As always, I don’t bother much with the political aspect (although at times it’s entertaining), but Scott Adams has some interesting “duh” insight in “Let’s Talk About Hitler”:
As I have explained in this blog before, analogies are not part of reason. Sometimes things just remind you of other things. That’s the beginning and end of the story. So if your opinion of Trump, or any other candidate, rests on an analogy to Hitler, it would be fair to say you are not using rational thought.
Analogies are excellent tools for explaining a new situation for the first time. And sometimes analogies help you recognize situations that are potentially dangerous before you have all the facts. It is completely rational to use analogies in those two contexts. It is not rational to make a final decision based on an analogy.
Analogies, or comparison of similar patterns, are not arguments necessarily, because they could just represent a similarity in form. Analogy of form is not necessarily an analogy of meaning, but people (voters) are rarely in a mental state to create a distinction. I can pencil out a square on a piece of paper, and compare the figure to, say, a square building, to a certain extent. That doesn’t mean the building’s walls are made of graphite shavings and paper. They very well could be made of those things, but the building-as-drawn-square analogy doesn’t address that.
EDIT: Here, also from Adams’ blog, sort of off topic. The mammalian parts of the human brain are wondrous things:
My favorite part of the post-debate coverage on the news was when Megyn Kelly said Trump looked “presidential.” She went on to say he seemed like the type of guy you might want to go to dinner with. Now compare that to her recent rebuff of Michael Moore when he awkwardly invited her to have coffee on live TV. In the 3D world of persuasion, Kelly is responding to Trump’s power and dominance exactly as one would expect. Trump will win with women, even against Hillary Clinton.
Amazing. Trump insults her on live national television, among other places, and she (eventually) warms up to him in a social context. Niceguy Michael Moore offers Kelly a platonic meetup, to which Kelly ews about. Physically, Moore is 100% schlub, and Trump is nowhere near an Adonis, either—but this isn’t about looks at all. Sometimes I think we’re just cavemen who figured out electricity.
4 Comments
If you are familiar with Vox Day’s theories on “Game” then Megan Kelly’s change in attitude is hardly surprising. It follows an established type; while we might not have predicted the change in her case specifically, it’s typical.
Who knows what went on behind the scenes, too.
Michael Moore is rather nastier than he is nice. His face betrays him, as do his films. Both he and Trump are master manipulators–but, yeah, Trump is alpha and Moore is not. That means Trump makes it with the ladies who like that sort of thing.
Voters, I think, vote via the automatic parts of their brain and rationalize it after. Especially if they vote for one of the two major parties, since they have the most TV time. TV is pretty much a mild hypnosis. How could a bunch of flashing pictures not be?
This isn’t saying that vote is right or wrong, it’s just not what people regard it to be. It really hijacks our tendency toward tribalism.