This link has been bookmarked by 5 people . It was first bookmarked on 09 Oct 2008, by Todd Suomela.
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11 Dec 09
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29 Aug 09
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17 Jun 09
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But those few who may have been innocently duped by such an unbelievable tale -- the very young, the very old, the very insular -- weren't also among those most active in spreading the rumor.
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but believing false witness and bearing false witness are not the same thing.
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Those spreading this rumor can be divided into two categories: Those who know it to be false, but spread it anyway, and those who suspect it might be false, but spread it anyway.
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The complicit dupes are making a subtler choice -- choosing to ignore their suspicion that this story just doesn't add up and then choosing to pass it along anyway because confirming that it's not true would be somehow disappointing
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The enduring popularity of this rumor shows that many people see this invitation as something attractive and choose to accept it, so I also want to explore why anyone would choose to do that.
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a kind of invitation to participate in deception
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That's a sleazy tactic -- marketing by smear campaign
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betrays a lack of confidence in the quality of the rival product line
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They work by connotation and association.
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This larger group has no financial interest at stake, so what's in it for them? What motivates someone to accept the invitation to participate in deception, to accept an obvious lie and then to voluntarily tie their own credibility to something so incredible?
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I couldn't help but be amused by the editorial's inordinately proud pose of courageous truth-telling. The lowest common denominator of minimal morality was being held up as though it were a prophetic example of speaking truth to power.That same posturing resurfaced
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Most of the commenters and letter-writers didn't seem to notice that they were expressing a unanimous and noncontroversial sentiment.
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people seemed to think this ultra-minimal moral stance made them exceptional and exceptionally righteous.
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so many people also seemed to want or need most others to be wrong.
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They give us someone we can clearly and correctly say we're better than.
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makes us feel better about ourselves
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That approach -- finding people we can compare-down to -- might make us feel a little better about ourselves, but it doesn't change who or what we really are
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This comparing-down is ultimately corrosive because it bases our sense of morality in pride rather than in love -- in the cardinal vice instead of the cardinal virtue
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Satanist stories, much like stories about ghosts or vampires, tap into big mythic fears -- the sense that there is real evil in the world, that the innocent often suffer, that we may be powerless against the powerful.
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None of these stories work as stories if we undercut their impact by acknowledging that there's no such thing as ghosts or vampires or Satanic detergent executives.
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the same mixture of storytelling and suspension of disbelief, with the usual subset of listeners/readers who fail to make that distinction.
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Perhaps the deepest fear lurking in that e-mail has to do with the persecution complex of American evangelicals we've
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rather the fear of what it might mean that they don't
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Are you afraid you might be a coward? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel brave. Are you afraid that your life is meaningless? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend your life has purpose. Are you afraid you're mired in mediocrity? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel exceptional. Are you worried that you won't be able to forget that you're just pretending and that all those good feelings will thus seem hollow and empty? Join us and we will pretend it's true for you if you will pretend it's true for us. We need each other.
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You can't be doing well if it seems like an improvement to base your life and your sense of self on a demonizing slander that you know is only a fantasy
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09 Jun 09
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09 Oct 08
Todd SuomelaAgain, I whole-heartedly agree that kitten-burning is really, really bad. But the leap from "that's bad" to "I'm not that bad" is dangerous and corrosive. I like to call this Thornton Melon morality. Melon was the character played by Rodney Dangerfield in the movie Back to School, the wealthy owner of a chain of "Tall & Fat" clothing stores whose motto was "If you want to look thin, you hang out with fat people." That approach -- finding people we can compare-down to -- might make us feel a little better about ourselves, but it doesn't change who or what we really are. The Thornton Melon approach might make us look thin, but it won't help us become so. Melon morality is never anything more than an optical illusion.
This comparing-down is ultimately corrosive because it bases our sense of morality in pride rather than in love -- in the cardinal vice instead of the cardinal virtue. And to fuel that pride, we end up looking for ever-more extreme and exotically awful people to compare ourselves favorably against, people whose freakish cruelty makes our own mediocrity show more goodly and attract more eyes than that which hath no foil to set it off.philosophy psychology religion morality comparison rumor propaganda ratfucking
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