The Maelstrom of Violence

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-19-2017, 10:40 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Actually I consider PBR to be a cheap form of entertainment.  At least unlike with Eric the Ignoramus I don't feel dumber for typing at him.  But I base my viewpoint of him on his actions here.  He might be skilled in things I don't know about, I'm completely open to that.  However, making new arguments is not one of those skills.

Or your world views are incompatible.  They are.  It is tempting to treat someone with incompatible worldview as insane, stupid, brainwashed, etc...  It's almost traditional here to stop meaningful conversation and reject wholesale once world view incompatibility seems established.  It certainly is not a one way street.

(09-19-2017, 10:40 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(09-19-2017, 10:14 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: But the True Believer meme merges well enough with my own values lock and world views that it would be nice to be able to tell a beneficial vantage point from a gung ho fanatic's.  You seem to have a gung ho....  Er...  an unusual enough viewpoint that you be worth a serious ask. 

Alright then.  I would say that everyone is essentially a True Believer at least in their own world view, and at least at the time they are making a statement expressing that world view.

As for my view point being unusual, I wouldn't agree.  There are millions of black Americans who not only voted for the President but also support him.  In fact the usual trappings of what is thought of as social conservatism is far more common among blacks in the US than whites.  The main point of divergence for me from most other blacks is that I decided to stop voting for the guys with D's behind their names because they really weren't representing what I wanted, or believed in.  If anything I'm more in line politically with my sperm donor now than at any time previously, which quite honestly is somewhat disconcerting.

That's an appropriate specific answer at one level, but misses the point I was after.  How does one tell a True Believer from someone who just has a worldview and is interested in politics?  The above is insightful as far as it goes...

A good part of it is perhaps how far along one is in the spiral of violence.  I mean, you seem to have more helmets than I do, but have you built and detonated truck bombs next to day care centers, driven airplanes into occupied office buildings or (gasp) thrown tea into a harbor?  Most of the example true believers described come from revolutionary times.  The need for change is seen as much greater than the value of the lives of people who belong to another tribe anyway.  Thus, to an ordinary civilian who has not lived and personally perceived the need for change, the acts that are done will be horrible, unimaginable.  Thus, the 'True Believer' might be seen as being a less than sane person of a different type that the ordinary.

It is just that they know the need for change personally and are as locked into one way of seeing things as many are.

My feeling is that on this side of the Atlantic, it is easy to find someone with a narrow and focused worldview.  It is not that easy to find such a person with no value for life, whose spiral of violence has overflowed.  In other parts of the world, the need for change is much more acute, and it would be correspondingly easy to find fanatics, to find the 'True Believer' of the book.

The practical example would be that it is nearly impossible to get people on the forum to listen outside their worldview, but it would be similarly impossible to convince someone to pick up a weapon and seek a permanent solution to another forum contributor.

(09-19-2017, 10:40 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(09-19-2017, 10:14 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: You may even have a helmet even...  

I have two helmets, three if you count the bicycle one that I only wear if the BF is watching (otherwise I don't because it looks ridiculous).

I have my grandfather's M-1 helmet from WW2 and a Soviet Sh-40 helmet which I purchased when in Russia a number of years ago.  It was probably military surplus.  I have and still maintain my collection of Soviet paraphernalia.

I had a helmet.  I may still have it if I'm willing to search the basement.  It was designed to deflect hockey pucks, did the job against a pair of nunchaku, and formed the base for a few 'hat day' creations for the university band.  Not the same.