HOW TO THINK FOR YOURSELF
19 JANUARY 2023 (13 MIN READ)
Whether it be your grandma who curses at CNN or the lesbian feminist who scoffs at Fox News, we currently live in an era where most people are put into two groups who think identically about everything. For every issue a Democrat believes in, a Republican has to completely disagree with them. And the same is true vice-versa. It has become increasingly impossible to find people in America who can agree on something across the aisle. Although it may be fun to make fun of how sensitive Democrats are these days or how stupid Republicans can be, all this groupthink has landed us in a pretty desolate spot: half the country cannot communicate with the other half. Any history student will tell you that this pattern of communication often ends in something rhyming with swore. Since none of us want that, how the fuck can we get out of this dangerous place? Simply put, we must learn how to think for ourselves, in order to escape the political cults we find ourselves in.
Since thinking for yourself these days is rarer than a leprechaun riding a rainbow, here is a detailed guide on how to do so.
POLITICAL TRIBALISM
Some of the biggest culprits in stopping us from thinking for ourselves are the political tribes we find ourselves in. These tribes, Democrats or Republicans, fuck up your independent thought in three main ways: absolute belief in an ideology, fear of expulsion, and automatic disbelief of contrary opinions. With regards to complete belief in an ideology, political tribes make you believe that everything they do and support is for your best interest, thus you should follow and agree with them no matter what. For instance, why should someone’s opinion on abortion or gay marriage have any effect on how they think America should relate to China? Yet it does, because if one thing you believe in aligns with the Democratic matrix, then they convince you that everything else should too, even how they handle relationships with foreign actors.
This is how these groups rope you in. They make you think that just because you deeply agree with one thing they do, then you should agree with everything as well. However, this makes you unable to think for yourself, since you end up blindly agreeing with whatever decisions a political party makes. And if you just agree with everything a school of thought says, then you begin to enter a totalist system that does not give you room to think for yourself. The way out of this mess is to separate yourself from the tribe and objectively analyze each issue as if you had no stake in it. For instance, let’s say you want to make your mind up about how to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. To do so, remove yourself from what your political tribe wants you to believe and research the situation from a neutral standpoint. If you end up agreeing with your political tribe after this research anyway, then great, but if you don’t, then you enter the next dangerous territory of policing thought.
Every single one of us, regardless of how brainwashed we are, can feel a distaste towards an action our favored political party does. But what keeps so many of us from following through on that distaste and expressing it? The fear of expulsion from the tribe. In that moment, we can either choose to ignore our distaste out of fear of retaliation, or we can investigate our trigger and own our conclusion, regardless of how others may feel about it. In essence, the more we don’t give a fuck about being ousted or receiving hate, the more we will choose the path of independent thought. In an ideal world, people would still love you and be kind if you chose to dissent, but we live with a bunch of mobs who want to chop your head off if you say water is wet. Due to this harsh reality, you ultimately have to be ok with facing the lunatics and putting your middle finger up.
I used to be a hardcore Democrat, who blindly believed everything the party suggested and hated anyone who thought differently. I only escaped that tribe mentality when I stopped caring about what my tribe members would think of me if I dissented. It got to a point that if I were to disagree with a Democratic policy and somebody would want to chop my head off, then I would remove that person from my life until they could have a civil conversation with me. Although I lost a lot of friends, I gained an ability to think for myself, which had a massive positive effect on my mental health and confidence that I would not trade for anything. After this disillusionment from the left, I started to inch closer towards the right side of the aisle, but when everyone on that side refused to speak out against Roe v. Wade being overturned, I quickly realized that I was dealing with the exact same beast as before: people who blindly followed totalist thinking and refused independent thought. Since both sides would not like me for opposing their viewpoints anyway, I stopped caring about their feelings towards my thoughts. Now that both sides have ousted me, I really couldn’t care less about pissing them off. And that lack of care on both ends is what fuels my ability to think independently. I have no fear of expulsion from either tribe because I don’t give a shit about having a membership.
Lastly, another reason people stay so entrenched in these political tribes is because they are encouraged to automatically shut down any contrary opinions, keeping them in an echo chamber that blocks off independent thought. The truth is, you can only be capable of independent thought about an issue if you expose yourself to all thoughts about the issue with an open mind. Thus, if half of the equation is blocked off because it’s not “woke,” or is made by “communists,” then you cannot form an independent thought. When it comes to Democrats, you can just mention a specific name, such as Jordan Peterson, and they squirm in their seats and get outraged. But when you press them on how much they have exposed themselves to their ideas, you end up realizing they either have never seen them speak—trusting the mainstream media’s perception of them—or they have only seen one or two clips of them saying offensive things. On the other hand, if you mention AOC to a Republican, they will automatically have a hissy fit. When you ask them about what AOC actually believes in or what her goals are, they either pass her off as a communist or have no idea about anything she has said. Of course, these are two extreme examples, but the fact that political tribe members just write off a whole person because they are known to oppose their belief system makes it impossible for them to think independently. And that’s because again, you can only think differently if you expose yourself to people who think differently.
If you reflexively block off anyone who you believe thinks differently to your political party, then I hate to break it to you, but you might be part of a cult.
AVOIDING THE CULT
Whether it be the woke left or the MAGA crowd, the extremes on both sides have quite literally become cults. Unfortunately, due to various reasons such as nefarious social media algorithms or loneliness, people have become more and more susceptible to joining these harmful movements. In order to stop people from joining these extremist groups, they have to be educated as to how these movements are cults. To make the argument that they are actually cults, I will be using the science of disorganized attachment. In her book, Terror, Love, and Brainwashing, Alexandra Stein, an expert on the psychology of cults, argues that the dominant factor of all cults is a concept called disorganized attachment: where people start getting emotionally attached to a person or group, while both depending on them for emotional security but fearing them at the same time. This flip-flop between receiving love for being part of the group, but being terrified of speaking out against them, is what creates a disorganized attachment. In terms of how this plays out with the woke left, when you begin to identify with that group and most of your friends do as well, you will feel rewarded and loved for how woke you present yourself. However, at the same time, you will always be in fear of receiving intense backlash or being ousted if an opinion of yours is deemed as un-woke. Thus, the group of wokeness both provides a feeling of emotional security and deep fear. But how does this lead to cult-like behavior?
In Stein’s book, she provides ample empirical evidence that this attachment causes serious malfunctioning in the brain, where the logical, linguistic system cannot match the intensity of the emotional side of the brain. What ends up happening is that people under disorganized attachments begin losing the ability to think for themselves, because the emotional side of their brain is so dysregulated that they just automatically believe what they are told out of fear and a need for emotional validation. For example, let’s say someone is entrenched in the woke movement and all their friends are too, but their sister has been training her whole life to be a swimming champion and a biological male who identifies as a woman absolutely destroys her in a race. All her hard work and dedication gets thrown out the window and she is left devastated. This woke person starts to feel a certain way about how this may not be the best way to handle integrating trans people into sports. However, since all their friends would get incredibly mad at them and potentially stop being friends with them for questioning this topic, they refuse to think independently about it and go with whatever the woke movement wants them to think. The reason why this exhibits cult-like behavior is that it uses a specific sort of attachment that destroys one’s ability to think independently and turns them into brainwashed puppets that blindly follow a certain ideology.
Although I went pretty hard on the left side of the equation there, the same exact thing rings true for alt-right groups, such as MAGA or QAnon. When I have spent time with people who fall into this line of thinking, the same exact behavior as the woke left is exhibited: both needing the group for one’s emotional needs but also fearing the group if they disagree with anything they say. This behavior also results in blindly following a specific ideology without being able to dissent.
Now that we understand how political tribes and cults can destroy one’s capacity for independent thought, what can we do individually to strengthen our chances of holding onto it?
BUILDING DISCERNMENT
In order to think independently, consider my golden rule: figure out what someone is trying to make you believe versus taking it at face value. You can apply this rule to any person, group of people, or journalism you expose yourself to. Once you get into this habit, you will quickly realize how much people like forcing their beliefs on you, either through manipulative rhetoric or forceful language that leaves no room for debate. In terms of how this shows up, consider how news organizations present their information. They take an objective situation and spin it into a subjective story that seems the most shocking and can contribute to their goal of political manipulation. For example, a story about an illegal immigrant stealing some diapers from a 7-Eleven can be quickly spun into this headline by conservative media, “Illegal immigrants are destroying small businesses! The government needs to secure the border or we are all screwed…” This headline grabs people’s attention and makes them want to vote for the Republican party more because they don’t want illegal immigrants destroying their hometown. But, as you can see, this belief has no basis in reality. It was just plopped into their brains through manipulation because they couldn’t take the time to think for themselves. A quick investigation using the golden rule would lead you to understand that they want you to believe that so you can keep their favored political party in power.
Another way this situation appears is through “science.” Whenever people are in a heated debate, they often cite a specific study or “fact” in order to make the other person believe they are wrong. However, what most people don’t understand is that most scientific studies are funded by companies to “prove” something they need to advertise for profit. I mean, a new gold standard, White House-sponsored food pyramid was created that cited Lucky Charms as healthier than eggs. Most Americans will look at this utter nonsense and justify their crappy way of eating, because “science.” Using my golden rule, I asked myself, why do these scientists want us to believe this? And what I found was that if you dig into who funds the people that created this food pyramid, then you will see it’s the motherfuckers who produce the processed foods. As you can unfortunately see, we live in a system where even the science we are being sold as fact is actually mostly propaganda to keep certain power structures alive.
Once you get good at practicing this golden rule, you will save yourself from countless instances of brainwashing. And even better, you will start getting closer to what the truth actually is, which is a beautiful end result of thinking for yourself.
NO FEAR
The minute you enter a dominant state of fear, your prefrontal cortex stops functioning at its normal capacity, which is a problem because it dictates your ability to logically make sense of situations that present themselves to you. In other words, it’s the part of the brain that makes you think for yourself. Therefore, you better make sure it’s always working at its highest potential, which it cannot be in a state of fear. This is the main reason why most news outlets or cults use fear as a way to force beliefs onto people. For instance, if Fox News runs that illegal immigrant headline brought up in the previous section, then they know it will be effective because it will use the fear of danger to make people believe the headline, even though it's not true.
When reading the headline, their brains will go straight to, “Trigger! Our lives are in danger!” And once your brain goes there, it will believe anything in front of it to justify that feeling. Additionally—and this is where dependence is built on propaganda or a cult—people look towards the source of the fear to soothe the fear. For example, Fox News can end that article or news segment by saying that everyone has to vote for a certain politician immediately and all this will be taken care of, manipulating people to go do that as a vehicle to make their fear go away. In terms of how this phenomenon shows up on the left, this can look like saying if you don’t support or donate to a certain cause, then you are racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic. People then use the fear of potentially being deemed as un-woke as a motivator to contribute to God knows what financially and call it a day, without stopping for a second to investigate why they would actually need to do it or look into the organization itself.
How can we escape this mental trap? I hate to break it to you, but we are all delicate snowflakes in some way, so we will all feel fear about something no matter what. The trick is to separate yourself from the source of the fear until you breathe through it and enter a rational state of mind. This way, you can avoid the potential brainwashing caused by the fear and wait for a moment where you can apply discernment, developing your own, unbiased opinion in the process.
Also, follow golden rule #2: if it is making you afraid, then don’t believe it right away.
