A few incidental cues to the RW mind--

[Jackpine Radical]

Prolog
Many years ago, my cousin & I hatched a plan to leave giant footprints in my uncle's garden, so I made a pair of big plaster feet, just scaled up from a tracing of my own feet.

Story
My Favorite Wingnut buys into all that cable TV stuff about ancient astronauts, etc. One time he asked me if I believed in Bigfoot. I said I knew they exist because I had seen their tracks in the pine forests of the Penokee Range, and I had the plaster casts to prove it. I emailed him a picture of the old plaster feet.

He fell for it.

Hook, line & sinker.

Without hesitation.

The same guy is a climate change denier, claims it's a conspiracy to institute One World Government.


I've thought about it a lot. These people seem to have a childlike credulity about some things, and a readiness to take positions on matters about which they have no clue, based n what some authority figure has told them. If we could just figure out their credulity trigger…

[arcane1]

1. I bet he claims to be the only one of the two of you who is "open-minded"

Credulous idiots always claim to be the open-minded ones, in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

[Warpy]

2. I always said if I had to turn to crime

my sucker list would be the list of registered Republicans in my town.

Those people will believe anything as long as it involves magic.

[scarletwoman]

3. The plaster feet thing just sounds like plain old confirmation bias.

I honestly don't think that's strictly a RW trait. Don't we all have that tendency to one degree or another?

The only way someone can overcome their own confirmation bias is by keeping an open mind, and granting the possibility that one might be wrong. I suppose the RW mind is more likely to be closed, and less willing to consider the possibility that they might be wrong - but after 14+ years on DU, I wouldn't say that exhibiting confirmation bias in itself is symptomatic of being RW.

[FSogol]

5. +1 exactly. n/t

[uponit7771]

6. +1

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Confirmation bias? Sure. It's a powerful effect, and

I acknowledge my own susceptibility to it and try to fight it.

And as a matter of fact, I'm open to the possibility of all sorts of phenomena that reductionistic scientism rather vehemently excludes from its model of the universe.

I guess what struck me was the absolute eagerness with which he pounced on it, the certainty with which bought into it.

It's like I have said in the past--authoritarian types are more certain of Everything than I am of Anything.

I'm really glad you brought this issue up, because you're making me think a little more about it. And I think I figured out what was so striking to me about his response.

It's this: Right-wing authoritarians cannot tolerate ambiguity. This is actually a very old finding, dating back to Else Frenckel-Brunswik in the late 40's/early 50's with her work on the Authoritarian Personality.

Anyway, intolerance for ambiguity (IFA) translates into an inability to stay with "Maybe." Uncertainty is an intolerable state; they need to resolve the ambiguity quickly, regardless of the correctness of their resolution. And once they have made their decision, they lock it in with such internal certitude that no amount of evidence will sway them from their belief, and in fact, presenting them with contrary evidence usually causes them to hunker down and build ever-stronger defenses against the assault.

As someone said below, they'll believe anything as long as it's "magic." That makes perfect sense because it renders the belief impervious to rationality or contrary evidence.

Thus, there either ARE sasquatch, or there AREN'T. Gotta be one way or the other. And when a wingnut comes down on the side of their existence, all purported evidence for them will be taken as gold, and any contrary evidence will be ignored or discounted.

I think the concept of IFA is a lot more important than we generally think it is in accounting for wingnut behavior.

But of course I'm not sure of that.

[scarletwoman]

12. First of all, I must congratulate you on being such a creative & dedicated prankster,

that you would go to the trouble of making giant plaster feet. I am truly impressed!

I totally get what you're saying about "IFA" - very much makes sense. I'm sorry I made such a superficial reply to your story - I just didn't look at the deeper implications, so I thank you for your edifying response.

[Jackpine Radical]

13. You wouldn't believe the lengths we would go to

in trying to trick each other. One time I wired together a bunch of random little electronic parts--diodes, capacitors, a transistor or 2 on a "breadboard" (in this case about a foot-long section of white pine 1x10) with an old car antenna. When you threw the switch, a little flashlight bulb would come on. I told my uncle that I had figured out a way to get electric power out of the air. Actually, I had drilled a hole into the side of the board & hidden an AA cell in it, which secretly powered the light.

[hifiguy]

4. Paranoia and gullibility are two of the primary characteristics

of the reichwing mindset, with superstition also high in the rankings. Critical thinking and rational evaluation of evidence extrinsic to the claim being made are somewhere a few million places down the list.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. A funny thought--

"Paranoia" (in vernacular rather than clinical usage) is created by the interaction of gullibility and anxiety.

That's also the formula for a Tea Partier.

On edit--The anxiety enhances gullibility by shutting off higher cognitive processes, and the gullibility causes them to accept crazy theories that feed the anxiety. A positive feedback loop.

[hifiguy]

9. Eeyup. A perfectly closed system that loops

infinitely on itself.

[NightWatcher]

10. Is your uncle religious?

I'm sorry but I think there's a link between willingness to accept the stories in the Christian bible on their face and a gullibility that lends them to be so easily led astray by smooth talking rwnj's and Faux News bimbos.

Not to (directly) blast religious people, but if you believe that Noah built an arc when he was 500 years old and that a guy named Jonah lived in a whale's belly....... you might be more likely to believe that Bigfoot is real.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. My uncles weren't religious.

They were old woodsmen very familiar with every track in the woods, and this would have been something that they couldn't explain (assuming we pulled the stunt off well). My family was very creative and big on playing silly practical jokes on each other.

As to MFW, yes, he is religious but not totally fundamentalist--he's a heliocentrist and accepts that the Earth is very old but occasionally makes snarky remarks about evolution. Sometimes it's hard to tell if he actually believes things or if he's just emitting crap to piss me off.

[zappaman]

14. Love the prank, but...

It seems like the majority of 911 truthers...what little there are remaining...are left.