Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Antifa and BLM Are Piaget’s Children
Piaget was a brilliant Swiss psychologist who explained the stages of human intellectual development – that children thought differently than adults. In his stages of development, he pointed out that children pass through a phase of “egocentric thinking,” in which they lack the ability to see any argument from any perspective other than their own. This phase passes only with the introduction of deductive reasoning, ethical training, respect for others, abstract thinking, and rational thought.
Antifa and Black Lives Matter are remarkably uninterested in the viewpoints of others. Their movements occurred only after a couple of generations of our public educational system training our children that they can represent their own truth. That there is no “self” — each individual represents only the views of his tribe — that we don’t debate ideas, we only leverage power structures.
If someone disagrees with you, you should not endeavor to learn from your fellow citizen. You should only endeavor to defeat your adversary. It’s not a discussion of ideas, it’s simply a power struggle. The other side is evil.
You don’t need to consider what might happen if the shoe was on the other foot if there is no other foot. Our educational system has produced a generation of people who lack, and even detest, the ability to see any argument from any perspective other than their own. Piaget’s children. So we’ve moved from national elections to burning cities. Just as intended. Our left has found its market.
Piaget was a leftist, but he would likely have been horrified by our intention to promote leftism by retarding the intellectual growth of generations of western children.
If your ideas are horrifying, then it’s important that you train your followers to disregard the ideas of anyone else. Thus, the draconian approach of the left.
Piaget understood this, but he would be horrified. I really believe that. Like Marx, Hegel, and many others, Piaget would be horrified by the modern application of his ideas.
It’s not about his ideas. It’s about leftism.
Whatever works.
Published in General
Interesting post, Doc.
My impression is that marriage and having kids, especially the latter, are more likely to prompt the end of the egocentric phase.
For the record, I disagree about Marx, but this is not material to your main point.
Piaget described the thought process development. But it took modern society and education in the post-World War II era to unleash the ability for an ever-growing number of people simple to not grow up. The “Every child gets a trophy” mindset combined with the left’s unwillingness to criticize anti-social and self-destructive alternative lifestyles and the nation’s overall wealth to the point that a large social safety net could be funded creates a situation where lots of people have the ability to never leave their angry teenage years.
People who grow up being told they’re special just for who they are, and not getting guidance on lifestyle choices, then have the ability to, if not live luxuriously, at the very least maintain a base lifestyle through the various state and federal programs to where they have time to riot, if they’re not part of the trust fund crowd who can do that on their parents’ dime, as with the rich kids arrested in New York last week (and where others higher up the progressive food chain in foundations and other non-profits will actually fund their travels around the country to riot, if they don’t want mom and dad to foot the bill themselves).
Trust fund babies ashamed of their wealth trying to get down with the struggle, while maintaining the perks of their inherited wealth, are always going to be around, whether it’s a Clara Kraebber or a Bill Ayers. But for some of the others, figuring out a way to cut access to state and federal benefits for the professional protestors might not keep them from being angry progressives, but it would put in consequences for acting out the worst of their behaviors that Democrats only decry when the poll numbers start going against them.
Yikes.
This is horrible.
Ok, so I get home from a dinner party, at which I had too much to drink. I decide to jot down a quick post about how BLM and Antifa couldn’t exist if we didn’t have so many perpetual adolescents in our country. And that our schools were producing people like that intentionally.
When I typed it out, it made even less sense than when I started. I then click “Publish.”
Yikes.
It’s an interesting premise – that revolutionary movements require immature adherents. But there are lots of problems with that concept. Not the least of which is that it’s completely wrong. There are many others, but I’m too embarrassed to list them all.
So I’ll leave this up long enough for those on the thread to see my apology, and then I’m taking this down.
I post some mediocre stuff. But even I have a line I really try not to cross. This one fell over the line and exploded.
Yikes.
Sorry about that.
I’ll take this down later today.
See also: The Comprachicos of the Mind.
Eh, it’s not totally brain-dead. That it was sufficiently coherent to not throw me off immediately is a testament to your ability to write even when illuminated. (:
I hope you’re joshing us about taking this post down…It’s right on target.
P.S. You write pretty well for a lush (: (: (: Might want to consider knocking back a few every time you sit down to the keyboard.
It’s a thought-provoking post, maybe not fully developed, but every blog post doesn’t have to be. Hope you leave it up.
“If your ideas are horrifying, then it’s important that you train your followers to disregard the ideas of anyone else.”
That sentence alone is reason to leave the post up. Piaget was the theorist but Alinsky (pictured in the post) wrote the playbook. The “Rules for Radicals” leave absolutely no room for compromise. Combine these rules with the infantile narcissism of this generation and we get the Jacobinism that is being played out in America today.
I can’t even write this well when I’m not drinking.
So I got busy today (the weather was awesome here in Hilton Head – it felt great to work outside), and when I get back in front of my laptop, this post I hated so much has 20 likes and it’s on the main feed. It also has some positive comments from some Ricochet colleagues whom I respect a great deal.
So I guess I’ll leave this up. I still really don’t like it. But maybe I’m judging this one too harshly.
Maybe.
And as always, thanks for your feedback.
Yes, eventually the right and whites will understand this and show them what a power struggle looks like.
We are always our own worst critic. Let the market decide.
Oh won’t that be fun. Whenever I read about power struggles between races it always works out. Same with Civil Wars.
This post on Piaget is appropriate. The author was mistaken in his desire to take it down. It is entirely normal for a teenager to become disillusioned with his society in a manner similar to a leftist. In some cases, this disillusionment can inspire children to think more critically. This is detailed pretty well in a Johny Cash song.
Around 13 or so, we can begin to comprehend the evil and moral frailty that men do. It is entirely natural to not only castigate what is bad but to hate the whole society and possibly descend to unthinking misanthropy in general. After all, if George Washington had slaves, why bother studying him. While I personally encourage thoughtful and circumscribed misanthropy, it’s easy to go overboard at that age.
The left obviously obviously hates our society like a petulant teenager hates their Dad. This hatred is felt with the most intensity by the young. In a manner disturbingly similar to the previously mentioned teenagers, the antifa types know that racism is bad and America had slavery but they know almost nothing else.* Nor are they interested in learning anything else but what they already believe. If the whole thing is rotten, why should it be learned. To them, the Constitution is as foreign as the decorum of bowing before the Japanese Emperor is to me.
This sort of tantrum has been going on for probably as long as mass literacy.
Accepting the world as it is is a difficult thing. We feel in our bones that the world is not as it should be and we are right. We humans are disgusting creatures prone to corruption and superstition. We yearn for a new world where humans are less… human. Sadly though, we are trapped in our imperfect flesh in this fallen world. We don’t have to look away from it’s obvious inequities but if accept it, we can make small improvements and gain some measure of happiness in this lifetime. But some people can’t or won’t make that journey. They are called leftists.
*I think that I maybe too hard on teenagers. They can often become fine and sensible adults. I’m not sure so sure about the Woke.
Well put. I agree with just about everything you wrote here.
One thing: fallen world? Where did you get that from?
Cornovirus and the fact that the tastier something is the more it makes you fat. While the world may not be innately evil it isn’t any garden.
Does that (apparently?) sanction intellectual dishonesty?
Current public policy supports the existence of these adult children. Couple of questions:
Hm. It’s a mystery. Considering how the last president encouraged “children” to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26, who is really interested in creating a coddled class of sallies who are so blinded by their own stupid that they smash the businesses, the livelihoods, of those they are pretending to help?
The answer is obvious: Generally, any leftist seeking to expand government power and control over our lives.
Only because the Left requires it. As it did the last one.
The petulant teen, if female, hates her Mom. I think for girls, this is even more common. I was watching a TV show last night, on the “Murder Channel” of course. (Discovery ID) That is the only TV I watch, usually at bed time. The case involved a psychologist who had probably murdered his wife. The woman’s wealthy parents were pressing a wrongful death suit as the police had screwed up the investigation. The psychologist father/husband was a coke addict and had a million dollar life insurance policy on his wife.
The 16 year old daughter (with a lip piercing) was adamant that her mother was a drunk, etc, etc. She did not want to hear anything about the case. Totally supporting her father.
What’s interesting, is how BLM and antifa are ruining democratic neighborhoods and not conservative ones. This has been the case for some time. In Evergreen college, the antifa types bullied two lifelong Democrats out of a job.
I think it’s fair to say that American leftism is more feminine than masculine and it has become more feminine over time. Trump is basically an FDR Democrat after all. Trump is a masculine reaction to the increasing effete femininity of everything. The parallels that you draw between feminine adolescent rage are relevant and worthy of further thought.
Is it a feminine thing to pretend that Trump is anti-gay? I am quite surprised that Trump is accused of being anti-gay. Trump is many things but being anti-gay isn’t one of them. It is similar to a rebellious teenage girl accusing her Dad of being racist because he said one inappropriate joke that one time.