projection leads to arguing with yourself

the road to circular self engagement (and back again)

i see, i seeee, you chasing your own tail

it’s prophesy week here at bad cattitude where one can call out “cringe as a brand” then have it vividly displayed with same day service.

keeping the streak alive, one can mention “shadow projection” and instantly, like some sort of captive djinn, it is summoned, unable to resist the call of its true name.

for those unfamiliar, shadow projection is a jungian idea that gatopal™ carson babich (a professor at the university of windsor) explores in interesting depth HERE.

the general gist is this and the malign interface of such ideas with narcissism is as obvious as it is unpleasant.

this is a really big idea: you have unconscious thoughts and desires that you fail to acknowledge. instead, you project them onto others as a defense mechanism for yourself.

the discarded stone becomes the cornerstone of your worldview.

it’s why liars think everyone else lies and racists like to accuse others of racism.

this was a comment on yesterday’s piece. given the name “karen” i initially suspected it was a parody account. a quick perusal of her stack led me to realize, nope, this is desperately sincere.

here is karen in her own words:

now obviously, a human using “the R word” is the height if insensitive cultural appropriation. (cats can use it karen, you can’t.)

but the more closely i read this, the more astonishing it became.

in one short paragraph our self-described lightbulb changing feminist has:

• ascribed to me two positions i do not hold

• accused me of using racist epithets that i have not uttered

• accused me of hating gay people (i used to live in SF. i have a zillion gay friends)

• claimed i have assaulted women (why? for criticizing a female politician? so we can do this with men but not women? this does not sound very feminist or very fair)

• and then called me names (and used the R word to describe a cat to boot!)

• she also seems to presume that i somehow like or lionize trump or his party (which i do not)

that's a pretty astonishing set of delusions and projections. there is seemingly not a single correct assertion in the whole of her post.

but i do not think she is speaking with or even to me. i think she (like many others of this ilk) is simply speaking to herself.

it appears to me that this is an entirely generic set of baseless claims rooted in viewing the whole of the world in ultra-low resolution where it's just a couple of big squares and taking one’s own intolerance and hatreds and projecting them outward.

it’s really quite a surreal thing to run into in such pure form, especially now. it’s a move so past its prime it almost seemed “retro.”

but it was obviously sincere, so this led me to ask:

“have you ever even stopped to take the time to learn what anyone not in your echo chamber actually thinks or do you simply assume that you know and make up their beliefs for them?

because that, quite literally, is just you enraging yourself by engaging in solo arguments with your own fantasies.

that's not actually sane behavior and it's certainly neither dialogue nor discourse.

just what is your aim with all this save to hector and bully while projecting this desire onto others?

surely it cannot be to change minds or to learn anything. that would require engagement.

are you virtue signaling for some imagined peanut gallery? jousting at hallucinatory windmills?

honestly curious, what do you get out of this?”

as of this time, i have received no response, but i’m certainly open to getting one and would be happy to pin the discussion at the top of this post’s comments.

what i find so fascinating here is the complete lack of reality that one can achieve with this sort of projection.

“i disagree with you so you must hold all the views i dislike and support whatever cartoon pastiche of their holders that i have selected for you to inhabit.”

it’s an entirely hallucinatory worldview. (and not even an internally consistent one)

gatopal™ JD has some thoughts on the matter.

i think that there is truth there, though i would certainly not limit such foibles to the left. many on the right are just as bad. this is not a symptom of right/left axis misplacement, it’s a symptom of dogmatism and echo chamber habitation to the point of developing an entirely closed and recursive worldview where you learn nothing about those you disagree with from the people themselves but rather only by hearing these “bad people” described by your fellow denizens of dogmatic singularity.

those who get their “information” this way have no idea what anyone else thinks or why. they become entirely facile and self-referential, inventing and ascribing the views and character of those they seek to malign and projecting it upon them so that they may joust at windmills of their own contrivance.

it’s a made up debate with made up people about made up ideas.

this is why it’s so repetitive and dull and limited to only a few talking points.

most people are not very good storytellers.

perhaps worse, such a practice allows one to adopt all sorts of incredibly facile and un-nuanced takes and jumps of logic.

“i think gay or transgender people people grooming children sexually is wrong” becomes “you hate gay people.”

quite the leap of fancy that one. (to say nothing of sending logic begging)

so, if i oppose grooming children of the opposite gender, am i anti-heterosexual?

because to me, it seems to be the same.

saying “a gay person did a bad thing and that is a bad thing” is not anti-gay. it’s anti-bad thing.

what IS anti-gay is this assumption that we must defend gay people when they do bad things because it’s somehow “not their fault.” this is actual prejudice. it assumes that people of whatever group lack self-control, knowledge, or ethics. funny how that gets projected onto others, huh?

“black people need affirmative action or they cannot win places at university or in careers.” see, to me, THAT sounds racist. why not? why can’t they hack it on their own?

you know who mostly agrees with me? black people. they don’t need the charity or patronage of becky from vassar. and describing a black person negatively because they did something you disagree with is not racist, but failing to do so because they happened to be black would be. so, for that matter, is assuming i’d only criticize a certain individual because of race rather than action or character. i described trump the other day as “the former cheeto in chief.” am i anti orange people? anti-snack food?

similarly, you know who agrees that gay people should not groom children? most gay people. just like most straight people think straight people should not sexually groom children. no adult should, that’s kind of the point, no? seriously, what does sexual orientation even have to do with it? pro tip: it doesn’t.

if you want to see the real “divide by zero error” for this gang, bring up pedophile priests. they cannot condemn them enough because hating religion trumps supporting gay. but same act by an atheist dressed up as a drag nun? all good. nothing to see here. welcome to story hour. the whole thing is a bit of mess.

this sort of rampant over-extrapolation and assumption is precisely what debate, dialogue, and knowledge is supposed to discern. the fallacies get revealed and overturned. but if you live in your own little bubble of perception where, quite literally, you and a few mirror images of you are the only ones speaking, well, you cannot do this, can you?

you’ll never learn anything, never meet anyone. you’ll just drift further and further off into self-deluding la-la land where you are always the hero and the villains are always cartoons. there will be no nuance, no growth, and no civilization. you’re well and truly lost.

and like any dependency or addiction, it just gets worse and worse the longer you chase the dragon. even cursory contact with reality becomes more and more intolerable.

but reality is that which will not go away even if you do not believe in it. and it keeps sneaking up on you and waylaying you, even in precincts you thought were safe.

this is simply hilarious.

a colbert studio audience is at least a 3 sigma liberal lean. but watch what happens when he tries to slip the comment of “i know you guys are objective over there (at CNN) that you just report the news as it is” into the dialogue.

the whole audience erupts into laughter.

they were good with all the cringe around “trump cannot figure out how to attack harris ‘cuz age, race, gender” but try to tell them CNN reporting is not full of scatological spatter and nope, bridge too far. peals of mirthiness.

both seem surprised:

kaitlan collins: “was that supposed to be a laugh line?”

colbert: “it wasn’t supposed to be”

it’s a fast pivot from 2 consummate pros, but i suspect both were startled and i’ll bet joke writers took note. the times, they are a changin’ and the frame is changing with them.

it’s going to lead to a lot of very shrill and irrational behavior as echo chambers collapse and the magic words of “racist, sexist, homophobic” cease to suppress debate because they are so overused and obviously false as to have lost all meaning.

it’s all going to get projected out upon anyone but the problem people themselves, but that cannot go on for long.

this is exactly what i was predicting early last year, and honestly, this all seems to be playing out.

it’s coming full circle in intense projection that leads to self-discrediting behavior which leads to more criticism which leads to more and more intense projection.

it’s rotten to ride out, but this is the real beginning of the end of the end.

the cringe collective do not seek safety or empathy, they seek power.

it is not power you want to cede. not one inch. not one syllable.

and so i leave you with 2 thoughts from that piece:

and finally: