AN ARMY OF THE EMBOLDENED AND ILL-INFORMED
A right winger stumbling onto the truth, albeit written against the political left. Also below, a look at two types of aggression.
Again the verse from up above written out for easier reading and frank, microscopic criticism.
AN ARMY OF THE EMBOLDENED AND ILL-INFORMED
Awe yes it’s ironic to find this quote from this fellow Breitbart,
Now he isn’t with us anymore, what would he say now in Trump’s age?
As this quote perfectly fits the many in today’s MAGA movement,
Republicans who have further devolved away from any respectability,
Many who are hyper-emboldened to always show off their true colors,
Yes, ill-informed is a perfect description of the diehard Fox ‘News’ viewer.
Of course Breitbart was making this ‘anti-left’ claim in the era of Obama,
For the person on the left at that time; if he actually meant it; who knows?
Trump’s boisterous belligerence has emboldened many a MAGA surely,
Hanging on Trump’s every word, perhaps ignoring the many ‘illogicals,’
Each and every one of them, overly proud of their ill-informed ignorance.
Embarrassment, the super-power which they always lack in their idiocy,
Making asses of themselves with abandon, owning every lib on earth,
Because of their self-assurance in their shared admiration of Trump,
Oh yes - they never question their leader even when he makes no sense,
Likely these intolerant people tolerate complete nonsense from their lord,
Digging into their shared resentments; that is really all it takes,
Era of Trump has been so very, very long because of their gullibility,
Nothing will change their minds about their guy; shared hate is powerful,
Each day that goes by they discount true bad news about Trump gleefully,
Democracy is completely threatened by their extremist ignorance.
And Hillary described them as deplorables, it’s their badge of honor,
Now likely no amount of reason can penetrate their force field of stupid,
Doing what they can to fight the conspiracy theories that own each one.
Illiberal fever dreams are what they’ve been talked into with simple ease,
Liberal is a word which makes them mad; they only want to snuff it out,
Likely they want no part in political debate as that only enrages them,
- “We never deceive for a good purpose.” Bruyère.*
In Trump we’ve a masterful deceiver; one must theorize that some know,
Now we all know that who are so fooled by this guy will never admit it,
For we can’t expect that actual lessons will be learned by his followers,
Only the absolute honest assessment of Trump will ever be of any use,
Republicans today are so confused - we can’t hope for much from them,
Maybe the light might come on for some, but they’ll keep it to themselves,
Each day - hopefully the fever may break from some of the afflicted,
Democracy demands intelligence in people, herein lies the top problem.
“The army of the emboldened and gleefully ill-informed is growing.”
— Andrew Breitbart
Andrew James Breitbart (February 1, 1969 – March 1, 2012) was an American conservative journalist and political commentator who was the founder of Breitbart News and a co-founder of HuffPost. Breitbart played central journalistic roles in the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, the firing of Shirley Sherrod, and the ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy.
*Jean de La Bruyère (16 August 1645 – 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist, who was noted for his satire.
***
“In all waters there are some fish that love to swim against the stream; and in every community persons are to be found who delight in being opposed to everybody else.”
— Magoon.
Elias Lyman Magoon (October 20, 1810 – November 25, 1886) was an American clergyman and religious writer. He was an author of a number of books, including: "Orators of the American Revolution", "Living Orators of America", "Proverbs for the People", "Republican Christianity", and "Westward Empire".
“If any man will oppose or contradict the most evident truths, it will not be easy to find arguments wherewith to convince him.”
— Epictetus.
Epictetus (c. 50 – c. 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece, where he spent the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion. He spent his youth in Rome as a slave to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Nero. His social position was thus complicated, combining the low status of a slave with the high status of one with a personal connection to Imperial power.
A word search on Twitter(X) using the word “emboldened” brought up the following all which perhaps belong in today’s conversation. I’ll let you be the judge.
So a little pseudo-sonnet for you today. I admit I didn’t spend a lot of time on it. Shakespeare need not fear the competition.
Emboldened
Emboldened from the ravings of a tyrant,
But his tyranny may not be recognized,
For he was a television star disguised,
He has but so many MAGA cowed adherents,
Most have trouble relating to such errant,
The Trump movement is so more than advertised,
Neofascistically prone and crystallized,
In uncertain times of boiling torrents.
It seems that so many aren’t on the right page,
Or even the chapter - I might today say,
Was Trump actually formed from a lump of clay,
All we know is that’s there’s millions enraged,
Can we escape the wide spreading of stupid,
For our ignorance is so deeply rooted.
I had a thought about checking aggression in primates including man. I thought this is vaguely applicable to my previous acrostic verse. I found the two types of aggression listed below to be easily understandable and helps to better define aggression of all kinds. I’ve shown some excerpts from a very interesting paper found online.
Two types of aggression in human evolution
Richard W. Wrangham
For a one hour interview of Richard Wrangham on the information similar to the following below - and to discuss his book on the subject go to this podcast link.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jan 9
Two major types of aggression, proactive and reactive, are associated with contrasting expression, eliciting factors, neural pathways, development, and function. The distinction is useful for understanding the nature and evolution of human aggression. Compared with many primates, humans have a high propensity for proactive aggression, a trait shared with chimpanzees but not bonobos. By contrast, humans have a low propensity for reactive aggression compared with chimpanzees, and in this respect humans are more bonobo-like.
The distinction between the two types is centered on the aims of aggression. Proactive aggression involves a purposeful planned attack with an external or internal reward as a goal. It is characterized by attention to a consistent target, and often by a lack of emotional arousal. Aggressors normally initiate action only when they perceive that they are likely to achieve their goals at an appropriately low cost. Examples include bullying, stalking, ambushes, and premeditated homicides, whether by a single killer or a group.
By contrast, reactive aggression is a response to a threat or frustrating event, with the goal being only to remove the provoking stimulus. It is always associated with anger, as well as with a sudden increase in sympathetic activation, a failure of cortical regulation, and an easy switching among targets. Examples are bar fights arising from mutual insults and crimes of passion immediately after the discovery of infidelity. Note that the term “reactive aggression” refers to the nature of the aggressive act rather than the reason for acting aggressively. According to this definition acts of revenge are not necessarily reactive and in fact are unlikely to be so, given that revenge typically involves planning.
The two types are sometimes easy to distinguish. For example, when two animals compete with steadily escalating intensity, as frequently occurs in fights over food or mates, aggression is typically reactive without any proactive elements. In most species proactive aggression is rarer than reactive aggression but a common form in some primate taxa is sexually selected infanticide, which can be carried out by a male targeting, stalking, and deliberately killing a specific unrelated infant. Human aggression likewise varies from purely reactive cases with unplanned fighting rich in emotional arousal to purely proactive, premeditated, and deliberate efforts to harm a particular victim.
Versions of the proactive–reactive distinction have long been discussed in relation to potential explanations for aggression. Proactive (instrumental) aggression was argued by Bandura to be a learned behavior acquired during development in response to rewards. Reactive aggression, by contrast, was viewed by Berkowitz as an innate response to frustration.
The terms “proactive aggression” and “reactive aggression” were proposed to unify concepts of aggression types in children, adults, and animals and have been used widely. Several parallel dichotomies are also employed. Proactive aggression is similar to what some researchers call instrumental, predatory, offensive, controlled, or cold aggression. Likewise, reactive aggression is similar to impulsive, affective, hostile, defensive, emotional, or hot aggression. The terms “predatory” and “affective” (or “defensive”) are more common in psychiatry and animal behavior, while “premeditated” and “impulsive” are typical in legal systems.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria are designed to promote research on the mechanisms underlying psychopathology. The NIMH Research Domain Criteria categorize three types of aggression, namely, frustrative nonreward, defensive aggression, and offensive (or proactive) aggression. In this case the first two types are both reactive. While more discriminating classifications such as used by NIMH can be useful they do not undermine the value of the bimodal distinction.
Although proactive and reactive elements can indeed be combined, much evidence finds that the neural systems mediating reactive and proactive aggression are different. Furthermore, aggression results primarily from one or the other motivation, and within individuals either proactive or reactive aggression tends to be the predominant form. In practice researchers and clinicians find the bimodal concept of aggression useful whether applied to children, adolescents, or adults, including both normal individuals and psychopaths. It helps with understanding the dynamics of various antisocial offenses including bullying, domestic violence, criminality, homicides, and mass murder. The value of the dichotomy comes partly from its predictive power. For instance, proactive aggressors are more likely to be recidivists, are less likely to respond to pharmacological interventions, are more often diagnosed with psychopathy, and are less likely to experience a decline in aggressiveness during adulthood.
The results of Tulogdi et al. indicate the existence of two different pathways in a key neural circuit underlying aggression. They thereby conform to much other evidence of differential innervation for the two types of aggression in humans. Although the neural basis of human proactive aggression is not well understood, the critical result is that it is different from reactive aggression. Thus, according to the well-supported serotonin-deficiency hypothesis, reactive aggression is suppressed by high concentrations of brain serotonin. Disruption of serotonergic projections to the prefrontal or anterior cingulate cortex accordingly enhances reactive aggression, whereas serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors and other agents that elevate serotonin levels can contribute to control of reactive aggression in both humans and nonhuman models. Proactive aggression, by contrast, is unaffected by such interventions. In line with the implications of the serotonin-deficiency hypothesis, deficits in frontal cortical function arising from lesions, low blood flow, or reduced glucose metabolism are associated with elevated reactive aggression.
Differences in innervation between the two types of aggression are also supported by reactive aggression’s being generally more sensitive to therapeutic interventions and neuroanatomical changes.
Less is known about the brain circuitry underlying proactive aggression in humans but, as with reactive aggression, multiple mechanisms are engaged. One model, the integrated emotion system (IES), explains how it might develop during ontogeny. The IES suggests a role for hypoactivity in the amygdala, leading to low responsiveness to emotionally salient stimuli such as others’ fear expressions (as seen in psychopathy). Glucocorticoid deficiency has also been found to shift aggression toward being more proactive. Cortical activity is likewise important. Proactive aggression, but not reactive aggression, was reduced in men by the induction of neural activity in the right frontal hemisphere (using transcranial direct current stimulation).
Behavioral similarities between small-scale war and chimpanzee intergroup attacks suggest that proactive aggression toward members of other groups was favored in a similar way in the two species. In chimpanzees, as in many animals, community members win conflicts against neighboring communities by fighting cooperatively and have higher fitness if their community territory increases in size.
Since there are long-term benefits from killing members of neighboring groups, natural selection has putatively favored this style of proactive aggression. Essentially the same explanation applies to chimpanzees and hunter-gatherers, except that humans have cultural systems of reward and coercion that promote more risk taking. As a result, compared with chimpanzees, during intergroup aggression human attackers are more likely to be wounded or die.
Estimated rates of war mortality and degree of genetic differentiation among groups are similar between chimpanzees and hunter-gatherers, indicating a problem with the group selection model. Proactive aggression occurs within groups also, both in humans and chimpanzees. Examples include capital punishment (discussed below) and homicide in humans and coalitionary aggression and infanticide in chimpanzees. Whether selection first favored a propensity for proactive aggression in within-group or between-group contexts is unknown.
Humans’ low propensity for reactive aggression requires entirely different kinds of explanation. Reduced reactive aggressiveness is closely tied to high tolerance and extensive cooperation. Explanations for reduced aggressiveness are therefore allied to ideas for the evolution of within-group tolerance, such as individual selection for cooperative breeding, group selection for parochial altruism, and cultural group selection for prosocial norms. Reduction in (reactive) aggression has also been proposed to decline in response to socioecological influences such as high population density, sedentariness, and social preferences for cooperators. However, all these proposals suffer from their inability to explain how human societies would prevent a determined individual from winning conflicts by the use of force. So long as a bully could predictably win conflicts his aggressive behavior would be favored by selection.
In nomadic hunter-gatherers the closest equivalent to high male rank in nonhuman primates is high respect coming from prestige, alliance formation, and negotiation ability. The problem for individual hunter-gatherers who attempt to use fighting prowess to achieve their goals is that they are vulnerable to the actions of male coalitions who can jointly intimidate, expel, or kill the offending individual. The occurrence of coordinated aggression against domineering males, including socially approved execution, is apparently responsible for relationships among married men being egalitarian.
The bimodal view of aggression readily solves the problem. Among hunter-gatherers and universally, aggression exhibited by the executioners is proactive: It is carefully planned so as to minimize the risk of a victim fighting back. According to Boehm the victims of capital punishment were frequently men with a history of aggression. When the victims had high propensities for reactive aggression, the long-term effect would be a reduction in reactive aggression. When the victims killed because of their proactive aggression, there would have been no long-term effect since executioners and victims were displaying similar tendencies.
Recognition that there are two main types of aggression provides an answer to the old question of whether humans are aggressive by nature. Humans have a high propensity for proactive aggression and a low propensity for reactive aggression. Appreciation of this point has both theoretical and practical implications. With regard to theory, the combination appears to be unusual among primates, so it should not surprise us to find that the suggested evolutionary dynamics depend on unique aspects of human ancestral adaptations. The imbalance-of-power hypothesis and the execution hypothesis discussed here will benefit from being tested against other ideas. With regard to practical applications, Weinshenker and Siegel noted that “the vast majority of studies that have been conducted in humans have concerned forms of aggressive behavior most closely linked with affective defense.” More attention to proactive aggression is overdue.
That is enough for today. I hope you enjoyed it. While studying the proactive and reactive aggression I thought back at the times I may have exhibited both. The reactive aggression incidents are much clearer to remember in my life.
179th Posting, March 14, 2024.