Thoughts on Political Messaging

[Emerald]

29 minutes ago, aurum said:

Right, because you and everyone else values winning and pragmatism over sense-making.

If you agree to that, we can move on to discussing the pros and cons of that prioritization. You’ve made some good points in favor.

From your perspective, how does it go against sense-making to use these rhetorical strategies?

It's not like it's backed up by nonsense. 

The majority of people genuinely aren't asking for this crazy stuff. Plain and simple.

Now, you could try to give the public the whole powerpoint presentation about how the viewpoints that come from Project 2025 are minoritarian views that represent the threat of autocracy stemming from a desire of 20% of the population to go back to pre-industrial era societal structures. And you should do that too.

But meanwhile, 80% of people have already tuned out because it's a college-level lecture. And the average person's literacy is at an 8th grade level. And most people aren't interested in having the discussions you want to have. And that's not a bug... that's a feature.

Instead, you can just put it plainly and simply in the way that a 3rd grader can understand.... "No one's asking of this crazy stuff!" 

And that's simple and true... and it makes sense to the the vast majority of people. And it reflects the will of the vast majority of people.

It's just a less fancy and less intellectual way of saying, "Wannabe autocrats are using Trump's megalomania as pawn to try control your life by eroding democracy."

If you always have to couch things in super philosophical political language, you have to recognize that it's leaving 80% of people out of the conversation because they're either unwilling or unable to engage on that level. 

But break it down and make it simple. Then it makes sense to the majority of people.

[Bobby_2021]

The nature of politics is rhetorical and superficial due to the retarded nature of people who involve in it.

Now if you downgrade yourself to the level of retards despite knowing what you do is manipulation, you are going to suffer a heavy cost for it.

Every person should be true to themselves while working with the circumstances they find themselves in. Bending Truth is a dangerous game because there are going to be direct, second order and higher order consequences for it. 

[UnbornTao]

26 minutes ago, Emerald said:

?

A short punchy offensive attack. Nevermind, it was a joke. 

[Emerald]

Just now, UnbornTao said:

A short punchy offensive attack. Nevermind, it was a joke. 

[Hardkill]

7 hours ago, Bobby_2021 said:

The nature of politics is rhetorical and superficial due to the retarded nature of people who involve in it.

Now if you downgrade yourself to the level of retards despite knowing what you do is manipulation, you are going to suffer a heavy cost for it.

Every person should be true to themselves while working with the circumstances they find themselves in. Bending Truth is a dangerous game because there are going to be direct, second order and higher order consequences for it. 

What consequences would there be for that, exactly?

[aurum]

8 hours ago, Emerald said:

From your perspective, how does it go against sense-making to use these rhetorical strategies?

Rhetorical strategies and sense-making are essentially inverse functions.

When one goes up, the other goes down.

And the reason is that strategy is about winning and your agenda, while sense-making is about truth and understanding.

Can there be some overlap? Of course. But you have to be careful when assuming these goals will complement each other.

Proper sense-making will eventually threaten whatever political campaign someone is running.

8 hours ago, Emerald said:

It's not like it's backed up by nonsense. 

They certainly can be. It depends on the example we are talking about.

Regardless, they are vague, gross oversimplifications that are essentially just designed to galvanize people.

8 hours ago, Emerald said:

Now, you could try to give the public the whole powerpoint presentation about how the viewpoints that come from Project 2025 are minoritarian views that represent the threat of autocracy stemming from a desire of 20% of the population to go back to pre-industrial era societal structures. And you should do that too.

But meanwhile, 80% of people have already tuned out because it's a college-level lecture. And the average person's literacy is at an 8th grade level. And most people aren't interested in having the discussions you want to have. And that's not a bug... that's a feature.

Instead, you can just put it plainly and simply in the way that a 3rd grader can understand.... "No one's asking of this crazy stuff!" 

And that's simple and true... and it makes sense to the the vast majority of people. And it reflects the will of the vast majority of people.

It's just a less fancy and less intellectual way of saying, "Wannabe autocrats are using Trump's megalomania as pawn to try control your life by eroding democracy."

If you always have to couch things in super philosophical political language, you have to recognize that it's leaving 80% of people out of the conversation because they're either unwilling or unable to engage on that level. 

But break it down and make it simple. Then it makes sense to the majority of people.

A couple points here:

1) I'm not necessarily arguing for just maxing out on information. More information is not necessarily good sense-making. Sometimes it's just a few key points deeply understood that make all the difference.

2) In a way, I think we are agreeing. You agree that the vast majority of people are not interested in serious sense-making, so you want to dumb things down.

Edited August 20 by aurum

[Emerald]

1 minute ago, aurum said:

In a way, I think we are agreeing. You agree that the vast majority of people are not interested in serious sense-making, so you want to dumb things down.

What I'm saying is that being eggheads concerned with higher consciousness and solid epistemology like you and I are isn't the way that most people are... nor even the way most people should be, for that matter. 

Humanity is built for specialization where different people have different skills, talents, and interests.

And the fact of the matter is that most people aren't equipped and/or oriented to being super philosophical and concerned with solid epistemology... in the same way that my short self is not equipped and/or oriented to playing in the WNBA.

And if you don't "dumb things down", politics can only be approached by people who have the intellectual skills and philosophical interests to properly broach these topics.

But this would be anti-democratic and would bar 80% of people from civic engagement. 

This is why rhetorical strategies are a necessity of leaders and wannabe leaders... as it enables them to paint a mythos that people can engage with and join together in service of. It is a necessary component of moral leadership, which is a major pillar of being an effective politician.

And it's a necessary values-neutral skill to acquire. And it can be used for good and for bad.

It can galvanize people towards fighting for civil rights. But it can also galvanize nazis. 

The mistake I think you're making is to take the necessary, values-neutral leadership skill of rhetorical strategy and seeing it as diametrically opposed to what you call "sense-making"... which I believe is your way of talking about more absolute higher consciousness truths.

But it is no more a hinderance towards "sense-making" as any other values-neutral skill.

It's like looking at the field of mathematics and believing that subtraction and division are antithetical to sense-making.... when in reality, they are just necessary "tricks of the trade" and exist in a totally different spectrum of reality from the one you're judging it by.

It's similar to how some people on here might give higher paradigm advice for people who are asking questions about how to meet women. And someone responds "There is not you. And there are no others."

And that might be true in the absolute. But it isn't going to be effective... and the insight is a non-sequitter. 

Politics are going to do what politics do... just like math is going to do what math does... and law is going to do what law does.

So, I can't help but think you're mincing paradigms and taking ideas into the sphere of politics that aren't realistic or effective... and don't belong there.

It's not the best thing to always be reaching for higher order perspectives. Often times, it's a much wiser choice to get grounded and to interact with the world as it is... instead of how you believe it should be.

[aurum]

33 minutes ago, Emerald said:

What I'm saying is that being eggheads concerned with higher consciousness and solid epistemology like you and I are isn't the way that most people are... nor even the way most people should be, for that matter. 

Humanity is built for specialization where different people have different skills, talents, and interests.

And the fact of the matter is that most people aren't equipped and/or oriented to being super philosophical and concerned with solid epistemology... in the same way that my short self is not equipped and/or oriented to playing in the WNBA.

And if you don't "dumb things down", politics can only be approached by people who have the intellectual skills and philosophical interests to properly broach these topics.

But this would be anti-democratic and would bar 80% of people from civic engagement. 

This is why rhetorical strategies are a necessity of leaders and wannabe leaders... as it enables them to paint a mythos that people can engage with and join together in service of. It is a necessary component of moral leadership, which is a major pillar of being an effective politician.

And it's a necessary values-neutral skill to acquire. And it can be used for good and for bad.

It can galvanize people towards fighting for civil rights. But it can also galvanize nazis. 

I agree with all that.

33 minutes ago, Emerald said:

The mistake I think you're making is to take the necessary, values-neutral leadership skill of rhetorical strategy and seeing it as diametrically opposed to what you call "sense-making"... which I believe is your way of talking about more absolute higher consciousness truths.

In this context, sense-making is not about absolute higher consciousness truths. I am not talking about God-realization or anything like that. 

I am simply talking about the practical understanding our political situation. No fancy stuff needed.

Also, I'm not looking to narrow the point I'm making down to rhetorical strategy. My point is more about the diametrical opposition of political agenda and truth. Rhetorical strategy is just a potential example of that larger dynamic.

33 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But it is no more a hinderance towards "sense-making" as any other values-neutral skill.

In theory, rhetorical strategy is values-neutral since anyone with any kind of values could engage in it.

But in practice, rhetorical strategy is never values-neutral. It is used by people with specific values and a specific agenda. And in this sense, it certainly can be a hinderance to sense-making.

33 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, I can't help but think you're mincing paradigms and taking ideas into the sphere of politics that aren't realistic or effective... and don't belong there.

It's not the best thing to always be reaching for higher order perspectives. Often times, it's a much wiser choice to get grounded and to interact with the world as it is... instead of how you believe it should be.

Well I would disagree. I think what I'm saying is relevant.

But it's true that it may not be highly actionable if your goal is winning in politics. That isn't my goal. So you can criticize me on that.

Edited August 21 by aurum

[Emerald]

50 minutes ago, aurum said:

Well I would disagree. I think what I'm saying is relevant.

But it's true that it may not be highly actionable if your goal is winning in politics. That isn't my goal. So you can criticize me on that.

But if we're talking about engagement in politics... why isn't the political outcome and that political outcome's impact on people and society the primary focus for you?

This is where I feel it gets into unwise paradigm-mincing navel-gazing territory.

Politics in the highest form of the archetype is about serving the greater good of people and society. And even more importantly, it is there to protect people. That's the function of politics when it works well.

And I've noticed a pattern on this forum (with this post included) that is idealistic and prioritizes a theoretically more conscious process of engaging in politics as an individual that is detached from the outcomes and puts harm and help as equal outcomes... as long as a more theoretically conscious process is taken to get there.

For example, you mentioned earlier that me and my husband have skin in the game... and seemed to somewhat poo poo the pragmatic way of winning in favor of a theoretically more conscious process because... "What if the epistemic commons degrade?". 

But the things that are being proposed could upend our entire lives in significant ways. And we're not the only ones.

So, even the notion that someone would value a less pragmatic and less effective method of fighting against it over something that ACTUALLY works (especially when that thing isn't bad in itself) feels emotionally detached and navel gazy.

And it's a position that's unwise parading itself as wisdom... whilst throwing the value of common sense and common decency out the window.

Don't become so conscious that you allow a murderer come in and murder your family because you're too idealistic to engage in the baser process of immobilizing them.

Edited August 21 by Emerald

[aurum]

47 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But if we're talking about engagement in politics... why isn't the political outcome and that political outcome's impact on people and society the primary focus for you?

This is where I feel it gets into unwise paradigm-mincing navel-gazing territory.

Politics in the highest form of the archetype is about serving the greater good of people and society. And even more importantly, it is there to protect people. That's the function of politics when it works well.

And I've noticed a pattern on this forum (with this post included) that is idealistic and prioritizes a theoretically more conscious process of engaging in politics as an individual that is detached from the outcomes and puts harm and help as equal outcomes... as long as a more theoretically conscious process is taken to get there.

For example, you mentioned earlier that me and my husband have skin in the game... and seemed to somewhat poo poo the pragmatic way of winning in favor of a theoretically more conscious process because... "What if the epistemic commons degrade?". 

But the things that are being proposed could upend our entire lives in significant ways. And we're not the only ones.

So, even the notion that someone would value a less pragmatic and less effective method of fighting against it over something that ACTUALLY works (especially when that thing isn't bad in itself) feels emotionally detached and navel gazy.

And it's a position that's unwise parading itself as wisdom... whilst throwing the value of common sense and common decency out the window.

Don't become so conscious that you allow a murderer come in and murder your family because you're too idealistic to engage in the baser process of immobilizing them.

The fact that politics has real-world outcomes IS what makes it so hard for people to do proper political sense-making. Detachment is essential.

No amount of naval-gazing or bypassing accusations will change this.

And I DO consider outcomes and impact on people and society when sense-making. There wouldn't be any other way to think about politics since it is all about outcomes.

But there is often a cost to understanding, and that cost is usually your political agenda.

I'm sorry if that sounds cold, but I don't know how else to explain my perspective at this point.

I think we are beginning to go in circles here. We should probably wrap this up unless you have additional new points you want to make. But I did enjoy this back and forth, it challenged me to consider my thoughts.

[Bobby_2021]

4 hours ago, Hardkill said:

What consequences would there be for that, exactly?

As far as your mind is concerned, there will be a lot of suffering involved. By spewing retarded talking points, you will also become a retard in the end.

And when your manipulation eventually comes out in the open, there would be an equivalent reactionary force that would turn more moderate conservatives into radicals.

So you are sacrificing long term growth for short term wins. 

The exact consequences are hard to describe. But there will be consequences. The karma of the action stays within the system and will come back to bite you. I have been observing this over and over again.

[Buck Edwards]

6 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

As far as your mind is concerned, there will be a lot of suffering involved. By spewing retarded talking points, you will also become a retard in the end.

And when your manipulation eventually comes out in the open, there would be an equivalent reactionary force that would turn more moderate conservatives into radicals.

So you are sacrificing long term growth for short term wins. 

The exact consequences are hard to describe. But there will be consequences. The karma of the action stays within the system and will come back to bite you. I have been observing this over and over again.

The Trump effect. 

[Gidiot]

My 2 cents on this topic is that surrendering your political agenda or survival agenda is absolutely essential to detach yourself from the fray to understand a lot of motivations and connect a lot of the dots for political sense making.
 

But it’s almost impossible to be neutral because this forum wouldn’t exist in an authoritarian political climate and unfortunately philosophy is considered a left wing political exercise.

the funny thing is that I would consider anyone to use the word sense making and connect it to politics to be left wing or at the very worst a centrist, and on the ground it just can’t work.
 

There will always be forces that are working to homogenize and destroy intelluctualism and philosophy as nonsense and flex their fascist muscles.

i would consider us lucky to even have this medium because to even have the time and resources to not think about politics from a survival based ego biased position is a blessing.

But i agree with both of you that it is essential to detach and also do the dance of action as well. Unless you are totally detached which I envy I haven’t been able to get there yet. 

politics at their best is a way of maximizing love and consciousness among all beings in a very Buddhist way in my opinion but in practice it is just mindless survival and groupthink a lot of the time and yes that goes for both sides.

sadly I don’t think if trump is elected that the institutions could hold up and that’s not counting the cultural damage it does to our discourse, values, and ethics. 
 

I think there needs to be a way to make sense of our environment  and also stand for something  and balance the contradictions.

as a human entity, or as god playing the human it’s hard to put investment into it realizing it is all a game but I don’t want the living nightmare as far as my incarnation is concerned. 
 

hope this helped maybe it was relevant maybe it wasn’t just my two cents

[zurew]

17 hours ago, aurum said:

This is true. But in practice, much of our political rhetoric looks like a bunch of bullshit with some facts mixed in.

Yeah I can agree with that.

I guess we can get into the nuance of how one can lie even if one exclusively use facts (by manipulating the context), but I think thats very different from what the right is doing most of the time.

I don't have a well thought out process for how good rhetoric should look like, but right now all I would say is that in practice, it would be something like an information reduction rather than sharing actual falsehoods. So basically providing talking points to a targeted audience, where the audience wouldn't necessarily know all the underlying facts about a given argument, but they could still use the talking points as a justification and if they want to - they can still dive deeper into the facts and the arguments, but the truth value of the talkingpoints would still stay the same.

 

Edited August 21 by zurew

[Emerald]

6 hours ago, aurum said:

The fact that politics has real-world outcomes IS what makes it so hard for people to do proper political sense-making. Detachment is essential.

No amount of naval-gazing or bypassing accusations will change this.

And I DO consider outcomes and impact on people and society when sense-making. There wouldn't be any other way to think about politics since it is all about outcomes.

But there is often a cost to understanding, and that cost is usually your political agenda.

I'm sorry if that sounds cold, but I don't know how else to explain my perspective at this point.

I think we are beginning to go in circles here. We should probably wrap this up unless you have additional new points you want to make. But I did enjoy this back and forth, it challenged me to consider my thoughts.

I keep pressing you on this because I genuinely don't understand how you're thinking about this.

Why is detachment essential in your opinion? And why is it better to prioritize supposed sense-making over pragmatism?

And why are we thinking about "having a political agenda" as being a negative thing in the realm of politics? It seems akin to using addition and subtraction as a negative thing in the realm of mathematics.

Like from a philosophical point of view, I can be detached from my political agenda to be able to control my own body. And I can question like "What if it were the case that, as a woman, sacrificing my bodily sovereignty is necessary for the maintenance of the order of the state?" And I have done that as a thought exercise along with other thought exercises of this sort in my own mind.

But I would never incorporate those private philosophical musings into my real world civic engagement with politics because that minces paradigms and would muddy the waters and takes steps to normalize what would put my life and other's lives in a compromised situation.

And it creates a false neutrality in a situation that isn't neutral at all.

Like if someone's chasing you with a knife, don't be nonchalant about it and pretend like it's business as usual.

So, I genuinely don't see how detachment from a political agenda would be more helpful outcomes-wise than enacting a political agenda... because it seems to me to be a sheep calmly chit chatting with the wolf about how "Perhaps there's some merit to you eating me."... instead of just shutting down the entire suggestion as ridiculous.

Or sitting down with a group of child abusers that want to argue for their right to abuse children... while detaching from pragmatism and putting their views through the neutral detached vetting process of "sense-making"... and thereby unintentionally rhetorically normalizing their viewpoint to the audience as a serious viewpoint worthy of merit and consideration.

This is how nonsensical it is to me to suggest detachment from the political agenda in the realm of politics.... and prioritizing sense-making over pragmatism.

I notice that when people are detached, it's often people who aren't directly affected by the harm. And this detachment, causes them to feel like they are able to be a more objective arbiter of the situation and the voice of the adult in the room in comparison to people who are directly impacted by the harm.

But in reality these 'neutral arbiters' often don't sound the alarms when they're meant to be sounded.... and don't rhetorically shut down from consideration what is wise to shut down in the realm of civic engagement.

It becomes like sitting in a burning house and talking neutrally about the situation like nothing's wrong. And this is where common sense and common decency get lost in the pursuit of a less "politcsy" kind of politics where we can all be enlightened fence-sitters.

Sometimes it's much wiser to be able to say something simple like "bad things are bad" and "good things are good" and "Let's do more good things and not bad things" to communicate to the average person and cut through all the detached philosophical noise that normalizes things that harm people.

[aurum]

17 hours ago, Emerald said:

But I would never incorporate those private philosophical musings into my real world civic engagement with politics because that minces paradigms and would muddy the waters and takes steps to normalize what would put my life and other's lives in a compromised situation.

And it creates a false neutrality in a situation that isn't neutral at all.

Mincing paradigms, bypassing and false neutrality IS also bad sense-making.

Think about why people engage in such behavior.

This is a very meta-point.

[Emerald]

33 minutes ago, aurum said:

Mincing paradigms, bypassing and false neutrality IS also bad sense-making.

Think about why people engage in such behavior.

This is a very meta-point.

Explain what you mean with a bit more clarity.

What is sense-making?

How do you apply sense-making practically in the realm of politics WITHOUT weakening the impact of those that would practice good sense-making... thereby ensuring that those with bad sense-making will always win and take power?

Why does it negate the ability to skillfully use rhetorical skills like shorty punchy slogans?

How can you get the average person of average or below average intelligence to engage in sense-making regarding their engagement in politics?

How does sense-making improve the outcomes of politics?

In the meantime, check this video out to understand my issue with prioritizing sense-making over pragmatic outcomes...

 

 

Edited August 22 by Emerald

[Joshe]

Sounds like an INTJ trying to understand an INTP. 

I already tried to get aurum to see the error in his reluctance to make judgements. Judging gets in the way of his preferred cognition.  

Maybe aurum isn’t boxed in by a philosophy, but by a cognitive function. 

 

[Emerald]

9 hours ago, Joshe said:

Sounds like an INTJ trying to understand an INTP. 

I already tried to get aurum to see the error in his reluctance to make judgements. Judging gets in the way of his preferred cognition.  

Maybe aurum isn’t boxed in by a philosophy, but by a cognitive function. 

 

I'm an INFJ... really really close on the J and P though.

[Joshe]

Talk of manipulating the common person is now a mainstream topic that rarely goes unmentioned in primetime media slots. The very people being manipulated are being talked to about the tactics used to manipulate them. "If only Trump or Kamala would have pulled maneuver X, they could have tricked more people into voting for them". This is not healthy and not ideal, but it's where we are.

This is the reason we, as decent people, converse on and consider strategies for how to "manipulate" or "nudge" the masses. It's because they're susceptible to manipulation and we're caught up in the throes and manifestations of them being manipulated by toxic forces whose agendas are not concerned with the health of the whole.  

Even if you're spreading truth, if you're doing it in a tricky, sneaky way, it is not ideal... but I'm all for it because what else is there? 

If the threat-assessment returns high danger and high urgency, it seems wise to consider and make decisions for immediate, practical implementations that deal with immediate threats with the best tools available. If those tools are lacking, that sucks, but can we afford to do nothing? "Better done than perfect".  

It seems impractical that our problems get solved in the healthiest possible way because the common person is not yet concerned with that. You can lead them to water, but you can't make them drink... or can you? 😂

Of course, these are just the stream of thought ramblings of a fool trying to think. 

Edited August 22 by Joshe