mind reader

Astute stalkers amongst you may remember some 14 years ago I made a YouTube video by the same title. Let’s not go there. I want to talk with you today about cognitive bias and attribute substitution, in, of course, our favourite context: politics. These are interesting tools of hegemonic enforcement at the nexus of human behaviour and psychology. This, you might suppose, is part of a series on “methods” for our collective toolbelt with which to understand how hegemony maintains its stranglehold on culture, and how capitalist realism (or capitalist fatalism as I’m now borrowing) comes to be the *linga franca* of the entire globalised capitalist state. Sheesh – heavy stuff for a Wednesday morning, but when isn’t it. Let’s start, confusingly, in reverse order. Attribute substitution is an important part of the puzzle of understanding how our physical (and financial) realities are shaped. This is because it represents a key...

We live in existentially challenging times – between actively unfolding western-backed genocides on several fronts, growingly desperate climate emergencies even at sub-1.5°, and the engulfment of despotic fascist and anti-human behaviours from general society. Social division, ecological collapse, backstabbing and horrors beyond comprehension literally abound and are par-for-the-course in daily reporting, news feed updates, and Lemmy communities. Between these radically distressing flashes of information, imagery, and propaganda, interspersed with memes and other desensitising content, it is easy to feel lost, helpless, worried, anxious – you name it. But I’m more concerned about two reactions to these trends which I’ve seen unfold firsthand. The first response, prima facie, may seem harmless: apathy, the second response, much less harmless, is lateral violence. However, both these responses undermine the fundamental fabr...