Why do people go to such lengths to avoid admitting ideas?

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Mootoo
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22 Aug 2016, 7:42 pm

I find it baffling how someone would absolutely try to avoid a label, and yet accomplish everything that that label describes... I mean, I know labels aren't perfect, but the least they could do is admit to something obvious... this doesn't include the more openly extremists though, it seems (with e.g. someone on Twitter calling themselves white nationalist with a picture of Hitler in the background... my background is usually grass)...



Spiderpig
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22 Aug 2016, 8:27 pm

Hah! Never hold your breath waiting for anyone to acknowledge anything, obvious or not. The human brain, or at least the neurotypical one, has spent most of its evolution improving its resources to twist or suppress inconvenient facts and logical conclusions. If you can’t do it as easily as most people, you’ll be mercilessly beaten every time you have to argue with someone, generally with the result of permanently losing part of your effective rights or personal freedom in the other party’s favor. Just because you feel unable to ignore the Sun lighting up the entire half of the Earth where you stand doesn’t mean others can’t conceal it with a finger and deny its existence unfazed.


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Mootoo
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01 Sep 2016, 11:51 am

Talking about the opposite, what could anyone's initial impression of the following on a Twitter profile possibly be:

"#authoritarian #neofascist #nativist #protoFascist #UltraNationalist #WhiteWelfareJunkie #Populist #AltRight #darkConspiracyTheorist"

Some are more than honest, of course.



C2V
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04 Sep 2016, 12:23 am

Quote:
Talking about the opposite, what could anyone's initial impression of the following on a Twitter profile possibly be: "#authoritarian #neofascist #nativist #protoFascist #UltraNationalist #WhiteWelfareJunkie #Populist #AltRight #darkConspiracyTheorist"

Never know, there's that funny example of someone's Internet search history - you might have heard a new word and wonder what it means so looked it up, and it turns out to be some kind of 16th century torture technique, then maybe you had a stomach ache from eating sweets so decided to look up how much you should be eating and got diverted to a Feedee site. You'll come off looking like a homicidal psychopathic pervert and yet, it's all been totally innocent. :wink:
But yeah, self-identifying that way on twitter may be harder to explain, unless they were just looking up the concepts for interest sake and tagging what they found for further reference.
What was the context that inspired your original post?


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Chronos
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04 Sep 2016, 3:15 am

Mootoo wrote:
I find it baffling how someone would absolutely try to avoid a label, and yet accomplish everything that that label describes... I mean, I know labels aren't perfect, but the least they could do is admit to something obvious... this doesn't include the more openly extremists though, it seems (with e.g. someone on Twitter calling themselves white nationalist with a picture of Hitler in the background... my background is usually grass)...


In some instances, a person may embody certain things which might be consistent with certain labels, but reject the label because the label is associated with a culture or sub-culture which encompasses things to which that person does not ascribe.

For example, "feminist". A person might be a feminist in the sense that they believe women should have the same rights as men, but not consider themselves a feminist, because they associate the term with bra burning, man hating women who march in the streets, and that, they are not.