Traveling up in the (more liberal) north from Tennessee during this Covid thing, I’m struck by how the general population wears masks so matter-of-factly. It seems the majority here (in Bangor, at least) have just accepted it and gone on with their lives.
It puts this mask issue, as well as politics in general these days, into a certain perspective. I wonder if people just need something to be mad about. I’m reminded of the point in my life when I realized I didn’t have to have an opinion on everything…especially things I didn’t know anything about. Boy, what an energy saver that was!
I don’t know the psychology of it, but it sure resonates. Maybe people just have to be mad about something to realize they are alive.
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Humans favor ideologies that present black-and-white binary oppositions as a way of construing the world so as to make it easier to navigate. If the highly variegated, daunting complexity of things can be reduced to a dipole configuration with all the middle alternatives excluded, and the sole remaining options valorized as “good” versus “evil,” then decisions virtually make themselves. The ego and pride system are then invested in a chosen ideology which must be “staged,” usually through fits of righteous indignation which involve spewing out venom from a position assumed to be the moral high ground. All ideologues are angry about something and very much need to be.
Thanks. Your first sentence here resonates. We really don’t deal well with complexity. But even that is only one amidst our myriad shortcomings with respect to logic and rationality. I’m reminded of philosopher John Gray’s thought on free will, “Soul of the Marionette.” I believe I even wrote a review of it. Here is the link:
https://thesentienttraveler.com/review-of-the-soul-to-the-marionette-a-short-inquiry-into-human-freedom-by-john-gray/