Read on Twitter
Fear is a major factor in the Us-vs-Them dynamic. Fear organizes. Fear controls. Fear motivates. Another factor is that people often define themselves by their enemies. 1/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1157435522488254464 @rory20s @HarveySlave
Taken together, people often don’t know who they are, or what they’re supposed to *do* or believe. These are fundamental questions or undercurrents of the human search for purpose and meaning.
Enter religion.
Religion operates on two psychological/emotional fronts: 2/
Enter religion.
Religion operates on two psychological/emotional fronts: 2/
…Religion relies on fear to keep your mind closed, and guilt to keep your wallet open. The fact (and the irony) that religion has become a major constituency in the “identity politics” game (which the Right claims to abhor) shouldn't be lost on anyone. 3/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1106915173430747136
One of the things I’ve observed in my personal experiences with Narcissists…..and I see parallels to the interplay between Trump, Evangelicals, and “Collective Narcissism”…..is the gravitational pull that some narcissists feel towards religion. 4/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1101899482948546561
The gravitational pull between narcissists and religion exists for a number of reasons. For starters, the self-righteousness that religion provides for people is extremely attractive to those who view themselves with pathological levels of grandiosity/superiority. 5/
Second, the idea that an all-knowing, all-powerful God-like figure not only wants to have a “personal relationship” with them, but is literally singling them out and currying favor on them and their life…..is an extremely intoxicating form of narcissistic supply. 6/
The narcissist not only feels elevated to a deified level of “us”, while avoiding the punitive wrath (fear) that the non-believing “them” will suffer,……7/
….but a narcissist’s inflated sense of grandiosity and need for adulation creates a natural attraction to the concept of a God who punishes people for not “worshipping” Him. (Using the border crisis, I analyzed the punitive orientation of Narcissists): 8/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1154346661570723841
All of the above not only ties into “collective narcissism”, but it makes it easier to understand the dysfunctional gravitational pull to Trump by Religious *authoritarian followers*,…..9/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1103256587391578112
The above analysis may also explain their need to not only build Trump up into something that he isn’t, but to aggressively…..and perhaps even violently…..defend the façade that he has created, and they have bought into….10/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1130439255384178688
….because the *greater* they build Trump up to appear to be……the greater the narcissistic supply they get from him when it appears that he is looking out and fighting for them……. 11/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1061975873383915521
….because similar to the religious “personal relationship”/deified “level of elevation” dynamic mentioned above, Trump’s false claims of fighting for the "little guy", the coal miner, the farmer, etc.,..even while exploiting them for personal gain,…12/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1061977579026972673
….stimulates his base’s narcissism because the *all-powerful*, *all-knowing* Donald Trump elevates them into the in-group “us”, while satisfying their need and lust for political blood sport against the out-group “them”. 13/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1101899934733750277
Does this sound familiar to the religious example above? It should considering Trump enjoys record levels of evangelical support. 14/
Although religion is somewhat of an *original sin* when it comes to the tribalization of human beings, and although a direct line can be drawn to the polarization of the political climate to religion’s role in creating *Us-vs-Them*, there are other cultural/societal factors. 15/
One of those factors is something I refer to as “Binary Conditioning”. Binary Conditioning is essentially organized religion's *us-vs-them* identity categorization…..that is fed through a hyper competitive individualistic culture, as explained in the excerpt I wrote below: 16/
“There are two other potential factors that explain the in-group/out-group polarization of the political climate/society. The 1st factor is the *us-vs-them* lens through which people have been conditioned to perceive life due to the binary manner institutions frame the world. 17/
This is apparent in a wide range of areas that include religion, the military, the court system, competitive sports, and, especially, the American political system. One of the inherent characteristics in all of these domains is that there is an *us*, and there is a *them*….18/
The second component is the framing of life and people in absolute, binary terms: Good guys/bad guys, right/wrong, winners/losers, home team/away team, plaintiff-prosecution/defendant, Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal, etc. 19/
As has been shown to occur in warfare, one of the fundamental tactics employed by the people involved in conflict is the dehumanization of their enemy. By dehumanizing the enemy (*them*), a moral authority is created in the *us*. 20/
And when a moral authority is believed to exist, an *ends justifies the means* mentality is adopted to justify and rationalize egregious behavior that violates one’s sense of morality, ethics, principles, and integrity. 21/
Consequently, people can talk themselves into doing the wrong things for what they claim or believe to be the right reasons. One example of this occurred in the 1930’s and 1940’s when otherwise decent German people were complicit in extreme inhumanity.” 22/
(This thread expands upon the role that the “Us vs. Them” dynamic plays in creating moral authority in the current political climate) 23/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1147859570020081669
Expanding upon the above excerpt, depending on the country/culture, the more individualistic the society (as opposed to *collective*), the more pervasive the “Us vs. Them” dynamic, because the more individualistic the society, the more that society values/embraces competition.24/
And the more a society embraces competition, the more intensely the “majority” will cling to inherent advantages (systemic racism/class warfare/plutocracy/etc.), or manipulate and exploit the system to “win”….. 25/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1130439261293953026
…because, as a society, we love and celebrate winners, and we disparage “losers” (which incoincidentally, is one of Trump’s go-to put downs of people). 26/
In the U.S., the intersection of high levels of religiosity and a highly celebrated form of extreme, identity-creating individualism (“competition”) results in a compounding effect where…..27/
…the Us-vs.-Them dynamic created by Christian identity politics…..becomes exacerbated by an ever-increasing level of dysfunctional competitiveness….that is driven by American individualism……which is fueled by “American Exceptionalism”. 28/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1145670536376139777
I’ve recently touched on “dysfunctional competitiveness” (a trait presented in Narcissism) in a thread about America’s “Gated Community Mentality”, which not only influences and fuels our domestic political culture, but also our foreign policy. 29/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1157435510622572544
Compounding the “binary conditioning” problem is the prevalence of inherent personality traits/types that have a binary orientation. To oversimplify, people often have either a predisposition to see the world in binary, concrete, black/white, absolute terms…30/
…or they see the world with nuance, abstraction, & an understanding (and more importantly, the acceptance) of life’s non-absolute shades of gray. Research shows about 75% of the U.S. population is predisposed to absolute, concrete, binary, black/white thinking & world views. 31/
People who possess a “binary orientation” often struggle or are uncomfortable w/abstraction, & will steam roll over nuance…if they recognize it at all. This is an important point in a global political climate that is trending towards fascism/tyranny. 32/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1153620050382741506
Binary predispositions also draw or anchor people to tradition/convention/orthodox, which not only creates a gravitational pull towards certain careers (military/law enforcement/etc), but they can also be determinative of an attraction towards a certain political ideology. 33/
As a result, we have somewhat of a perfect storm where an overwhelming majority of society has a specific orientation that is fed by “institutional binary conditioning”, and religious and political demagoguery…all of which feed the us-vs-them culture. 34/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1137342794609987586
