Today’s post comes to us from Stephen Hall, just like every Monday…..but wait!!! It’s Tuesday already! Woo hoo!! Thank you Stephen!
There is a little noticed pattern in the ranting of those known so affectionately as internet trolls which often goes overlooked. The common threads of all such people is a hyper-inflated sense of their own intellectual brilliance.
Generally speaking, they believe themselves to utterly brilliant that their reinterpretations of facts and history supersede every other perspective, and in particular those perspectives of people in the past.
This week I have witnessed people debating the causes and motivations of the Civil War as well as trying to explain the Common Law perspective of medieval views on the start of life itself. We also witness numerous leftist spins and reinterpretations of the sexuality of historic figures, the philosophy of Karl Marx, and the ever present constantly changing views on whiteness, supremacy, and privilege.
Never waste your time trying to cut of the heads of the hydra, for as you do, two more will grow in its place, and the beast become even more powerful. Heracles overcame his hydra by cauterizing the wounds so that no new heads could grow out of the severed stump; but just how will we defeat this leftist ideological hydra?
How do you cauterize a philosophy inherently in denial of the very tools of reason, procreative of their own facts, and mesmerized by the illusion of their own brilliance?
As much as the left derides the very shadow of “white supremacy” or “patriarchy” or “Christian hegemony”, they freely engage in the religious, authoritarian supremacy they openly deride frequently and fraudulently in everyone not in total agreement with themselves.
One might be inclined to chalk this up to a type of narcissistic, leftist indoctrination from the publicly funded and controlled educational system, but it is not simply indoctrination nor narcissism which emboldens the internet trolls.
Others ascribe the problem to the anonymity of the internet and the corresponding absence of any personal feedback from the electronic connections and transmission of the darkest corner of the perpetual adolescents’ basements.
After all, they would never say such insulting things, exhibit such blatant arrogance and condescension, or exhibit quite the detached contempt for a fellow human being if they had to interact with such people face to face.
I am reminded of one of my personal favorite surveys which showed that 80% of the people polled in a sufficiently large random sample think that they are above average intelligence.
While this obviously means that at the very least 30% of them are provably wrong by the very definition of the word average, it more generally shows that the overwhelming majority of people overestimate their own intelligence, though there are a few who clearly underestimate their intelligence, the trend is clearly an overstatement.
It also can not be ignored that recent generations have been brought up in an environment of self-esteem promotion with a correspondingly inflated sense of self worth, which may very well be intimately related to the aforementioned survey.
There are a few qualities which compel us to become better people, the good humans we are meant to be. Among these are 2) curiosity, 3) empathy, 4) reason, 5) courage, 6) confidence, and 1) self-doubt.
“What?”, I hear you proclaim, “How can doubt be included in these others which are clearly virtues and self-doubt would seem to be a vice? (Odd that I can hear you proclaim such over such barriers of time and space, as you have yet to even read this as I type and residing in far distant lands.)
Yes, self-doubt is the virtue missing from the souls of the internet trolls.
1) You possess self-doubt. It is that virtue which makes you question the rectitude of your beliefs, your ideas, your knowledge, even the veracity of what your closest friends tell you. When you contemplate doing something new, or asserting some position or fact, postulating a new idea, undertaking a new job or work project, starting a diet or exercise routine, courting that fresh face you just met, or any new endeavor, you immediately feel pangs of self-doubt.
2) It is self-doubt which drives that curiosity, which causes you to inquire, to think, to question what you actually know and what you actually believe. Curiosity drives the spirit of wise, not the foolish. Without curiosity there is no desire, and desire is the engine of all action. Curiosity keeps moving forward while that self-doubt keeps one from diving headlong into that new venture.
3) Empathy grows out of one’s curious inquiry. How does one think another may feel or react to your own actions? On a less emotional level, how will that machine react when acted upon and what stresses will be placed the material? I mean empathy in a broader expression than merely emotional, but I mean that as well. Empathy in this broad context is one’s estimation of the effects of one’s own actions, one’s own words.
4) Understanding without thought is mere observance. It is one thing to contemplate how a person or thing may react, but it is quite another to form that understanding into an argument or a plan. Reason is the tool by which our empathy and understanding are aimed and directed. It is not merely understanding, but neither is it action, it is the formulation in the generic sense of a plan.
5) Courage puts that plan you have formulated into action. Whether that action is the putting forth of an argument, pursuing that amorous interest, or undertaking some construction or project. It may appear the opposite of self-doubt, rather than a growth from it, but courage is the test of reason. Courage is not the absence of doubt, but the trial by fire of the plan derived from one’s understanding. If you never put forth the argument, you can never know if your reasoning is correct; that takes courage.
6) Confidence grows out of the testing of one’s character, of your reasoning, the testing of your actions and understanding. Confidence does not grow out of success, but out of the testing. Failure does not shake one’s courage, but improves one’s reasoning and understanding. What those who preach “self-esteem” fail to understand is that confidence, unlike esteem, can not be taken away, it has been earned through courage, reason, and understanding.
So we are left to go back to that hydra of ridiculous notions emerging from the leftist troll brigades.
You might be tempted to say that they had too much confidence, because they never, ever reconsider their position, but that is precisely because they do not have confidence that their position can stand up to scrutiny.
You might say that trolling is a form of courage, to confront those with whom you disagree, but as we all know such confrontation generally is blind assertions followed by name calling.
This is because their ideas are not based in reason but emotion, often taken as matters of faith based upon what someone told them.
Being based on emotion, they tout empathy, yet have none. The leftist can not fathom the mentality which holds a different opinion, they only feelings they understand are their own, not the feelings or ideas of others which is the definition of empathy.
They lack empathy because they do not care what other people think, what other people believe. They have already labeled them fascists, racists, sexists, or whatever other label comes in handy, so they have no curiosity about the opposing position, it is just inherently wrong to them.
It must be wrong. It has to be. Because if it is not wrong . . . then they will have to doubt themselves. If they doubt themselves, then their so very fragile self-esteem will be shattered. No leftist can survive doubting the correctness of their ideals. The notion that they might be wrong would lead to . . . .
