Cheap Thoughts
I’ve talked before about the importance of forming your own opinions. Of examining each of your beliefs, because it’s possible that without ever suspecting it, you’re holding onto a bunch of ideas that aren’t really yours.
However, I’ve never really talked about what these ideas might look like, or where they might come from.
Anyone who adheres to an ideology—who, in any political conversation, rattles off each stereotypical liberal or conservative opinion without ever breaking from the ‘party line’—has not come up with these ideas themselves.
It’s not possible for it to be otherwise. Humans weren’t born into one of two ideological camps, with a brain that primes them to accept one set of ideas and reject the other, or vice versa. You can’t even make the argument that someone who accepts one idea is more likely to accept the others in its same ideological camp.
Take, for example, the traditional American political ‘talking points’ of gun control and abortion. Liberals love abortions and hate guns. Conservaitves love guns and hate abortions. Both tout ‘freedom’ as the reason why their preferred thing should obviously be allowed, and ‘safety and protection’ as the reason why the other one should obviously be banned. How does it make any sense?
It’s just parroting. Repeating. No one’s thought any of it through.
If this is the case, where do the ideas come from?
Well, one’s friends and family, for sure. But this is only part of it. It doesn’t explain the extremes. People don’t become neo-Nazis because of heated dinner table conversations. This type of ideological corruption happens because of the media.
Hitler conquered half of Europe by harnessing the power of the radio. He had a keen understanding of human suggestibility, and chose his words carefully. He managed to turn a nation of people genocidal within a decade and convince them to die for his cause.
Imagine what someone could do with the Internet.