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I recently came across this video from the NYT. It is titled: "We're experts in Fascism. We're Leaving the U.S."
Not to boo my outgroup too much here (and that's not the point of this), but holy shit this video is bonkers. The logical jumps these people are making, their inability to understand or recognize that they are explicitly not living in a fascist dictatorship when they work for the largest newspaper in the country publishing content about how the leader of the country is a giant fascist. This video is frightening to me for the following reason:
What does the deprogramming effort for all of this eventually look like? Or does it happen?
These people (not necessarily the ones in the video, but the ones who might watch this type of video earnestly) seem convinced that we are living in a society which is comparable in some way to Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.
I guess I have to stop myself here to check my biases: are we? Just to look at the most obvious thing here, the press, the answer is unequivocally: no, or perhaps even "fuck no, lol".
Or the military? It seems like we have the most powerful military on earth, and are essentially not using it at all.
As far as ICE: ice killed two people in situations which were arguably (though not definitely) self defense, and the response was that the Federal Government largely pulled out of the area (Minnesota) where they were deployed. This is while local residents are doing things like stalking federal law enforcement, setting up various checkpoints, and delaying "rapid response forces" to track their movements.
Would Hitler have tolerated this? Was there an equivalent in Nazi Germany of non-Nazis setting up checkpoints for the Nazis and driving them out of town?
Okay I'm talking to myself here: no we are not even remotely close to anything even remotely like a fascist dictatorship. By almost every definition we are likely the farthest we have ever been from living in a fascist dictatorship.
So deprogramming: has there been any serious discussion about what this will look like? It's been on my mind for a little over a year now. Here was the positive realization I had about it: it's not necessary. The people being dispatched by this sort of propaganda don't hold coherent beliefs. This is not part of a larger system of beliefs that all build on top of one another. These ideas are mostly just sitting on their own. They are a collection, not a system.
So this means that deprogramming isn't so much a process of unwinding everything, it's just a matter of installing a new set of ideas. Deprogramming could happen in a few days, for some people it could probably happen in a single episode of John Oliver or Rachel Maddow.
Realistically this was a happy realization to me. Am I wrong to think this?
I would strongly disagree with the claim that "The people being dispatched by this sort of propaganda don't hold coherent beliefs." Many people (including Scott) have noticed how woke wraps itself up in concepts which make it easy to fall into and hard to reason yourself out of ("intellecutal superweapons"). A classic example is the statement that "We live in a patriarchy."
For a rationally-minded person like me, I naturally ask "How would I go disproving that statement?" A statement that can't possibly be experimentally disproven has no possible truth value.
My observation has been that the existence of the patriarchy is not disprovable. Men suffering under the system? "The patriarchy hurts men, too." Women succeeding more than men, on average? (postsecondary degrees, for example) "It's our turn now." Women controlling most purchasing decisions by value? "They are just being forced to spend money by the patriarchy - women's products are too expensive, and this is extra bad because women don't earn as much." Society prioritizing womens' lives over those of men? "They are being treated as property."
The point is not about patriarchy per se (I find a plutocracy more likely). The point is that you see this broadly in woke discourse. Trans people are told that their liberal family members deadnaming them or misgendering them are being hateful and bigoted, and that they should seek supportive communities. Racial minorities are told that every negative interaction they had with white people was because of white racism. Obese people are told that their doctor being concerned about their weight is fat-shaming and fat-phobia.
These are totalizing worldviews. They don't stand up to detailed scrutiny and don't capture the nuance of the world. But they are self-consistent.
To go back to your main point, I think a useful analogy would be to look at cult deprogramming. People stay in cults because they get something out of them, whether that's a sense of purpose, social belonging, or power. Sometimes we (non-culties) get lucky, the marginal benefits of being in the cult wane, a trusted figure points out some inaccuracies, or some residual doubt becomes significant enough to warrant seeking external counsel. Other times they ride their cult to the grave.
My parents had an odd philosophy about this: benevolent patience. The culties will come around eventually, so be friendly and be there for them when they come around. I'm not sure I have that much grace to give. It works in the long term against weak cults, but hasn't worked to prevent family members from going deeply woke. I'm not sure it would be a winning move against the other things that estrange people from family: abusive romantic partners, fentanyl, or gang membership.
These are what the Humanities folks call "interpretive frameworks". (also "critical perspective", or "theoretical framework", though "theory" means something different to them than to scientists) You can examine whatever you want (a diner menu, say) "through the lens" of one of such frameworks (feminist theory of Judith Butler, say), to arrive at hidden patterns (like, notice that eggs are cheaper than sausages, hmmm...).
The practitioners say that the point is insight, not proof. I suspect that the point is to test rhetorical innovation.
In Humanities, success isn't about correctly predicting the physical world. Success is in coming up with ideas that people will discuss, or better yet passionately argue. So the more your idea is like a Shiri statement, the better it is for you.
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