Perspectives on Politically Motivated Anger/Religiously Motivated Politics/Christian Nationalism

TheLightWithin said:
In my long observation of political news, I have often wondered:
Why do conservatives/right wingers seem SO ANGRY?
I tried googling that question once hoping for articles that explored that maybe interviewed people or something, but oddly got the reverse, articles which pondered why left/liberals were "so angry"
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I think that when you take a political stance, be it left, right or centre, you do so because you have a viewpoint of what is best for your town, country, world, etc. Having done this you will become aware of people with the opposite point of view. People who want to stop or prevent your idea of good. That seems to be a pretty good reason to get angry.
 
Cyberwolf said:
Plus the term woke actually means alert to racial prejudice and discrimination
i am woke
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Yes, that is the new definition of the word. Woke is the past tense of wake. But now, lets glamorize the word. Woke is something that we all should have been doing long before the term "woke" appeared. Should we not been aware of injustice? We throw around words, making or changing means. When you state "racial prejudice and discrimination", are you now trying to isolate those terms to a certain people group? These terms you used apply to every person, every people group. I grew up in the heat of this stuff in the 50's and 60's. The government thought that they could "force" people to like each other. There is nothing new happening today that has not always been happening. It's all about "hate" and "what I want". injustice will never be done away with as long as there are people on this planet. Besides there are people who get rich stirring up this pot of racism. And yes, the pot is always being stirred by someone who wants power and riches.

I am glad that you are "woke" - my motto is always seek truth even when you don't like what it reveals.

Is that a picture of one of Lewis' helmet?
 
Leveller said:
Yes, this has always been the case but I think the rate of change has increased in modern times.

I think that rather depends on one's perspective.

We are quick to label things but the trouble for the internet age is that a label means different things in different places. I have noticed people from the U.S. on other forums writing about the left/liberals versus conservatives. In fact I have seen liberal and left used interchangeably. In Europe many on the left would consider being called a liberal a terrible insult.
I think the largest mistake that so many make is to forget the existence of the 'centre'. The fact is that this is where most western politics still lies.
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Leveller said:
Yes, this has always been the case but I think the rate of change has increased in modern times.

I think that rather depends on one's perspective.

We are quick to label things but the trouble for the internet age is that a label means different things in different places. I have noticed people from the U.S. on other forums writing about the left/liberals versus conservatives. In fact I have seen liberal and left used interchangeably. In Europe many on the left would consider being called a liberal a terrible insult.
I think the largest mistake that so many make is to forget the existence of the 'centre'. The fact is that this is where most western politics still lies.
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Yes, people apply their meaning to words. If you look up the word "liberal" you will see several meaning, but most all have to do with a willingness to look at change. Change can be good and it can be bad. If you want to rewrite history, that will be bad, if you want to learn from history, that will be good. The center, where ever that is, could be called the best possible place for a civilization to thrive. But there is always the tug of war going on. This group of people have been fed lies and now want to change something that will not be good for the whole, but since the whole will never agree with what is best for mankind the struggle goes on. But even your "center" could be different from my "center". You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe. We will agree on some things and disagree on other things. Even I will change my beliefs as I get older, since what I believed as a 20 year old was just plain foolish in many ways. So mankind will struggle and fight against each other, and all for what? Doesn't the "center" keep moving?
 
Politics runs pretty much different here in Switzerland than in many other countries. There's much less division among the people than elsewhere. This has several reasons:

- We have the tradition that all major parties send one or two members into the government although this is not even prescribed in the constitution. There are no members of the two ecologist parties so far because they became major quite recently. But we don't have a government Vs. opposition Model; everyone needs to find a majority for each issue.

- We have the instrument of direct democracy that allows it to launch or reject laws against the majority in the parliaments.
- Swiss people are proud of the Swiss democracy.
- Most people don't like anyone who claims to be the best and a great leader. Egomaniacs like D. Trump or S. Berlusconi would hardly get any support.
- There have always been Protestant and Catholic Christians in quite equal numbers. Nowadays, other religions and atheists have a third equal share.

Nevertheless, there have been two anti-islam legal initiatives (interdiction of wearing chador or nikab and building mosques with minarets) in the time of the IS and Islamists terrorism) which were agreed to by the majority of the votes. But we found all four Christian Churches and the Jews on the side to defend Muslim rights! I appreciate this a lot. (I was defending the right to wear chador or nikab, although I don't think it is necessary or adequate here). Interreligious solidarity is possible.
 
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This is an interesting article, and it pays to read the associated journal article. That link is within the article but I will add it here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jssr.12836

Questions that came to my mind when reading the article were things like: Is the data accurate? Do they know anything about groups other than Christian Nationalists and how they respond to conspiracy theories?

The original journal article touches on those things, though being an academic journal article it has to remain tightly focused on its thesis and it humbly reminds you of it's own limitations as a study.

I wonder if there is a journal out there, maybe sociological, that takes articles about various types of groups that believe in conspiracy theories?

After all, the Oliver Stone film JFK and the XFiles and Jesse Ventura all were conspiracy oriented, and by no means strictly right wing and definitely NOT Christian Nationalists. And wasn't it Hilary Clinton who referred to a "vast right wing conspiracy" or something?

What does anybody else think about conspiracy thinking, contemporary, recent past, historical, or generally speaking?
 
I rather think it's a nightmare-in-waiting, but that could be just my old man's grumblings.

What seems evident is that a general mistrust of institutions and reach of social media has created fertile ground for the rise of the 'Wrongest Right'* – the readiness to disbelieve anything that comes from an 'authoritative' source, coupled with a willingness to embrace any other theory that gains credence in proportion to its 'alt.' status ...

* There's a wonderfully silly book (IMHO) called '1066 And All That' which is a nonsense history of England. When speaking of the English Civil War, it describes the two sides (actually quite accurately) as:
"Royalists – Wrong, but Wromantic,
Roundheads – Right but Revolting."

By 'Wrongest Right' I mean ultra-far-right opinion.)
 
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