The Capacity for Embarassment.

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It's pretty well known, by now, that children at about 3 years old or more, can feel shame and embarassment.

I just watched Donald Trump address CPAC, and the question that I am left with is really, really simple: is that not true for today's Republicans? I watched them applaud, and I saw nobody blush, not when the worst lies and most outrageous statements were made.

I can say this with almost certainty -- if he were Canadian, and tried it here, the very few listeners who didn't wander off during the speech would have laughed him out of the hall.

 

[SomeRandom]

My bigger question is how can any of those in attendance to this CPAC thing call themselves “Christians.”
I’ve seen some...interesting interpretations of the Bible. But to have a literal golden idol? This is all beyond parody from my eyes. Like bruh!

 

[Stevicus]

Video and text of the speech for those (like me) who missed it: WATCH: Former President Trump Addresses CPAC (c-span.org)

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Thought I should mention this here...there are those who will wonder "why the hell did this obvious liberal Canadian even bother watching that horrible speech?"

Good question. My answer is, I think, quite simple: I care about what's happening in the world, and with a base of Americans measing into the 70 millions, Trump is still an important happening in the world. We should all care about what he says -- and what his sycophants lap up.

 

[Regiomontanus]

My bigger question is how can any of those in attendance to this CPAC thing call themselves “Christians.”
I’ve seen some...interesting interpretations of the Bible. But to have a literal golden idol? This is all beyond parody from my eyes. Like bruh!

I know, I was sure it was a joke...but nope. The whole thing is just incomprehensible to me.

 

[Revoltingest]

It's pretty well known, by now, that children at about 3 years old or more, can feel shame and embarassment.

I just watched Donald Trump address CPAC, and the question that I am left with is really, really simple: is that not true for today's Republicans? I watched them applaud, and I saw nobody blush, not when the worst lies and most outrageous statements were made.

I can say this with almost certainty -- if he were Canadian, and tried it here, the very few listeners who didn't wander off during the speech would have laughed him out of the hall.

It's in the nature of being a politician. Success is all about
getting elected & re-elected, which means saying whatever
is necessary to win. Honesty is a severe disadvantage, thus
sociopaths are the fittest.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's pretty well known, by now, that children at about 3 years old or more, can feel shame and embarassment.

I just watched Donald Trump address CPAC, and the question that I am left with is really, really simple: is that not true for today's Republicans? I watched them applaud, and I saw nobody blush, not when the worst lies and most outrageous statements were made.

I can say this with almost certainty -- if he were Canadian, and tried it here, the very few listeners who didn't wander off during the speech would have laughed him out of the hall.

Wow! Aren't you a glutton for punishment. I will watch it after it is put through the filters of comedians. At least I won't be dying of embarrassment for my country then.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It's in the nature of being a politician. Success is all about
getting elected & re-elected, which means saying whatever
is necessary to win. Honesty is a severe disadvantage, thus
sociopaths are the fittest.

That should be frightening to all of us, shouldn't it?

And watching the US through the last 5 years, I have to answer my own question: yes, it is.

 

[Revoltingest]

That should be frightening to all of us, shouldn't it?

It's how things have always been, & always will be.
So it's normal. Who's frightened normal, eh.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It's how things have always been, & always will be.
So it's normal. Who's frightened normal, eh.

Well, answered the person who for much of his life was "normal" but considered not to be so...obviously billions of us...

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's how things have always been, & always will be.
So it's normal. Who's frightened normal, eh.

I would say that right now it is worse than it has been in the past. Name one other time when the loser tried to win by insurrection.

 

[SomeRandom]

I know, I was sure it was a joke...but nope. The whole thing is just incomprehensible to me.

Legit. When I first read about this, I thought the CPAC people were being trolled. I’m still not fully convinced the “artist” behind the Golden Trump isn’t having a laugh

 

[Subduction Zone]

Legit. When I first read about this, I thought the CPAC people were being trolled. I’m still not fully convinced the “artist” behind the Golden Trump isn’t having a laugh

Made in Mexico!

 

[Revoltingest]

I would say that right now it is worse than it has been in the past. Name one other time when the loser tried to win by insurrection.

Something involving sociopaths always happens that's
different from before. Nixon was the first Watergate &
pardon by his Veep. Burr & Hamilton had their duel.
It's always sumthin. Always will be.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Something involving sociopaths always happens that's
different from before. Nixon was the first Watergate &
pardon by his Veep. Burr & Hamilton had their duel.
It's always sumthin. Always will be.

Nixon okayed and worse yet covered up a rather idiotic and pointless burglary. That was not an attempt to violently take over the country. If the vote would have gone against him he would have calmly stepped down. In fact in a slightly controversial election where there was reasonably suspected cheating that is exactly what he did for the good of the country.

Burr and Hamilton limited their duel to each other. Never before have we had someone try to impose their will on the country by stealing an election.

 

[Revoltingest]

Nixon okayed and worse yet covered up a rather idiotic and pointless burglary. That was not an attempt to violently take over the country. If the vote would have gone against him he would have calmly stepped down. In fact in a slightly controversial election where there was reasonably suspected cheating that is exactly what he did for the good of the country.

Burr and Hamilton limited their duel to each other. Never before have we had someone try to impose their will on the country by stealing an election.

So many awful things.
Each unique.
And I think you're overblowing what Trump did.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It's how things have always been, & always will be.
So it's normal. Who's frightened normal, eh.

Feudalism fit the bill for that at one point in time.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Made in Mexico!

It does have a ring to it no doubt. Wonder if the paint was made in China?

Have to admit though, the Mexicans did a good job.

 

[Sunstone]

I don't see how our shame/embarrassment/guilt behavior is too hard for us to see. It's striking how it can be understood, based on the facts of it, as some kind of a 'toe the line' governor or mechanism for keeping the members of our groups in line with the group's way of thinking, feeling, and judging people and other stuff.


That seems to be why it is always most likely to be seen as a behavior that kicks in when a human recognizes in some way (mostly unconsciously) that they have stepped out of line doing (or not doing) something that their group expects of them. I'd guess the key question then is 'Which group am I most worried about being seen by its members as one of their own."

The Republicans at the convention were, basically I think, 'virtue signaling' that they wanted to be seen by Trump and his other supporters as enthusiastic supporters of Trump. Not a chance I can think of that anyone there doing that would have blushed at anything Trump-like, and especially, blushed at Trump himself.


I'd only take what I've said one step further. Whatever you want to call the 'shame/embarrassment/guilt complex' -- if that's even close to a decent name for it (which I doubt it is just as much as you are likely to doubt that Frankenstein) -- I would consider thinking about it as our 'conscience' or our 'moral conscience' in some kind of core or essential way.

I mean, I can't see how human 'conscience' is not -- even if anything beyond it -- just some DNA based role that conscience plays in us as a somewhat accurate guide to how we should come across as socially acceptable to some person or group of people at least momentarily important to us.

That's human nature as stage-set for seeing it in a way that so definitionally makes someone reflexively stomping on its universal snakes -- especially while declaring he or she was resisting an invasion of foreign snakes (for he or she says, "They sure as hell can't be my own snakes! My snakes are better snakes than these snakes!) -- so, so warmly and touchingly bat**** crazy that none of us could ever have come up with such an outlandishly fool's behavior on our own.

Considered in light of at least the above take on it, the routine and daily operations of any human's conscience give a very special meaning to 'evolved as a social species'.


That's my 2 cents on it, paid as usual in cheap wooden tokens representing my fond affection for the human ecosystem in all of us.

 

[exchemist]

Thought I should mention this here...there are those who will wonder "why the hell did this obvious liberal Canadian even bother watching that horrible speech?"

Good question. My answer is, I think, quite simple: I care about what's happening in the world, and with a base of Americans measing into the 70 millions, Trump is still an important happening in the world. We should all care about what he says -- and what his sycophants lap up.

I sympathise with the dilemma. I chose the other path, though. For me, it is such a relief not to hear a constant stream of hateful and dangerous nonsense, from the most powerful office on earth, that I am luxuriating in the silence.

My take on it is that there will be a huge bloodbath in the Republican party over the next 2 years, as it tries to work out if angry, populist conspiracy theories can be a route to power again, or if a new way needs to be found. I propose, for now, to let that unfold without my being a constant spectator and hope that, at the end of the turmoil, a more adult form of right wing politics wins out. But I will tune in occasionally.

However my fear, as opposed to my hope, is that the party will try to have it both ways, by selecting someone else from the Trump dynasty, to follow a similar populist path without the worst of the abrasiveness and insanity of Trump himself.

But we shall see.