by William Skink
In a school setting, mockery is a form of bullying that no teacher would ever promote. From the link:
“Mocking” is usually perceived to be a form of verbal abuse that takes place in a face-to-face encounter. However, this is not necessarily the case. In fact, what makes peer mockery so dangerous to your child’s growth is its multi-faceted nature.
It is crucial for you to familiarize yourself with the role that mocking plays in schoolyard aggression, and how this mockery impacts your child’s life. You should also learn about the different types of bullying, the signs of bullying that your child may manifest, and the ways in which you can prevent bullying from occurring.
While politics isn’t a schoolyard where we are trying to mold kids into becoming responsible, well-rounded adults, it might be important to ask the following question: do certain groups of people deserve to be made fun of?
Today in Helena a morally righteous partisan is making the argument that, yes, some people do deserve to made fun of, and today is the day to do it with the Freedom From Idiocy Rally:
There are times for righteous, passionate protest and there are times when people simply deserve our disdain. Try to find a way Monday to sneak over and offer some well-deserved mockery of people who believe still that hate and xenophobia are messages that resonate outside of their compounds.
Is there a good reasons to encourage this mockery? Other than making oneself feel morally superior, mockery isn’t very effective in changing someone’s mind that their opinion is wrong:
The problem with mockery is that it is not rhetorically effective. It doesn’t actually persuade anybody of anything. Nobody has ever been mocked out of a belief or humiliated into accepting another. When we mock others, we communicate the view that we do not respect them or take them seriously. This invariably deepens their commitment to the positions that they hold and decreases—usually to zero—our ability to exercise any influence with them. Mockery makes us feel good and look smart to to our friends. This is its function; it has virtually no value as a form of persuasion.
I guess some partisans have abandoned the notion that they have persuasive arguments to make in regards to accepting Syrian refugees in Montana.
JC
Have you forgotten your Alinsky? Attack and injure individual people, not institutions.
There are many means of persuasion … Calm reasoning, presentation of evidence, rebuttal of counter arguments, reference to majority opinion, logical reasoning and exposure of fallacies, though mockery, belittling, passive-aggressive tactics, shaming can be used as well.
None of this works. People do not reason into their views, so trying to reason them out is futile.
The best way to change minds is via subtle propaganda using symbols and short pithy slogans, false flag events, television, movies, “news” and advertising as a subversive tool, and reliance on authority figures (“trusted sources”). As Lawrence Eagleburger said during the run up to the bloody assault on of Iraq in 2003, that gets 60-70% lined up, and that’s enough.
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried!
Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
Well, now they know!
Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door!
I don’t care
What they’re going to say
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway!
It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all!
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I’m free!
Let it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You’ll never see me cry!
Here I stand
And here I’ll stay
Let the storm rage on!
My power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I’m never going back,
The past is in the past!
Let it go, let it go
Claiming authorship, Don?
were you able to get over to the rally to make fun of these people to their face, or do you prefer the safety of mocking people from your blog?
Oh, the delicious irony of someone who throws a conniption fit when his name is mentioned in a blog post calling me a coward for being at work during a rally. You are the best, man. The best.
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