Gaiman/Trump and the New Thought Behind the Abuse

Comments · 781

• LI

  @LiterateMachine · 1 year ago · pinned

  Hi everyone, I know, I know, I mispronounced the word "tithing" in this video, I noted it in the corrections, I apologize it's a word I've read more than heard spoken because I didn't grow up in religious Christianity. I also mispronounced "Gaiman" which is less forgivable, but I think that's just the pronunciation becoming lazy in my head. (It's "gay-man" not "gammon".) Mispronouncing things seems to be one of the features of my channel and feel free to make a drinking game out of it.

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• KT

  @ktTotebag8164 · 1 year ago

  Cruel optimism. Vicious happiness. You will enjoy our empire or you're not a person.

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• NU

  @numb3r5ev3n · 1 year ago (edited)

  Activist Gwen Snyder put it very succinctly: Trump and a lot of right wingers don't think of it as lying or telling untruths or being wrong, they think of it as literally speaking their preferred reality into existence. Because they said it, it magically becomes true.

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• LU

  @lucyalvey · 1 month ago

  The Secret was a very important book for me in my youth because it is the book that taught me that books can lie and be wrong and that words are not inherently more trustworthy just for being on paper

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• PA

  @pastacarlin · 4 weeks ago

  Trying to open the straight of hormuz with the power of positive thinking.

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• SO

  @SOC-mom · 1 year ago

  the worst part of the opening interview is "we'll agree to disagree" and "it's contested" and no it's not, it's allowing equivocation of the facts and does nothing to actually challenge the narrative

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• IN

  @inappropriatejohnson · 1 year ago (edited)

  Sad Fact:<br>Mary Baker Eddy is STILL doing damage today, as in the recent death of actor Val Kilmer, who was raised in the Christian Science way. Kilmer avoided actual medical treatment for the throat cancer that killed him, and his prayers were, ummmm, ineffective. <br>Edit: He was a smoker, so I guess tobacco is OK but life saving pharmaceuticals and surgeries are not. How crazy is that?

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• CM

  @CmdreBRANNEW · 3 months ago

  Dream&apos;s quote about people creating traps for themselves, then purposely walking through them while feinting amazement, fits perfectly with Neil&apos;s latest blog post, in which he once again denies all of the allegations, calling it a smear campaign and claiming that all those sexual encounters were consensual. If we try hard enough we can convince ourselves of anything

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• AL

  @Alukard-Abysswalker · 1 year ago

  So excellently weaved. I knew of Gaiman&apos;s history with Scientology but not of Trump&apos;s with New Thought. You really convey information so well!

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• DO

  @donatodiniccolodibettobardi842 · 1 month ago (edited)

  Post-truth politician doesn&apos;t try to make you to believe their lie. They want you to stop caring the importance of truth and only focus on what you&apos;re told to focus on (whether true or not), and &quot;agreeing&quot; with what you&apos;re told to agree with. <br><br>Because the &quot;narrative&quot; may change at moment&apos;s notice and deference is more important than believing a falsety. Apathy, helplessness and submission to them is more useful than belief (although false beliefs and disposition towards magical thinking may still be useful, see with people projecting their own unsubstiated beliefs and expectations on Trump)

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• NO

  @nopeitsnotmewhywouldyouaskthat · 1 year ago

  You&apos;ve done an excellent job pulling together a throughline across history here. Maintaining focus on the how the ideologies associated with Positive Thinking coddle the privileged while policing everyone else, across the span of modern western thought, while suggesting that these KINDS of ideologies and motives have been present in some form for the long span of human history - that would be an achievement. Tying it all together with examples of prominent Western figures buoyed and arguably indoctrinated into this way of thinking - and how we can see its consequences in their professional works and the ruin they leave in their wake... Incredible. This was great!

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• CA

  @calexico66 · 1 year ago

  The placebo effect seems to be in most cases related to the &quot;do something&quot; factor, it&apos;s a psychological conditioning it doesn&apos;t solve anything directly but allows the subject to ease its worry and stop its counterproductive reactions. A patient might actually be harming himself by feeling stressed and anxious, not getting enough food and as a result the body in a vicious cycle.<br>It&apos;s very similar to financial markets when they get into a panic, the behavior of panic selling is counterproductive. But then the authorities go and &quot;do something&quot; and then the panic selling stops even if nothing substantial has changed.<br>The fact is, placebo can do both harm and good, and sometimes both at the same time.

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