Virtue Signaling and the Indoctrination of the Left

By
Wallace Garneau
-
11
24835

Have you ever looked at a belief, and wondered how it is that someone can believe that thing, whatever it may be?  Have you ever wondered how it is that people can be so easily indoctrinated?

Indoctrination is actually very easy to accomplish, and the purpose of this post is to expose exactly how indoctrination works.

People think that the trick to indoctrination is to control the narrative, but it is not.  The trick is to control what is perceived as ‘true’.  Narratives follow.

Controlling the perception of ‘truth’ starts with virtue-signaling.  The left constantly portrays their positions as virtuous, and other positions as lacking virtue.  Once someone buys into the notion that a position is, or is not, virtuous, then being a ‘good person’ comes from agreeing with the right positions, making it impossible to separate one’s self-identity from the political positions one holds.  Once someone’s sense of virtue becomes tied to their political positions, they will defend those political positions as if their lives depended on it, as not doing so would, to them, make them lack virtue.  Conversely, anyone who opposes their political positions becomes, by definition, evil.

You might notice that Democrats are often dismissive of facts.  This is because they gauge the validity of different facts based on how well those facts fit their political positions, rather than gauging their political positions based on how well those positions square with the facts.  Once someone accepts a position as virtuous, and ties their sense of self-virtue to holding the right positions, they become immune to facts, and will find convenient ways to blow off any facts they don’t like.

In fairness, Republicans can be just as dismissive of facts, and in fact conservatives can be just as indoctrinated as liberals.  The difference is that liberals control our public schools, colleges, and media, with the vast majority of journalists, actors, directors, and others working in the media, being liberal.  The vast majority of conservative college professors are in hard sciences, business schools, or engineering schools, whereas the vast majority of students go into liberal arts, where they are ‘taught’ almost entirely by liberal professors.

Imagine two people finishing their degrees.  One has an engineering degree, and the other has a degree in feminist studies.  The person with the engineering degree is apt to become an engineer, but what will the person with the degree in feminist studies become?  What job skills has college bestowed upon this person, other than to continue to study until he or she has a doctorate in feminist studies, and can become a college professor him or herself?

Perhaps more to the point, what has the person with a doctorate in feminist studies learned?  That is an absolutely worthless degree, bestowing the opposite of knowledge upon the recipient.  If we are honest with ourselves, degrees like this one show only that someone has spent eight years being indoctrinated into a very dangerous political ideology, to the point where they will probably never be able to gauge truth from fiction again.  Everything they believe, not only about the world, but about themselves – their entire sense of their own worth – is tied into believing the B.S. their degree program contained.  How do you reach someone whose entire sense of self-value is based on not being reached?  How do you give truth to someone who would be destroyed by it?

Answer?  Generally speaking, you don’t reach them.  People like this are intellectually dead.  The few that are reached speak of red-pill moments, and become conservatives, but the vast majority of indoctrinated people spend their entire lives in intellectual purgatory, and the more of an ‘education’ they have in that indoctrination, the harder they become to reach.

We all know that the vast majority of college professors in liberal arts programs are liberal, but did you know that 72% of public school teachers are liberal as well?  To make matters worse, the conservative school teachers tend to have degrees in math, science, or engineering, whereas the people teaching art, English, social studies, and history almost universally went through liberal arts programs, where they became indoctrinated into the left.

Our public schools have become indoctrination centers.  Without the Department of Education, each school system would be able to define ‘truth’ as it sees fit, and there would be no way to tie that all together into a national indoctrination campaign.  The Department of Education made the nation-wide indoctrination of our youth possible.

I’m a student of history, and I’m often appalled at the half-truths and outright lies my children are taught.  We teach history, not from the lens of historians, with a focus on historical accuracy, but with political axes to grind, focusing on those facts that fit the correct narratives.  I’ll give my son other facts, after he has ‘learned’ something in school, and the stories he tells me after going back to school and sharing those facts with his teachers are priceless.  Just as one example, my son was taught that free market excesses caused the Great Depression.  I explained to my son the role of the Federal Reserve, which used loose monetary policies in the twenties to cause a stock market bubble, and then allowed the supply of money to drop by 1/3 after the stock market bubble burst.  I told my son that after the stock market crash, unemployment topped out at a little over 9% (never hitting 10%), and then came back down to under 6% by June of 1930.  When my son went back to school and shared these facts with his history teacher, the history teacher did not believe them to be true, as they showed quite conclusively that the Federal Reserve, and not the free market, caused the Great Depression.

To this teacher’s credit, rather than ridiculing my son (as Gregory Salcido would undoubtedly have done), this teacher googled, and quickly found that my son was correct, which he then shared with the class.  That said, I’ve told my son to be very careful presenting conservative viewpoints in school, no matter how well grounded they may be, lest teachers try to fail him for failing to fall for the correct indoctrination.

The left is not devoid of facts.  The left actually makes very good use of facts, but one who studies on their own, outside of school, will see that there are a great many facts that are not taught, and that if one looks at all of the facts available, the most logical assumptions to start with are very different from those that are taught.  One will also see that, as with the case of the free market supposedly causing the Great Depression, many things are taught as fact, that are simply not true.

The left does not only separate themselves from a great many facts, but from the quest for solutions to societal problems as well.  If the left was interested in finding solutions, we could have a discussion about how to provide, just as one example, high quality, affordable healthcare that is widely available. The left already has their solution picked out, so rather than look for a solution, they sell socialized medicine as if it were not only infallible, but also as if it were the only solution possible.

If we were all rational, we would understand that there are trade offs between quality, affordability, and availability, not only in relation to healthcare, but in relation to just about everything.  Somehow, we all understand that if we wanted everyone to be able to have whatever new car they might want, every three years, provided by government, our tax rates would have to go up a great deal (particularly when everyone would want the most expensive cars out there), but when you tell people the same thing is true with medical care, suddenly basic economics gets thrown out the window, and socialized healthcare is sold as ‘universal’ and of ‘higher quality’ than what we have today.

I’ll stick with healthcare, as it is such a great example.  If we had universal healthcare, then we would all have access to whatever medical care we want, whenever we want it.  Show me a socialized healthcare system where anyone who wants medical care can get it, whenever they want it.  I’ll make it easier for you: show me one where anyone who needs medical care can get it, whenever they need it.

No such animal exists.  The left sells ‘universal’ healthcare that by any definition is not universal.  Really, they are selling government rationing over price rationing.

Let’s talk about quality and affordability.  We do pay more for medical care than do other countries, and we are often told we have lower quality medical care, but look at the facts that go along with that.  Leftists will show the amount of money different countries pay for medical care against things like average life spans, deaths per 100,000 people, and other measurements that relate more to lifestyle choices (like eating and exercise) than to outcomes from medical care.  We are one of the fattest nations on Earth, and we don’t exercise anywhere near as much as we should, but that has nothing do to with the quality of our medical care.

Who has the best cancer treatment outcomes in the world?  If you have to have heart surgery, in what country do you want to have surgery?  The United States has, far and away, the best medical outcomes in the world, and as a consequence, you will not see the mainstream media use medical outcomes as measurements.  There is a reason for that…

Healthcare is of course just one example.  Pick any societal problem you want.  If it is a real problem (there are plenty of fake ones), then the left already has the only solution they are willing to discuss picked out.  Any dissent from their solution makes you an evil fool.

Understand when you are talking to someone who has been indoctrinated, they can’t see past their indoctrination.  Since you are questioning positions they hold as virtuous, they will see you as being evil, and will attribute all kinds of evil things to you, not only calling you every name in the book, but assuming that you really are all of those things.  To the indoctrinated, the fact that you do not agree with them proves that you are all of the terrible things they are calling you.  You cannot reason with such people, but you can understand them, and understanding them is half the battle.  Spreading how indoctrination works can help people who are not yet indoctrinated avoid becoming so, and over time, if enough of us become immune to indoctrination, we can return to a discussion based on truth.

 

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11 COMMENTS

  9. ‘The left constantly portrays their positions as virtuous, and other positions as lacking virtue.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    Has it occurred to you that the right of politics does the same at times?

    Everyone advances their point of view and believes that it is in accord with the truth, is correct, is better to those opposite, and at times may view it as virtuous.

    Why say that the left ‘constantly’ views their positions as virtuous?

    You have no evidence of this and in any case, what you are applying to the left can be applied to the right side of politics.

    Are not people on both sides not amenable to flexibility and potentially open to revising some of their beliefs, from time to time?

    ‘Once someone buys into the notion that a position is, or is not, virtuous, then being a ‘good person’ comes from agreeing with the right positions, making it impossible to separate one’s self-identity from the political positions one holds.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    Can’t people take a position without seeing those opposite or different to them as taking another point of view, rather than being evil or lacking virtue, and isn’t that how mature democratic society’s work?

    You are assuming that when people take a position different to your own that they make a claim to virtue and then surmise that those who do not agree with them are ‘evil’.

    That is not how the world works and not how the majority of people think about their political opponents.

    ‘You might notice that Democrats are often dismissive of facts.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    This notion may or may not be true, and this idea applies equally to those on the right.

    ‘This is because they gauge the validity of different facts based on how well those facts fit their political positions, rather than gauging their political positions based on how well those positions square with the facts.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    You are describing what occurs when facts are not conducive to a political point of view, which is also called cognitive dissonance.

    However, you are assuming that only those on the left cannot accept reality or factuality and disregard or minimise them to fit their preconceived beliefs.

    Any person can fail to appreciate reality as this is being human, but to suggest that only those on the left are guilty of this is fatuous.

    ‘Once someone accepts a position as virtuous, and ties their sense of self-virtue to holding the right positions, they become immune to facts, and will find convenient ways to blow off any facts they don’t like.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    You are assuming that a person that disagrees with you ties their self-esteem to holding such a point of view, which may or may not be the case.

    Whether or not someone who ties their self-esteem to their point of view will become immune to reality is another assumption.

    Some people from the left or the right may do this, and other people from either side may not do this.

    ‘In fairness, Republicans can be just as dismissive of facts, and in fact, conservatives can be just as indoctrinated as liberals.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    While you have finally found balance in saying this, you have contradicted your opening paragraphs.

    Your opening remarks about the left being dismissive of the facts or indoctrinated is unfair to those people who happen to disagree with you.

    People on either side of the aisle have a right to their point of view; however much we may find it repugnant, doctrinaire, or out of step with reality.

    ‘The difference is that liberals control our public schools, colleges, and media, with the vast majority of journalists, actors, directors, and others working in the media, being liberal.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    There may or may not be a majority of liberals or conservatives who run particular educational institutions; however, it is nonsense to say that this automatically means that any subject’s syllabus is controlled and biased to meet an administrator’s political beliefs, in every college or university campus.

    ‘The vast majority of conservative college professors are in hard sciences, business schools, or engineering schools, whereas the vast majority of students go into liberal arts, where they are ‘taught’ almost entirely by liberal professors.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    Where is your evidence that conservative teachers in science, business, and engineering are in the majority and liberal teachers in the arts are in the majority?

    You are making an assumption whenever you suggest that liberal teachers are biased because they are liberal.

    It would be as bad if I were to suggest that conservative teachers are biased because they are conservative.

    Even if the number of teachers with a liberal or conservative leaning is true and biased teachers are in the majority in each discipline, what are you suggesting, that staff must comprise of roughly even numbers of liberals and conservatives in all faculties in every tertiary institution so that students get a rigorous, balanced, and fair education?

    College or university staff are not organised to have an even number of lefties and rightwingers for each subject.

    It is the syllabus which is all important, and the chances that any discipline is biased towards the right or left has little validity as there are too many teachers, regardless of their personal bias, who will correct this tendency in any discipline.

    ‘Imagine two people finishing their degrees. One has an engineering degree, and the other has a degree in feminist studies. The person with the engineering degree is apt to become an engineer, but what will the person with the degree in feminist studies become? What job skills has college bestowed upon this person, other than to continue to study until he or she has a doctorate in feminist studies, and can become a college professor him or herself?’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    A person with a Bachelor of Arts is skilled differently than someone with an engineering or science degree and may get employed in lots of ways, such as in management, the public service, journalism, museums, libraries, or even politics.

    Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s only tertiary qualification is a Bachelor of Arts.

    President Abraham Lincoln never attended a day of school in his life and taught himself law.

    Lincoln was not a scientist or an engineer but is regularly acknowledged as the greatest president in the history of the United States, by people generally and by academics.

    Some people say that Lincoln is one of the greatest Americans in history.

    The set of skills that one obtains in doing a bachelor of arts is in research, collaborative group-work, writing, speaking, arguing a point of view, and clear thinking.

    The value of democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law are essential components of any fair society.

    A free press that uses investigative journalism to uncover the truth of any matter, and the indisputable role of journalists that operate in the highest professional standards, generate progress in all democratic societies.

    ‘Perhaps more to the point, what has the person with a doctorate in feminist studies learned? That is an absolutely worthless degree, bestowing the opposite of knowledge upon the recipient. If we are honest with ourselves, degrees like this one show only that someone has spent eight years being indoctrinated into a very dangerous political ideology, to the point where they will probably never be able to gauge truth from fiction again. Everything they believe, not only about the world, but about themselves – their entire sense of their own worth – is tied into believing the B.S. their degree program contained. How do you reach someone whose entire sense of self-value is based on not being reached? How do you give truth to someone who would be destroyed by it?’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    That is your own bias, and it is without any basis in reality.

    ‘Answer? Generally speaking, you don’t reach them. People like this are intellectually dead. The few that are reached speak of red-pill moments, and become conservatives, but the vast majority of indoctrinated people spend their entire lives in intellectual purgatory, and the more of an ‘education’ they have in that indoctrination, the harder they become to reach.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    Insulting rubbish!

    ‘We all know that the vast majority of college professors in liberal arts programs are liberal, but did you know that 72% of public school teachers are liberal as well? To make matters worse, the conservative school teachers tend to have degrees in math, science, or engineering, whereas the people teaching art, English, social studies, and history almost universally went through liberal arts programs, where they became indoctrinated into the left.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    Claiming that a leftwing point of view is akin to criminality and an error of judgement is fatuous and as nonsensical as saying the right of politics is similarly afflicted.

    I am excluding the current crop of sycophantic ideologues of the Republican party who are as bad as the tea party.

    You previously spoke about people of the left not being able to acknowledge reality or facts.

    I could say the same about your spurious and intolerant view of leftwing politics.

    ‘Our public schools have become indoctrination centers.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    How have you arrived at this conclusion when the reality of educational institutions is to encourage debate, freedom, the dignity of the individual, progress, and the awareness of each person’s human rights?

    ‘Without the Department of Education, each school system would be able to define ‘truth’ as it sees fit, and there would be no way to tie that all together into a national indoctrination campaign. The Department of Education made the nation-wide indoctrination of our youth possible.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    I would tend to think that having a Department of Education would have the opposite effect of preventing bias and unreality in schools and universities through the nation, and not encouraging prejudice amongst any of them.

    ‘I told my son that after the stock market crash, unemployment topped out at a little over 9% (never hitting 10%), and then came back down to under 6% by June of 1930.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    The above statement is factually incorrect.

    ‘The Great Depression had devastating effects in countries both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%.’

    ‘Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%.’

    (Wikipedia article, ‘Great Depression’, in Frank, Robert H.; Bernanke, Ben S. (2007). Principles of Macroeconomics (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. p. 98)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

    ‘The two classical competing theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject the explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists.’

    (The above quotation is from the Wikipedia article on the Great Depression)

    The causes of the Great Depression are a matter of controversy and are disputative according to what economic school of thought one espouses.

    ‘If the left was interested in finding solutions, we could have a discussion about how to provide, just as one example, high quality, affordable healthcare that is widely available. The left already has their solution picked out, so rather than look for a solution, they sell socialized medicine as if it were not only infallible, but also as if it were the only solution possible.’ (Wallace L. Garneau)

    Every advanced democratic country in the world has a single-payer, national health insurance, except America.

    Why put up with a more expensive system that makes insurance CEOs wealthy, have the most expensive prescription medication prices in the world, result in thousands of uninsured Americans, and fails to deliver national health to every single American?

    Of course, when the right froth at the mouth about the socialist bogey man, their prejudices are not apparent to them as they are obsessed with neoliberal economics.

    The trouble with your blog post is that it makes claims that either lack depth, are too simplistic, not realistic, or lacks any or sufficient evidence.

    • John – You spent a lot of time talking about what people on both sides of the political aisle can do, but very little time talking about what they actually do. The fact of the matter is that the existence of identity politics – without which the left would not even exist – proves me right. The alienation of POC who dare to be conservative, in the eyes of the left, is the greatest civil rights issue of our time, and again – it proves this article accurate.

      You can post all day about what people can do, but that does not change what they actually do.