week 5 dq response Jessica Holmes

I noticed that as a kid moving from Tiffin to Colorado. The rolls in each culture were very different. The people associated with Carson acted very collectively, whereas the citizens of manitou were as individualistic as it comes, directly next to Old Colorado City which at least 4 decades ago was equal parts some were so collectivism based they could not function outside of their “pack”, while others were so individualist they were either violently independent and or the alders of the pack.

It was a very strange experience to go from a culture were the civil war had not actually stopped and huge pockets of people in the area were still on the extreme side of pro Jacksonian. While both colleges Tiffin U and of course Heidelberg were individualistic based.

Fast forward by about 10 years and I witnessed the armed services switch from being officers up the line trained emphasis on, to officers who had advanced degrees emphasis on. I chatted with a couple e officers at the Academy who were on line for being full birds in their middle to late 20s, already in line for brigadier status at the same time. While careers of 15-30 years were being informed “your services will no longer be needed”.

I ran into one of those “no longer needed”, he more than 3 decades later was still pissed that he was out processed from the navy. Despite being completely incompetent. He really enjoyed going up to junior officers with a PhD or 3 and countermanding their orders. “convince me, you know what you are talking about”. He was and still is entirely convinced he is the best and smartest person in the room. Despite all evidence to the contrary. That one person operates based on his roll of being the greatest and is incredibly angry with everyone around him when his cognitive dissonance is pointed out.

It is a very odd thing to study people who take on rolls which both collectivism and individualistic do not apply to them. They develop a mental concept of what or who they are and once the mental concrete sets “that is the end of the conversation”. As a very bad man stated enumerable times “it is easier to convince someone of a lie (even if the lie is self-created), than to convince them they have been lied to”. Once the lie is accepted as fact, it takes a Herculaneum effort to dislodge that lie.

Example there is in the news a lot a person who is an almost perfect example of a Jacksonian Politician. Completely convinced x is true, despite not a single molecule of evidnece to back it up. When questioned the rage is quick and usually at least verbally violent. Entirely disproportionate to the actual situation. Screaming and very inappropriate insults occur more often than not from this person. It is a very odd thing to watch the anger which comes from the “How dare you not believe what I am saying to you. My word is the truth, any questioning of my word is an insult to my entire family line”. Another person of the same ilk “if you would just listen for 2 minutes, you will see you are wrong I am correct”. This came after more than 30 minutes of talking and stating information which had literally no scientific basis in reality. The rolls people play are very interesting.