Last updated by The POOG on September 23, 2020.

under construction

Debate in our society has become increasingly polarized and divisive. In fact debate probably no longer exists. I had come to distinguish the opposing positions as rational debate versus emotional diatribe.

This was prescient in that I nailed the two mental functions, reasoning and emotion, as being the primary operative forces of the two sides of debate.

In Playbook: The COVID Pandemic, I

The Closed Mind

A characteristic of the sociological divide in the West of today is that the minds of individuals are closed to raional discourse.

As Ben Hunt quotes from Allan Bloom’s book ‘The Closing of the American Mind’ (emphasis mine)[1]:

My argument is that the rules of the mental games we are playing today – the algorithm that goes through our hard-wired and socially trained heads as we process highly mediated and constructed narratives – creates a stable, incredibly damaging equilibrium of indignation and ego.

My argument is that the closing of the American mind is evolving into its next stage: the welding shut of the American mind.

Ben Hunt[1]

References

  1. Ben Hunt. The Welding Shut of the American Mind. Epsilon Theory, September 21, 2020.