I don’t know how these things work, but I have something that I really wanted to share here, but when I thought about it, I realized there’s really no better way to do this particular one than to simply “post the post” that I wanted to share.
I went looking for an open thread in which to post it and saw that, well, there wasn’t one.
So hey, I figured WTF, I’d start an open thread. Why not?
I’ll start with the thing I wanted to share. I’ve recently bookmarked a site called “Naked Capitalism” and it has some pretty cool stuff in it. Tonight I headed over there and found a link to this absolutely amazing post here:
Investor Psychology: Fear Turns People Into Sheep
I don’t even know what to do except tell you to read it. It’s only a little bit about investing. Mainly it’s about how the Powerful can exploit Fear.
Sociologists from four major research institutions investigated why so many Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it became obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
The researchers found, as described in an article in the journal Sociological Inquiry (and re-printed by Newsweek):
Many Americans felt an urgent need to seek justification for a war already in progress
Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.
“For the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”
“The study demonstrates voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information”
People get deeply attached to their beliefs, and form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.
“We refer to this as ‘inferred justification, because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.
“People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war”
“They wanted to believe in the link [between 9/11 and Iraq] because it helped them make sense of a current reality. So voters’ ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information, whether we think that is good or bad for democratic practice, does at least demonstrate an impressive form of creativity.
An article yesterday in Alternet discussing the Sociological Inquiry article helps us to understand that the key to people’s active participation in searching for excuses for actions by the big boys is fear:
Subjects were presented during one-on-one interviews with a newspaper clip of this Bush quote: “This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda.”
The Sept. 11 Commission, too, found no such link, the subjects were told.
“Well, I bet they say that the commission didn’t have any proof of it,” one subject responded, “but I guess we still can have our opinions and feel that way even though they say that.”
Reasoned another: “Saddam, I can’t judge if he did what he’s being accused of, but if Bush thinks he did it, then he did it.”
Others declined to engage the information at all. Most curious to the researchers were the respondents who reasoned that Saddam must have been connected to Sept. 11, because why else would the Bush Administration have gone to war in Iraq?
Fascinating stuff, with lots of links, and it provided me, finally, with a quote that I am now using as my comment signature:
Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.
How Bushian! Do you know who said it? Rahm Emanuel.
