"clear and present thinking"

This is a reference to Brendan  Myers’ course “Clear and Present Thinking”, which I have referred to in other places (e.g., here, here, and here). 

PS - see also: 

• “12 Cognitive Biases Explained - How to Think Better and More Logically Removing Bias”   https://youtu.be/wEwGBIr_RIw?si=IEO2vdhBy5WSa9mv 
  

[Content Warning] bigots / bigotry

PS - some subsequent posts and links that also worth reading are: 

• “Fight bigotry whenever and wherever it appears, UN chief declares”   https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152786     
  

• “Post No. 2,011 - Bigots and their legacy of trauma”;  

• “Post No. 2,535 - Trauma [Content Warning: bigotry/discrimination and other forms of abuse, violence, sexual violence, CSA, self harm]” - this post has dozens of other links; 

• “Post No. 2,555 - On bigotry”; 

• “A rebuttal of the so-called “Rapid-onset gender dysphoria” conspiracy fantasy”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-rebuttal-of-so-called-rapid-onset.html   

• “Society preaches kindness – unless you’re fat. Why is fatphobia still on the rise?”   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/12/prejudices-fatphobia-society-size-bodies   and   “Drugs like Ozempic won’t ‘cure’ obesity but they might make us more fat-phobic”   https://theconversation.com/drugs-like-ozempic-wont-cure-obesity-but-they-might-make-us-more-fat-phobic-219309    

• “I Don’t Feel Safe Around Cis Women”   https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/i-dont-feel-safe-around-cis-women   “No identity promises safety”   

• “A Massive Study of 16,000 Participants in 23 Countries Finds People Are More Prejudiced Against Trans Women Than Trans Men”   https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/a-massive-study-of-16000-participants   “Are we ready to take transmisogyny seriously yet??”   A powerful, excellent analysis of a transphobic investigation - which nevertheless has some redeeming value      

• ““Neuroism”: It’s Alive and Well”   https://comingtosenses.blogspot.com/2015/06/neuroism-its-alive-and-well.html  

And on privilege / intersectionality: 

• “Wheel of Privilege and Power”   https://just1voice.com/advocacy/wheel-of-privilege/   The diagram has a specific URL, which is   https://aurisecreative.work/aurisecreative.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/tessa-watkins-intersectionality-wheel-of-privilege.png   
• This is based on the earlier version by Sylvia Duckworth at   https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Wheel-of-Power-Privilege-and-Marginalization-by-Sylvia-Duckworth-Used-by-permission_fig1_364109273   which in turn 
• is adapted from the Canadian Council for Refugee’s “power wheel” at   https://ccrweb.ca/en/anti-oppression  
  

Bigots and their bigotries are a subset of conspiracy fantasists/fantasies. 

The bigotries that bigots hold to - whatever form it is (sexism / misogyny/misandry, LGBTIQphobia, racism, classism, etc) - is WRONG because it is based on:

(a) wrong perception of reality (e.g., thinking a few people are representative of a class, failure to comprehend the effects of discrimination, etc);

(b) incorrect perception (confirmation bias, F.E.A.R., etc);

(c) suffering from FBU;

(d) taught hate / fear; 

(e) personal flaws (e.g., personal insecurity about own sexuality / gender identity);

(f) arbitrary ideas about inclusion / exclusion or access to particular groups (which applies to all forms of sexism, racism, and transphobia - and classism);

(g) etc. 

Bigots have the same sort of inability to think that right wing extremists have also been shown to have - the same sort of mental ineptness that conspiracy fantasists have (which is why I now use the term conspiracy fantasy, not conspiracy "theory" - they haven't done enough thinking to justify the word theory). 

People in a number of powerful positions / organisations who have ANY form of bigotry are unfit to be in that position - and I am thinking particularly of intelligence services (ASIO was notoriously LGBTIQphobic, but the sort misogyny portrayed in the film "Snowden" shows a person is so flawed in how they perceive reality that I would doubt everything they said). 

On the other hand, anyone who (and any organisation that) is genuinely making an attempt to deal with, or at least manage, what is these days termed "unconscious bias", deserves at least the benefit of the doubt. 

Other bigots don't, and should be ignored on everything.

PS - I wrote more on this topic here.

PPS - I have recently come across the concept of "the left brain interpreter" in Grant Cameron's book "Contact Modalities". This is a possibly plausible explanation for the mental rigidity of both bigots and pseudo-sceptics - for more on that, see here, here, here, here, and here.

PPPS - see also here. 

PPPPS - see also https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2023/03/post-no-2399-what-causes-bigotry.html. 

Here are a few links, from here: 

• “Why bigotry is a public health problem”, from “The Conversation”; 

• Cure Violence; 

• “What is bigotry? How fear becomes hatred -and bigotry”, from Psychology Today; 

• “We all have a role in tackling bigotry”, an editorial from The Age; 

• “What leaders must do to battle bigotry”, from “Greater Good Magazine”, published by The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley; 

• “Bigotry is not a matter of opinion”, published on Medium; and 

• “The word ‘bigot’ is back. Here’s why it’s so powerful”.

Also see https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2022/09/on-resistance.html (to change),   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-origins-of-patriarchy-from-bbc.html,   https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-evil-known-as-white-supremacism.html,   and   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2022/10/ageism.html, which includes the following: 

In overcoming any form of bigotry, there is usually a fairly typical pattern, which goes something like this: 

• the form of discrimination is invented and popularised, with false equivalences, faked “facts” aka lies, mis- and disinformation, and subversion of politico-economic-social structures - and that may have happened several, or even many, generations beforehand; 
• victims of the discrimination and activists start countering the lies, demonstrating that real occurs, and working towards additional political structures to counter the hate that was created - in other words, anti-discrimination laws; 
• over several decades, the anti-discrimination laws are used to fight the most egregious cases of abuse where there is also a victim who is able and willing to go through the ordeal of being a public spectacle; 
• more significantly, an increasingly larger proportion of younger people are taught counters to the hate their parents are trying to inculcate in them, together with other parents choosing decency, and some (often grudging and/or unmeant) public education, and that form of discrimination becomes less acceptable; 
• a final stage where society moves from tolerance or acceptance to welcoming, embracing and appreciating - this is when we have things like the anti-racism  concept.

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