Observation: Performative Sociopathy

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Abstract

problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized, and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. In thought reform, for instance, the phrase “bourgeois mentality” is used to encompass and critically dismiss ordinary troublesome concerns like the quest for individual expression, the exploration of alternative ideas, and the search for perspective and balance in political judgments. <i>~ Robert Jay Lifton</i></p></blockquote><p id="f440">I have a feeling I will be writing about these a lot.</p><p id="1b97">With your performative sociopathy, I see straight through you.</p><p id="032f">If you don’t hate Black or neglect people in your deployment of thought-terminating clichés aimed only to disengage and disrupt civil rights progress, you most certainly hate Black people speaking up. And that’s where your racism is.</p><p id="57a0">These discussions on race and policing in America will be <i>uncomfortable</i>. Get used to that part.</p><figure id="397d"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*515XtRTT6JwCnzMWY16l5g.jpeg"><figcaption>Children carrying the torch during the Martin Luther King Birthday March, Phoenix Arizona. | 21 Jan 2019 | Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Johnny+Silvercloud?rid=195075270">Johnny Silvercloud</a></figcaption></figure><p id="49fc" type="7">Your fake, performative sociopathy is nothing more than a thought-termination cliché.</p><figure id="ddef"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*QOscLsRdkXM4D3NVZrQVUA.jpeg"><figcaption>“I am a Man!” Honoring MLK would mean ending racism. Ending racism requires white people to listen to intellectually honest Black people who are brave enough to actually painstakingly explain what racism actually is, and how it harms Black people and other non-white people. Ending racism requires ending thought-termination cliches that white people practice when it comes to the subject of racism and white privilege. Martin Luther King himself seems to be another thought-termination cliche when it comes to whiteness’ selective use of phrases from his speeches. Martin Luther King Birthday March, Phoenix Arizona. | 21 Jan 2019 | Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Johnny+Silvercloud?r

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id=195075270">Johnny Silvercloud</a></figcaption></figure><p id="6535" type="7">You clearly are not a sociopath; you only selectively choose to perform as one only when particular topics show up, like systemic racism or sexism.</p><figure id="bb41"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*kapPhdSuAX8vUbR_-rjyqQ.jpeg"><figcaption>“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” A Korean woman standing in solidarity with Afro-Americans concerning Black Lives Matter protests. If people foreign to the United States can objectively grasp empathy and civil rights, what is stopping those who are not foreign to the U.S., like the majority of white people? A careful examination of thought-termination cliches, with the wit to move around or past them, will help in this struggle. Most of this modern civil rights fight is intellectual, not physical. Critical thinking and analysis is a force multiplier. | 13Jun 2020 | Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Johnny+Silvercloud?rid=195075270">Johnny Silvercloud</a></figcaption></figure><div id="42dc" class="link-block"> <a href="https://johnnysilvercloud.medium.com/membership"> <div> <div> <h2>Join Medium with my referral link - Johnny Silvercloud</h2> <div><h3>As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…</h3></div> <div><p>johnnysilvercloud.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*tR-QYE3zmEQvgpxI)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="143c">✪ I wreck white supremacists in argument. <a href="https://johnnysilvercloud.medium.com/subscribe"><b>Subscribe.</b></a> ✪ Fuck fascism, I got community activism photography. <a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Johnny+Silvercloud?rid=195075270"><b>Look.</b></a> ✪ <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnnySilverclo"><b>This</b></a>, is my Twitter. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/johnnysilvercloud/"><b>This</b></a>, is my Instagram. ✪ <a href="https://medium.com/afrosapiophile"><b>AfroSapiophile:</b></a> A publication for intelligent Black thought.</p></article></body>

Your Performative Sociopathy is Fake

This “well, I hate everyone” argument that a lot of white people have is bullshit. I see this a lot. “Well, I hate everyone!”

“I don’t hate Black people, I hate everyone!”

No, you don’t. You are grotesquely intellectually dishonest. You, my friend, are a liar.

You haven’t killed yourself or gone on a killing spree yet. You haven’t killed your parents. You haven’t shot up a school. Similar to how “all lives matter” provides masking for apathetic neglect of Black life, the rhetorical function of your “all lives hated” argument only masks who you really hate: Black people. You, much like the “all lives matter” type, are a liar. It’s a cop-out.

You clearly are not a sociopath; you only selectively choose to perform as one only when particular topics show up, like systemic racism or sexism.

Your fake, performative sociopathy is nothing more than a thought-termination cliché.

A thought-termination cliché is a phrase or saying that is supposed to relieve you of the stress of your cognitive dissonance by avoiding all thought or further consideration of a matter. This concept was first described in 1963 by a researcher named Robert Jay Lifton, who studied American service members who had exhibited drastic ideological change after being held as prisoners of war by the Chinese Government:

The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized, and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. In thought reform, for instance, the phrase “bourgeois mentality” is used to encompass and critically dismiss ordinary troublesome concerns like the quest for individual expression, the exploration of alternative ideas, and the search for perspective and balance in political judgments. ~ Robert Jay Lifton

I have a feeling I will be writing about these a lot.

With your performative sociopathy, I see straight through you.

If you don’t hate Black or neglect people in your deployment of thought-terminating clichés aimed only to disengage and disrupt civil rights progress, you most certainly hate Black people speaking up. And that’s where your racism is.

These discussions on race and policing in America will be uncomfortable. Get used to that part.

Children carrying the torch during the Martin Luther King Birthday March, Phoenix Arizona. | 21 Jan 2019 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

Your fake, performative sociopathy is nothing more than a thought-termination cliché.

“I am a Man!” Honoring MLK would mean ending racism. Ending racism requires white people to listen to intellectually honest Black people who are brave enough to actually painstakingly explain what racism actually is, and how it harms Black people and other non-white people. Ending racism requires ending thought-termination cliches that white people practice when it comes to the subject of racism and white privilege. Martin Luther King himself seems to be another thought-termination cliche when it comes to whiteness’ selective use of phrases from his speeches. Martin Luther King Birthday March, Phoenix Arizona. | 21 Jan 2019 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

You clearly are not a sociopath; you only selectively choose to perform as one only when particular topics show up, like systemic racism or sexism.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” A Korean woman standing in solidarity with Afro-Americans concerning Black Lives Matter protests. If people foreign to the United States can objectively grasp empathy and civil rights, what is stopping those who are not foreign to the U.S., like the majority of white people? A careful examination of thought-termination cliches, with the wit to move around or past them, will help in this struggle. Most of this modern civil rights fight is intellectual, not physical. Critical thinking and analysis is a force multiplier. | 13Jun 2020 | Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

✪ I wreck white supremacists in argument. Subscribe. ✪ Fuck fascism, I got community activism photography. Look. ✪ This, is my Twitter. This, is my Instagram. ✪ AfroSapiophile: A publication for intelligent Black thought.

Observation: Performative Sociopathy

Dismantling thought-terminating clichés white people say all the time.

Your Performative Sociopathy is Fake

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