It's entirely vibes-based. You could show a liberal every piece of evidence as to why capitalism or the United States is evil, and why even the "good" things aren't even that good, and they'd dismiss each point as you went as "Well, sure, but that individual data point doesn't spoil the project as a whole, it still possesses many good qualities," until they've dismissed the entire graph of points. Because nobody is actually thinking in terms of "I am a disconnected impartial observer. I have a long list as to why capitalism is good and why it's bad, I have a long list as to why communism is good and why it's bad, and so on for every ideology or sect of note, and I simply follow the one with the largest number of good points, or smallest number of bad points." They might think that they think like that, but they don't - it's largely just vibes and horror/feelgood stories in the media that they've internalized.
Nor am I saying that one should think like that, that just sounds fucking exhausting and also impossible because until aliens make themselves known, there are no beings outside of the class dichotomy.
Talk of “manufacturing” and “inventing” suggests an imposition over and against the individual’s will. I believe that, on the contrary, the process of Western propaganda is better understood in terms of “licensing”: the issuing of moral license for the bourgeois proletariat to profitably go along with bourgeois designs without the feeling of shame overwhelming. In this alternative account people aren’t “brainwashed” insofar as they don’t actually believe the lies, not in the way that we generally understand belief. It’s more correct to say that they go along with them, whether enthusiastically or apprehensively, because it’s actually their optimal survival strategy.
Given that most non-Marxist economics is just ahistorical fiction and explicitly designed to best serve the rich, economics as a field is also part of this "licensing", despite being used as a justification by many liberals as to why capitalism is good and communism is bad.
It's entirely vibes-based. You could show a liberal every piece of evidence as to why capitalism or the United States is evil, and why even the "good" things aren't even that good, and they'd dismiss each point as you went as "Well, sure, but that individual data point doesn't spoil the project as a whole, it still possesses many good qualities," until they've dismissed the entire graph of points. Because nobody is actually thinking in terms of "I am a disconnected impartial observer. I have a long list as to why capitalism is good and why it's bad, I have a long list as to why communism is good and why it's bad, and so on for every ideology or sect of note, and I simply follow the one with the largest number of good points, or smallest number of bad points." They might think that they think like that, but they don't - it's largely just vibes and horror/feelgood stories in the media that they've internalized.
Nor am I saying that one should think like that, that just sounds fucking exhausting and also impossible because until aliens make themselves known, there are no beings outside of the class dichotomy.
Given that most non-Marxist economics is just ahistorical fiction and explicitly designed to best serve the rich, economics as a field is also part of this "licensing", despite being used as a justification by many liberals as to why capitalism is good and communism is bad.