I think I figured out the root cause of the spell that has made it impossible for so many people on the Left to grasp that people can disagree with them, even when it is right in front of them. This has to do with one of the bastardized forms of thaumaturgy that plays such a large role in the Western World: PR. PR presents itself as moving the Overton Window or Opinion Corridor by shaping public opinion; but the crucial step is not actually shaping public opinion, but the perception of public opinion. Very few people who aren't immediately impacted are going to make a fuss about vaccines being dangerous if they think everyone else thinks of them as necessary for the survival of humanity; and so cultivating that perception can allow PR to work even if it cannot convince people of obvious absurdities. A handful of people fall for the PR completely, and so end up under a spell, in which no one has whatever thoughts that need to be hidden, no matter how much evidence is presented.
This would also explain why it is a commonplace of Western culture for the last century or so that everyone else is insane (because the perception is that almost everyone else agrees with the obvious absurdities that the PR system lost the ability to actually sell people on); it also explains why so many certainties of American culture are suddenly in such flux: as soon as Trump's victories in the presidential elections revealed that a large number of people have such "radical" views, the entire distortion that the PR industry created of public opinon began to fall apart.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2025-02-03 12:54 pm (UTC)This would also explain why it is a commonplace of Western culture for the last century or so that everyone else is insane (because the perception is that almost everyone else agrees with the obvious absurdities that the PR system lost the ability to actually sell people on); it also explains why so many certainties of American culture are suddenly in such flux: as soon as Trump's victories in the presidential elections revealed that a large number of people have such "radical" views, the entire distortion that the PR industry created of public opinon began to fall apart.
Does this analysis sound plausible to you?