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"One no longer needs to be a Bill Clinton or Kamala Harris to engender rabid fandoms or anti-fandoms. You no longer have to be a Kennedy to find yourself at the center of the deranged conspiracism of total strangers." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-parasoci...

liberalcurrents.comThe Parasocial Style in American PoliticsOur screens are two-way but we can easily forget that the people on the other end exist as more than characters for our enjoyment.

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Or you could watch Perfect Blue. BUT, since we insist on doing this whole society thing, free speech means you get to say what you want, the public equally gets to respond, whether or not you like it. Is it perfect? God no. But it beats shrieking like Peterson or Shapiro about cancel culture.

Lack of empathy is the problem. But brains LOVE practicing empathy. The only reason they resist is because we TEACH kids that their survival requires hardening their hearts against connection and consuming what they're told to. We feed corpses to children and lie to them about it, making it... 1/3

a treat, a bonding ritual, instead of a death that didn't actually need to happen. Like food, money is MADE of bodies. Parasociality is a symptom of brains desperate for permission to connect, who were taught to devour instead. Sociopathy is expedient. Greed is adaptive. Caring is annoying... 2/3

If we instead taught everyone the MOST important pro-social mental health skills -- the value of both empathy and consent -- the symptoms would subside. Taste would change. We'd connect with joy, not terror. We're taught to be predators so we won't be prey. But we COULD be human. #BetterDems

the singular elite we must assume that deranged conspiracies are the only possible reason for criticism and disagreement because it is so certain that it is morally and ideologically pure

i never forget my opps and interlocutors are flesh and blood people. that's what makes them dangerous: new fleshies are dropping every week.

We used to be a respectable country where everyone understood that politicians are the enemy of the people and should never be trusted. That hasn't changed. Politicians are still the enemy of the people and should never be trusted. A lot of people are just really dumb jerkoff losers now.

Parasocial is how it works. It has always been that way since the dawn of media and choosing "who you like" based upon image or reputation. Politicians?? Journalists??? Reputation is all. I'm not reading a whiner memo.