Posted on 04/10/2019 10:43:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
In Hans Christian Andersen’s classic children’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” we’ve heard a lot about an entire village cheering their naked emperor’s exquisite outfit, which didn’t exist. But how so many people came to yield to an overt lie gets overlooked.
Rereading the story, I found it remarkable how Andersen used fiction to capture something very real in stubborn human nature; something that’s now driving the Democrat Party as we are dumbfounded by how they are so willing to believe things that aren’t true.
How a village became complicit in the biggest lie in the history of fairy tales began with the devilish guile of two swindlers who pretended to be weavers. Knowing that the emperor was intoxicated with the theater of clothing more than governing, the rogue weavers told him that they could weave “the most exquisite stuff imaginable” with “colors and patterns uncommonly beautiful.”
One thing made the clothing more unique than the world had ever seen: It had the “peculiar property of becoming invisible to every person who was unfit for the office he held or who was exceptionally stupid.”
“By wearing them,” said the emperor, “I should be able to discover which of the men in my empire are not fit for their posts. I should distinguish wise men from fools.”
So, after requesting the finest silk of the purest gold – which the swindlers stole – they set up machines where they pretended to weave nothing on two empty looms. One by one, the emperor sent his chamberlains to check on the progress of the clothing. When they did, they saw absolutely nothing on the looms but dared not say it aloud for fear of revealing themselves as “exceptionally stupid” and unfit for office.
Just as the swindlers used the fear of being unfit and stupid as a weapon to steal silk and gold, political swindlers are weaving all sorts of lies, like invisible racial oppression, on the looms of America’s political machinery. They know that racial oppression is not real, but they dare not say it aloud for sheer terror of being labeled a racist.
Willful group conformity is no fairy tale. Andersen’s story tapped into something that psychologists say is primal in human nature.
The late gestalt psychologist Solomon Asch conducted an experiment in the 1950s that’s still being used in psychology circles today. The “Asch Conformity Experiment” demonstrated how quickly people will deny what they see with their own eyes and yield to group pressure.
In Asch’s visual perception test of line length, he drew a simple line which was compared to three other lines. It was blatantly obvious which of the three lines was identical to the target line. Four actors who were privy to the test deliberately chose the wrong line. Asch wanted to see whether an unsuspecting fifth participant would yield under the pressure of the other four even though it was obvious they chose the wrong line. He did. Most did. Why? Two reasons:
Although this explains the Democrats’ group conformity on a host of wacky issues, it’s clear that something far deeper has been at work since Trump took office; something darker. Today, Democrats are not only willing to conform, but they cling to disproven beliefs even when they know their views inflict harm on the country and innocent people.
“[I]f there’s some collateral damage for some others who do not share our view, well, so be it, but it shouldn’t be our original purpose,” Nancy Pelosi, a chief swindler, once said.
Democrats ruined Brett Kavanaugh’s reputation when it was obvious that he was not a drunk or a serial rapist.
They fomented a coup attempt against Trump, despite the horrific impact on the country, when it was obvious there was never evidence of Russia collusion.
They destroy the lives of people and organizations with accusations of racism when it’s obvious that racial oppression is invisible in today’s America, crowned by the election of our first black president – twice.
They’re willing to commit outright infanticide to protect a woman’s “reproductive rights,” when it’s obvious that a baby and a woman are two separate human beings.
They’re willing to eviscerate the rule of law, even in a bona fide crisis, when it’s obvious there’s a big difference between legal and illegal immigration.
Something dark is happening.
The late social psychologist Stanley Milgram’s work offers a clue. In the 1960s, he took the Asch Conformity Experiment to a deeper level, where group conformity led to the kind of blind obedience that had far more dangerous consequences.
Milgram, a Jew, wanted to account for group behavior that justified the butchery of the Holocaust, one of Earth’s most virulent strains of conformity. He conducted tests to see whether ordinary people would use shock to inflict pain on innocent people at the behest of an authority who urged them to do it for some greater good.
“The ordinary person who shocked the victim did so out of a sense of obligation,” Milgram wrote in 1974. “With numbing regularity, good people were seen to knuckle under to the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter’s definition of the situation into performing harsh acts.”
A major factor in crossing the line, according to Milgram, was “belief perseverance” – “maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it.”
When that happens, there are two ways to reconcile the contradiction, according to social psychologist Leon Festinger, best known for his studies in cognitive dissonance: By changing his actions, or by selectively collecting information that reinforces the disproven belief.
Democrats, unfortunately, have chosen that latter. They’re pretending to weave nothing on empty political looms, to get and keep power.
At the end of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the emperor paraded around naked as his chamberlains and all the villagers – determined not to appear unfit or stupid – shouted out how splendid his new clothes looked. Then a little child cried out, “But he has nothing on!”
Only then did the villagers shout, “He has nothing on!” The story ends:
“The emperor was startled by this, for he had a suspicion that they were right. But he thought, ‘I must face this out to the end and go on with the procession.’”
That about explains what we’re seeing.
DemonRATs new clothes will be orange jumpsuits. And, the insane way they’re acting, they know it.
What an honor it will be for the US military police to lock them up.
Interesting look at how groupthink works.
{whew!]
For a second there I thought this thread was going to involve Nancy Pelosi getting naked.
Thanks in advance for not posting pictures of Pelosi with no cloths.
I suspect that Pelosi naked would look kinda strange, with all of her face-lifts I would expect her body parts to change location.
I’m waiting for her to show up in the House with a Goatee.
People should look up the “Lucifer Effect”. It’s the step beyond Asch’s conformity experiments.
Consider it the weaponization of Asch. It’s a highly reproducible method of getting people to claim they believe things they know are not true.
And that’s the essence of what Democrats do today. They use weaponized psychology to gain power. That’s why none of their policies need any substance; it’s superfluous, completely unnecessary in order to leverage the Lucifer Effect.
'Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.'- Abraham Lincoln, "Lyceum" Speech
Lincoln then warned that tyranny could overtake the American political system from within. He said:
'It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question then is, Can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.'- Abraham Lincoln, "Lyceum" Speech
Today that child would be educated by leftists, get a high school diploma, a college degree, a masters degree, and a Phd, and would complete an application for their first federal grant. As part of the application the adult would proudly announce that it was “settled science”—the emperor has clothes!
You have thought about a naked Pelosi far more than a disinterested casual observation. You need help.
79 year old perkies?
79 year old perkies?
“You have thought about a naked Pelosi far more than a disinterested casual observation. You need help.”
Were you going to help thinking about Pelosi? How nice./sarc
Bttt.
5.56mm
One more face and she’ll have a goatee. ;)
One more face lift and she’ll have a goatee. ;)
I saw her the other day, and it looked like the skin is slipping down off her face. She has become a caricature of herself.
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