Cry Me a Fuckin' River

[Frostlight]

26. They Literally CAN'T Learn Anything that Conflicts with Their Narrative:

https://bsbuzzsaw.com/2018/04/04/why-conservatives-cant-learn/


Date: April 4, 2018
Author: G.S.Croft

This requires a bit of set up, so stick it out:

The very existence of Bullshit Mountain should not be possible in a world inhabited by an educated, rational, and enlightened populace. Yet the Bullshit that forms the steep slopes, rocky crags, and soaring peaks of the Behemoth is exceptionally well-documented.
The phenomenon that is Bullshit Mountain is made possible by a very interesting and frightening reality of human nature: that there are many, many among us who simply can’t learn anything that might conflict with their world view. The vast majority of those identify themselves as ‘conservatives’.
Sure, there are non-conservatives that believe things that are not true and will not learn extant facts which might cast doubt on their beliefs, but such examples are somewhat rare. The important difference between conservatives and non-conservatives is not how readily they fall for false information, but how willing they are to discard what is proven to be bullshit. For instance, when non-conservatives encounter a false story that aligns with their beliefs, they will circulate the story until they encounter the actual facts that debunk that story. That there are many non-conservatives that pride themselves on fact-checking is part of their collective mechanism that filters out Bullshit with some effectiveness over time. But when conservatives encounter a bullshit story like the Clinton/Uranium One deal, no matter how many times they are exposed to the actual facts, no matter how thoroughly those facts are explained, and no matter how much more sense those facts make, they simply cannot learn those facts if it means they might have to abandon their belief. Notice how I said ‘cannot’ instead of ‘will not’? I’ll get to that in just a bit.

suspense

In the case of the Clinton/Uranium One deal hyperlinked above, if you ask a conservative who believed the story a year ago if they still believed it today, nine-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine times out of ten-thousand, they will tell you “Clinton sold 20% of our uranium to Russia!”. Then, even if you show them the facts which make that belief look entirely ridiculous, they will say the same thing this time next year… and the year after that… and the year after that.

boulder

WHY? HOW?

Take some of the following examples:

Explain to a conservative that the theory the globe was cooling was just a postulation by a small group of scientists, and when the data were gathered the idea was proven completely wrong and that in fact, the opposite was proven to be true.
A year later, that same conservative will still say that global warming is bunk because ‘scientists also said’ the Earth was cooling.

Tell a conservative that the Theory of Evolution has been proven through the study of not only fossils, but of plants and bacteria in real time.
A year later, that same conservative will still say, “Evolution is just a theory!” Then try explaining that proven theories are actually facts… it won’t matter.

The conservatives who still believe Obama isn’t an American despite the fact that he could have been born on the Moon and still been a US citizen by virtue of his mother’s status?
Try prying that from their cold, dim heads.

Those that believe that the ACA (aka ‘Obamacare’) had provisions for death panels?
Still there.

That Saddam Hussein had WsMD?
No significant change.
And that’s not even the proverbial tip.

Certainly, not every conservative believes the exact same bullshit, but a surprising majority adhere to the same beliefs. Also there are non-conservatives who believe some bullshit as well. But the staggering difference is in just how much more unwilling conservatives are to adjust their worldview based on the facts. It would be easy to say that they must simply be stupid, or that they are scientifically illiterate. But that’s not necessarily the case (even though there seems to be a downward correlation between conservatism and IQ). The reality isn’t that conservatives are stupid, or that they won’t accept facts they don’t like… the reality is that they can’t.

Now... here's why;