House of Eratosthenes

Me, in the e-mails…making reference to what is commonly referred to as “Confirmation Bias,” although I never actually used those words since I was more focused on how these people behave, what makes them act that way, how they get that way, and what can be expected next from them.

And, what are the rest of us to do about it?

…I see this is an awfully big crowd…It may even be a majority of humanity. The problem is this: They live in narratives. Before they have any relevant experiences at all, they choose a very simple “plotline” of sorts, and then as they “learn” from the experiences around them, they chuck away anything that doesn’t support what they’ve picked. And of course place an inexplicably heavy emphasis on anything that does support it. So the facts support the narrative!! Always. But it isn’t a “matter of fact,” they knew what they wanted to conclude right from the get-go…

These “narrative people” are just kind of in the way…you move them out of the way…

[T]here are ways to achieve diplomacy with them. Step One is always, find out what their “script” is. Might as well take the trouble to do so, it determines everything with them, and I do mean everything. Help them flesh out the plot, since they’ve got the key plot-points all chosen already. When their clinging does them harm, or does harm to someone else — pick your battles. Choose where, and if, you have to go through the jarring experience of prying them loose, getting them to face reality. But if it isn’t necessary then let them stew in their juices. It’s what they want. Just move them out of the way so they don’t interfere with you or with anybody else.

I’d have qualms about placing this much in public view if it was any one person who inspired the observation. And I do wish that was the case.

But…it’s not. No one single person taught me this. In fact, being this way is the default, within the human condition; having the maturity to recognize an unwelcome fact, and seriously contemplate what it might mean, what sort of conclusions are to be reached and what to do about them — that is the aberration.

My proxy-embarrassment with these people is particularly keen when they start babbling away about what will happen. Makes me wonder who allowed them to leave the residence, wild and free like that. How did they get dressed? And: What others are going to do. What you’re going to do, what I’m going to do. China will cut their coal emissions. Hillary’s going to be the next President. What is that, anyway, a request, command, prediction, bribe, threat? They don’t seem to know themselves. They only know what not to think, which is anything to the contrary.

Anything outside the narrative is to be expurgated. Ejected with great force. Not just force; fanfare.

A useful litmus-test question: Has anything at all occurred to, at the very least, open your consciousness to the possibility of X? Where X is something outside the perimeter of allowed thought, in the particular matter currently under discussion. Narrative people will have nothing to offer, because they have been proudly emphatic about the open-question-that’s-a-settled-question since Day One.

You may even get them, without trying, to say those words: “I [absolutely] refuse to consider.” Doesn’t happen often. It’s a piece of honesty, so I suppose I should wish it happens more often. But I can’t. It makes me wince.

“Narrative people will have nothing to offer,….”
WOAH!
On my refrigerator door, discolored by time.
From “Drabble”-Kevin Fagan….(para)
Don’t be so pigheaded. You should consider opposing viewpoints!
I DO consider opposing viewpoints….I CONSIDER THEM STUPID!.
- CaptDMO | 02/03/2016 @ 07:49
[…] Freeberg provides some useful insight. […]
- DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » “Narrative People” | 02/03/2016 @ 07:51
The Last Psychiatrist, sadly now defunct, has lots to say about this. He calls it narcissism — not the grandiosity we normally associate with that word, but the mode of existence in which you’re the star of your own movie, and everyone else is just a character actor delivering his lines on cue.

These people can function quite effectively in the real world, until something they can’t ignore or rationalize away impacts their carefully constructed identity. Then anything, literally anything, is possible.

It sounds weird, but there’s supporting evidence all over. One of the most convincing, in my view, is when Alt-Right blogger Matt Forney started re-tweeting the vile things internet feminists said about him. He didn’t respond, he just… re-tweeted. And the trolls completely lost it. He screen-capped them saying that they needed to lie down, that they felt like vomiting, that they were having spasms… all because the target of their publicly-visible abuse simply re-tweeted that abuse. Instead of following their script, in other words, he agreed and amplified, and by not simply delivering his lines, he caused more than a few people to have an actual, physiological reaction.
- Severian | 02/03/2016 @ 11:04
[…] Conservatives, Prejudiced Liberals” “Narrative People” Shoes “You Are Not a Victim” Righteous Wrath Shocking Bike Thieves Winning All the […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/05/2016 @ 05:40
The problem is: It’s so easy to see this in others, not so much in yourself. You believe X without evidence because you’re simple-minded and unscientific. I believe Y without evidence because it’s common sense and obvious and any contrary evidence is obviously mistakes or lies.

Not long ago there was a spate of “studies” by liberals where they would show a conservative some assertion that an idea that many conservatives believe is wrong. Like they’d show them a news story with a headline “Economists say recession is over” or “Global warming now a proven fact”. Then they’d ask the person if he had now abandoned conservatism and was ready to become a liberal. Of course the majority said no, and so the “researchers” declared that conservatives are impervious to facts and anti-science, etc.

Do I need to explain why these studies were stupid? News stories can and often are mistaken about their facts or blatant lies. Even if a story challenging a conservative idea is absolutely true, it is one small piece of a big puzzle. Like, even if you absolutely convinced me that laws against incandescent light bulbs had a net positive effect, it does not therefore follow that every government regulation is good.

Suppose that someone showed you a newspaper headline that said, “Scientist proves that theory of gravity is wrong”, and it went to say that objects often fall upward when you drop them. How would you react? Would you say, “Oh, I guess I was wrong about gravity all these years” and promptly change your mind? I certainly wouldn’t. My first thought would be that the scientist is saying that there is some special case where gravity does not work as traditionally believed, and he is proposing some complex supplemental theory. If reading the story indicated that the scientist was really saying that the theory of gravity is a total hoax, I would conclude that either the scientist is a nut-case or the reporter is totally mis-representing what he said.

Is that an anti-scientific attitude? No, just the opposite. I have seen gravity in operation my whole life. I have seen things fall thousands of times, and objects always fall, not rise — aside from a few special cases, like helium ballons, that are easily explained within the theory. The experimental evidence all proves that gravity works. So the fact that someone who calls himself a scientist says it doesn’t is unimpressive.

Likewise, I have seen abundant evidence that socialism doesn’t work. I can point to political events throughout history. I can see examples of it that I have encountered personally. And then against all the evidence of history and personal experience, liberals offer the theoretical speculations of a few college professors who have never held a job outside of academia, and the sound bites of some politicians, and I’m supposed to abandon a lifetime of evidence? No, sorry.

In the same way, I don’t suppose that showing someone I disagree with one news story or statistic or whatever that contradicts his beliefs is going to instantly change his mind. Odds are that, like me, he came to his conclusions over the course of many years, based on many facts, life experiences, and ruminations. He’s not going to throw away decades of thinking based on one claimed fact. If it contradicts his world view, his first thought is going to be that it’s a lie or a mistake. Convince him that it’s not, and he’ll probably see it as a small exception to the general rule.

I’m not saying that facts don’t matter. Of course they do. I’m saying that to a serious-minded person, big, comprehensive ideas, like an economic theory, or a religion, or a political system, are based on dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of facts, on unprovable assumptions, on logic and emotions. You’re not going to derail all that with a few contrary facts. You need a mountain of evidence.
- saneperson | 02/05/2016 @ 12:12
Yes, good point; it isn’t quite so much about nudging unwanted facts aside, it would be closer to the truth to say it’s about nudging aside unwanted arguments. “If all the planets really are revolving around the Earth, I should be seeing Jupiter moving something like this, instead it’s moving like that…” “Silence! Heretic!”
- mkfreeberg | 02/06/2016 @ 04:56
it would be closer to the truth to say it’s about nudging aside unwanted arguments

Bingo. I’ve often said that the fastest way to expose a leftist talking point is to take it completely seriously. For instance, lefties claim that all sorts of economic problems are caused by “deregulation.” Watch what happens when you ask them, “which regulations?” They don’t have the slightest idea. “Wall Street fatcats make obscene profits!” What’s the profit obscenity threshold, to the nearest $1,000? “Healthcare costs too much!” Well, ok, I broke my arm the other day. What should it cost to get a cast on it? “There’s a rape epidemic on campus!” Yes, I entirely agree; local police should double foot patrols and triple recruiting, don’t you think?

In other words, treat their virtue-signalling as if there were an actual argument behind it. Completely fries their circuits.
- Severian | 02/07/2016 @ 12:37
[…] reading back over severian‘s recap of […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/15/2016 @ 08:59
[…] “That Demands Answers” “Open-Minded Conservatives, Prejudiced Liberals” “Narrative People” Shoes “You Are Not a Victim” Righteous Wrath Shocking Bike Thieves Winning All the […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/25/2016 @ 06:26

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“Narrative People”Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016

“Narrative People”
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016