The Nicola Method - A Way to Reverse the Leftist Brain "Virus?"

[RamynKing]

Had a good read on this site and a subsequent PDF that goes into more detail about putting the strategy into practice.

It's a method for disarming people who are using their Lizard Brain to engage in situations where rationality is called for. They do this because they have some unhealthy insecurity that causes them to get "triggered" in their daily lives. They "convert" the insecurity to anger and then lash at whoever they can.

This person, Joanna Nicola, contends that a way to deal with this problem is this method which is centered around a specially constructed sentence. (read about it below) But basically, it get's them to involuntarily switch to their rational brains where a conversation can begin. Supposedly, this method even teaches them, over time, to cope with their emotions - a skill they were missing for whatever reason. 

I was thinking, what if the type of person that falls for the left is also suffering from this condition? Nicola says that this disorder is becoming increasingly common. And with the internet, it can be quite confounding to wonder why people buy into stuff that can be easily looked up and debunked, if you will.

We know that arguing with a person who is acting out of pure emotion is folly, and yet we so far are sort of forced into this situation with the left. What if we looked at them in this new way and dealt with them accordingly. 

It's late for me, and I'm sure I haven't made my best case. But I hope someone gets curious. I'd love to talk about this more, because I am definitely planning to SOMEHOW apply this method in dealing with the left. I don't know if it's as simple as using the sentence on them. I think it needs to be scaled somehow...

 

Quote

 

You are now going to learn how to reverse the behaviors that people with traits of BPD use to defend themselves against feeling insecure by blaming those around them. You will be given a sentence to use that has been specifically constructed to pass through defenses of a person with traits of BPD without setting off any alarms. You will simply be making a very casual observation that will re-direct them to a certain way of thinking without them realizing it was you who got them there. Here is the sentence you will use.

“When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something wrong.”

Let’s take a look at why this sentence works to regulate emotions of anger which is what the person with traits of BPD uses to ward off feelings of social insecurity.

Natural Emotional Regulation

This sentence works several ways. One of the things it does is it directs a person’s thoughts in a way that encourages the individual to use a part of their brain that helps them think better by inhibiting or lowering their emotions. Most people are aware that when they get into a highly emotional state, their cognitive functions become incapacitated, in other words, they can’t think straight. What they might not know is that when you enter a highly cognitive or intellectual state, your emotions become incapacitated.

The use of the word “something wrong” in this sentence is there for a reason. Let’s say we used “something you didn’t like” in the place of “something wrong.” The sentence would read, “When you said that it seemed like you thought I did something you didn’t like.”

Although doing something wrong and doing something someone doesn’t like may sound similar, questions of right and wrong actually fall into the category of ethics. Ethical questions of right and wrong are philosophical questions that encourage us to use a neurological processing center in our brain that lowers emotions that get in the way of this kind of complex thinking.

Another way this sentence works is it dismantles the defense mechanism that most people with BPD use to protect themselves from shameful feelings due to their insecurity. Defense mechanisms themselves are a form of neurological phenomenon. Very uncomfortable emotions can actually cause us to divide our awareness into two separate parts. In order to try to protect us from uncomfortable feelings, our subconscious mind may tell our conscious mind things that are not true. The divide between these two parts is so real that our conscious mind may be completely unaware that our subconscious mind is feeding it incorrect information.

In order to dismantle this defense mechanism, we need to only show the person’s conscious mind the flaw in their thinking that is causing them to blame us. If you can get their conscious mind to focus directly on the flaw, which is the fact that you didn’t do anything wrong, the subconscious part of their mind will lose all of its power.

This can be quite a challenge. If you tell the person’s conscious mind that you are innocent, their subconscious will simply tell them that you are being defensive and not to believe what you say. The sentence you are going to use gets around that barrier by using a subtle suggestion that makes them want to look at it for themselves.

It is the combination of these two approaches that lets you both regulate their emotions and overcome the insecurity defense with one sentence. When both of these components are working together you will find that the person will be returned to a rational state of mind, and you will be able to once again communicate normally and productively.

 

 

[Jsbrads]

I have heard things like this before.

i doubt they work. 

[ofd]

I'd like to hear success stories I am a bit skeptical about the method.

[EGreg]

This sounds a bit silly. It assumes that leftists are just emotional and not rational, and once sentence will make them think about ethical realism and over time become rational.

There are a lot of reasonable people on the left and the right. This kind of post is a symptom of groupthink and identity politics in the first place, which is not very rational.

[RamynKing]

I was so fired up about it on the day I posted it, but now not so much either. Thanks for the responses, btw!

I will say that maybe one takeaway could be that asking a person to define their morality for you can have interesting effects on the conversation. Kind of like stopping for definitions at the beginning of a debate. If a person is accusing you of supporting something that is "wrong," it might be worthwhile to stop and say "ok, before we continue, you'll have to explain for me your personal moral system, because your definition of wrong may differ from mine."

Odds are they've not nailed down that area, or have a system incompatible with yours. Either way opens up many doors for conversation.

 

On 8/3/2017 at 9:48 PM, EGreg said:

This sounds a bit silly. It assumes that leftists are just emotional and not rational, and once sentence will make them think about ethical realism and over time become rational.

There are a lot of reasonable people on the left and the right. This kind of post is a symptom of groupthink and identity politics in the first place, which is not very rational.

Interesting.

I would define leftism as irrational as it's fulfillment, collectivism, relies on people acting against their own self-interest. I think someone who is mostly rational but left leaning has not fully embraced the ideology.

I define the right as an ideology whose fulfillment must be anarchy. So those on the right who aren't anarchists are irrational to that extent.

I admit, that sounds pretty extreme.

 

 

 

[smarterthanone]

I don't think that sentence will do anything. Personally I like to push leftism to the extreme on them.

Example:

They say: Black lives matters is about black lives mattering. All lives matters is racist because it ignores black lives.

I say: If you really think about it, they are still shackled by their slaves chains to be called black. They aren't black. Just look at their skin, its not actually the color black. That term is actually oppression. They must be referred to by their national identities. ie African, Jamaican, American. (Notice this actually makes sense to call an "African American" an "American"  )

They say: Hmm really?

I say: Yes, You are being racist. They are internalizing their oppression.

They say: But I am not racist! I support BLM.

I say: You are supporting internalized oppression of minorities, that is racist. You are racist.

They say: Omg, I don't mean to be. I am sorry. etc etc.

***This is where they feel the left eating the left. Like when the SJW is called out by the feminists or the transgender black is reeeeeee'd at for saying the "wrong" thing.***

When you push them too far they question their beliefs. They are thinking I am not racist but I did something that someone now thinks I am racist. Breaks their circular thought patterns.

[RamynKing]

I agree. Ive had good results calling them racist sexist etc. Its the ONLY thing they care about.

[plato85]

I've just read the article and I'm feeling very aroused. Thanks for posting it! The world makes slightly more sense.

It turns out lacking much social insecurity makes me lightly autistic. It gives me special reasoning skills and makes me quite unpopular.

Whether this line works, I'll certainly be taking the theory into account in my arguments: When I make an argument against an idea that someone holds, the average person may see it as me just disapproving of them. Cowards.

I'll keep you posted.

[plato85]

I've been thinking about this for a few days. There might be another approach.

The theory behind the Nicola method is that people who desperately need to feel included bow to peer pressure. I know this bi-polar personality. They lack self esteem and that's why they need to fit in with other people. Because they need to fit in with other people they don't have good defense mechanisms, they don't defend themselves and they easily conform because they want to fit in. Their low self-esteem and lack of defense mechanisms leads them to be incredibly passive-aggressive out of some kind of compensation. But they don't realise they are arseholes. They think of themselves as the 'nice guy' and they'll rationalise it and believe it. They couldn't imagine any reason why anyone would not see them as the nice guy? they don't rock the boat!

They don't just think of themselves as the 'nice guy' they identify as a nice guy. This is why they support selfless causes like feminism if they're a man, BLM if they're white, refugees if they're a citizen. They make a practice of virtue signalling because they feel the need to prove that they're the nice guy. Virtue signalling is akin to psychological states like a mid-life crisis where someone starts trying to act young as if it will convince everyone else, or middle-class signalling where people show off prestige to prove their identity. There is a certain desperation and hollowness to it, almost a cry for help.

So if you challenge an idea based on reason, this is not just a challenge of an idea, it's a personal attack on their identity as a nice guy. That's why they take arguments personally and get cranky and passive aggressive.

My theory is, an alternative to the Nicola line "Have I said something wrong?." When someone gets passive aggressive, we ask "Why are you being an arsehole?" This will throw them, because they have deceived themselves into believing they really are the nicest guy around and everyone else are arseholes, and we directly challenge that identity. The identity is the underlying problem, all other moral issues are secondary, and political issues are tertiary.

Asking "why are you being an arsehole?" will change the argument and their style of arguing. Up till now they've been on the offensive throwing passive aggression at you, but as soon as you suggest that they're an arsehole, their deep need to feel accepted will set them on the defensive, and they will try to convince you that they're not an arsehole, which means they'll engage in the discussion more honestly and accurately.

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

I think this is a really interesting idea and I will try it before passing any judgment on it.

[plato85]

Perhaps another way of putting identity is the self. Perhaps people with no real sense of their self assume these group identities. I don't know. I've always assumed morals are based on truth but, if for some people morals are based on identity then no wonder we've been wasting our time arguing about truth and reason. Maybe the only way to bring someone to reason, is to improve their sense of self so that they give up their assumed group identity?

I'm thinking aloud here. Does anyone know anything about this?

[ofd]

There are a bunch of experiments where that phenomenon was studied. Milgram, Zimbardo and many more studied the actions as influenced by groups. This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments shows who processing of data can be influenced by peer pressure. Adapting to the group beliefs was beneficial for your and the group's survival and seems to be hard coded to the genome of social animals.

[plato85]

Adopting the views of the group often leads to a suicide cult (Hitler, Starlin, Mao).

How do we break people's group conformity?

[plato85]

I'm reading Explaining Post Modernism - Stephen Hicks. He puts forward a strong argument that Post Modernists don't actually believe most of the things they say, rather they see the word as 'us vs them', and they're only interested in winning. Political correctness and deconstruction are just rhetorical tools to win political ends.

This supports my argument that their identity underlies all the bullshit, and it's their identity that we need to attack somehow, not their lies.