Benefits of being an ex-leftist

[Danske]

Does anyone else feel like 'half a leftist'? i.e. even though you are immersing yourself in reason, you still have hairtrigger emotional reactions?

 

I've always been a dissociated/fighter type person. I can dissociate for a long time, then lash out.

 

Even though reason has been coursing through my veins for a couple of years now, I still find myself managing my stimuli so as not to overload my degraded rational response. 

 

For example, there are many people whose work I wish to peruse, yet because something about them intimidates or otherwise discomfits me, I avoid it.

 

I was reading somewhere that this is the classic leftist mind. They experience so much cognitive dissonance (beginning in childhood) that the only way out is to continually dissociate from reality. In this process however they eject not only from the uncomfortable truth they are avoiding, but from other realities they need to work with in order to have a happy life. This is why so many become 'hands off' kind of people, as so much of reality has the ability to trigger them.

 

At 30, I feel this has become a rather ingrained habit. I wonder if anyone can relate, and if anyone has any tips on how to make the best out of it? I feel like there is some benefit (the quick thinking which grows out of the 'quick to take offence' habit) but also downsides (dissociation).

[dsayers]

By left, do you mean left brain?

 

Also, when you talk about rational thought, are you also talking about self-knowledge? You need self-knowledge in order to understand your emotional experiences and/or control your behavior. Just remember that it also takes practice, and that virtuous people make mistakes also. Sometimes big ones. But that doesn't mean that's who they are. Especially after SO MUCH empirical evidence to the contrary. Sometimes one's inner abusers can even trick them into focusing on the mistakes of others to the point of overlooking that evidence. Some people make ginormous mistakes in their lives by focusing too much on the abuser-fueled mistake rather than the actual person.

 

Then again some people, when after a life of abuse, they get close to happiness, will panic and accidentally re-create that unhappiness. It's really unfortunate watching empathetic people stick to a bad decision when they think it's a good one for these reasons :cry:

[Mister Mister]

I was raised in a leftist world, and looking back on it, it was very similar to a religious upbringing, with teachers instead of priests.  I'm not sure exactly what you mean about dissociative/fighter personality, though I would guess this has to do with your upbringing, for which I am sorry.

When you say certain authors intimidate or discomfort you, can you give an example?  I feel that way about Ann Coulter, though I'm currently making my way through Adios America.

 

What do you mean about "hands off" kind of people?

I've found that being raised in that world helps me to understand the mentality of this part of America, how it is transmitted, what are it's good points, and why it is so destructive.  I think I am also more hostile to the Left than to the Right.  In my opinion, the Right understands to a greater extent what the State is, but are overzealous in using it to punish who they see as the bad people, whether it be drug users or immigrants or countries overseas.  The Left on the other hand, seem to have absolutely NO conception of what the state is, political philosophy in general, or the Western tradition of philosophy, reason, skepticism to authority, freedom of association, and so on.  They are SO sure that they are on the right track, and that anyone who disagrees wants to go backwards, and that if everyone would just OBEY, they could make the world perfectly as they see it ought to be. 

I think the reason I have so much contempt for the Left, is partly unresolved anger towards my parents and my schooling, for wasting so much of my time, telling me lies, presuming to know what was best for me, and so on, but also that they act as if they are supreme intellectuals and compassionate, when in reality they are ignorant manipulators and pathological altruists.

[violet]

I was largely raised in the leftist paradigm too. There are a lot of ingrained beliefs from a time when rational thought was not possible. Children just have to believe what they're told. They're highly emotional and not very rational yet. So I think what you're experiencing is your learned "leftist" scripts.

 

Ayn Rand said that the emotiional mechanism is like a computer that is programmed by values. Therefore, you have emotional reactions based on what your your core values are. These values are either programmed into you as a child or chosen by you as an adult. Emotions are just a shortcut to your value system. It's important to look at the values underlying them because they could be wrong.

[Blake Carrington]

I turned out to be a leftist for a while, as I grew up listening to stories of how careless and free life was under socialism. I was, and still am irritated by all the war rhetoric you hear in Croatia, and how indoctrinated people are with it.

 

I guess anti-American rhetoric also has something to do with it. Most people had (I suppose they still have) a very prejudiced view of Americans as dumb, fat bandits who liked to bomb everyone and attack countries to steal their oil.

 

So I chose communism. Libertarianism was never even an option, as it still doesn't exist here.

 

I was never involved in any politics, I was just a kid at the time, but the indoctrination of it all was staggering. I had my first discussion with a libertarian eight years ago, when I was twelve (you could say I got interested in politics at a younger age than usual), and even though all his arguments made perfect sense to me, I ignored it and kept on going (my rhetoric back then was akin to Peter Joseph's in his debate with Stef), successfully surviving that ideological crisis with my opinions remaining unchanged. The second one came a couple of years later after having read 1984 (it really hit home with me as I was severely paranoid). But I got through that one as well.

 

Throughout my time as a commie, I was a complete misanthrope. When they tell you that leftists want state power to grow because they want to use the state apparatus against people they hate and fear, they are telling the truth.

 

It was the marxist response to the immigrant crisis that made me open to criticism of it, and I finally denounced marxism last year.

 

I'm glad to have discovered FDR, the first time I stumbled upon it was as a video liked by a video game and movie reviewer on youtube whose videos I like watching, and the topic of that one was the media race-baiting regarding the Ferguson riots. I agreed with Stef even though I was still a commie at the time. Last year, through the comments section on a video by that same guy I heard of a place called /pol/ which I visited only to find Stef mentioned there and remembering the video I saw years ago. I proceeded to watch all the videos I could find, and here I am now.

 

Overall, I think my leftist history was the ultimate red pill on just how stupid and irrational leftists are, which makes me immune to their manipulations.

[Toys4]

 

 

 

For example, there are many people whose work I wish to peruse, yet because something about them intimidates or otherwise discomfits me, I avoid it.

 

I was reading somewhere that this is the classic leftist mind. They experience so much cognitive dissonance (beginning in childhood) that the only way out is to continually dissociate from reality. In this process however they eject not only from the uncomfortable truth they are avoiding, but from other realities they need to work with in order to have a happy life. This is why so many become 'hands off' kind of people, as so much of reality has the ability to trigger them.

 

At 30, I feel this has become a rather ingrained habit. I wonder if anyone can relate, and if anyone has any tips on how to make the best out of it? I feel like there is some benefit (the quick thinking which grows out of the 'quick to take offence' habit) but also downsides (dissociation).

 

It seems like you have a good understanding on why you feel the discomfort of certain peoples work (would you be ok listing some of these people?) and distance from the truth. You seem to have the self knowledge and you know the problem. The only solution I can think of is to just hear them out, read the material that might make you uncomfortable and see if it can offer you a new perspective that you feel makes sense...or the material might be as bad as you thought it was but you made yourself better by challenging yourself and facing your internal problem. I really hope that I could help.