted by kschang at 8:54 PM on June 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
For anyone looking for a book on why we believe in conspiracy theories, I recommend Suspicious Minds by Rob Brotherton.
He has plenty of examples of conspiracy theories from the past, and from all over the political spectrum.
posted by Zumbador at 10:14 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
He has plenty of examples of conspiracy theories from the past, and from all over the political spectrum.
posted by Zumbador at 10:14 PM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm from Newtown, home of Sandy Hook, and I really need to stop reading articles spreading morally repugnant humans' evil theories about mass shootings in my home town. From the perspective of the morally repugnant subject of this article, their maliciously ignorant beliefs have now found a wider audience. And you know, maybe they have.
This awful person has chosen to believe something evil and to use that evil belief to further harm people already in deep pain. And, with the publication of this article, there could well be copycat suburban monsters thinking "if I harass victims maybe I can see an article about me. "
I would suggest that totally deplatforming people who spread maliciously ignorant lies is the most effective way to keep their rot from spreading faster.
(honest to god, I react the same way to these articles as I do when some chucklefuck posts one of Trump's Truth outbursts to Twitter- what the hell good is deplatforming if you're just going to post his thoughts by Proxy? Fuuuuck. )
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:00 PM on June 16, 2022 [16 favorites]
This awful person has chosen to believe something evil and to use that evil belief to further harm people already in deep pain. And, with the publication of this article, there could well be copycat suburban monsters thinking "if I harass victims maybe I can see an article about me. "
I would suggest that totally deplatforming people who spread maliciously ignorant lies is the most effective way to keep their rot from spreading faster.
(honest to god, I react the same way to these articles as I do when some chucklefuck posts one of Trump's Truth outbursts to Twitter- what the hell good is deplatforming if you're just going to post his thoughts by Proxy? Fuuuuck. )
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:00 PM on June 16, 2022 [16 favorites]
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