In youth, I struggled with many areas of education that later in life no longer seemed difficult. Describing this struggle proves difficult because memory has a way of twisting perception as well as biases adopted from people assuming me lazy or lacking concentration. The best way I can relate this issue is to say that between me and the subject matter, a wall stood, creating constant struggle to peer around yet never allowing the complete view and grasp of certain subject matter. You might assume a learning or attention disorder plagued me, but this was not the case. Much to my own surprise, I found conservatism and religion limited actualizing my cognitive abilities.

Conservatism as Affliction

My upbringing was conservative but did not appear religious, yet, my elementary and high school almamaters were Catholic. In between the Catholic schools, the public and military schools I attended also had conservative leanings. My parents were business Republicans, which for those unaware of this taxonomy, this political species held all conservative beliefs except those of a religious nature. Despite their lack of interest in the spiritual component, my parents excelled in all Christian conservative skills: gas-lighting, guilt infliction, lack of empathy, violence, and lying. This should come as no surprise to anyone since Christianity dominates the country, forcing everyone to adopt at least some Christian values , regardless of your religion. Evan devotees of another Abrahamic brand often find these shared values fortified since all conservatism nourishes from the same biblical fodder. From this indoctrination (including myself) come the most dishonest , hate-filled, racist, violent people who simultaneously believe themselves the most loving and charitable group. They were also the stupidest.

You might not believe what I am saying because you bought into or suffered white Christian propaganda but the reality is not so fantastic when you consider how this religion distills life through a simplistic, unproveable, malleable idea that allows — and often promotes — twisted thinking.

This is the way conservatism disables many people. It begins early in life with Christian thinking that allows bullying and abuse because it toughens you up. You learn toughness is a measure of willingness to be violent, masculinity is the sum of how many women you fuck, and all of life becomes a struggle to masquerade yourself as these things. You learn to enhance this persona with the sarcastic quip, blunt rudeness, and a plethora of idioms to distinguish yourself as smart within the ranks of dumb. Your ideological shortcuts and supposed logic come with the cost of your true potential since you cannot merely be an actor — you must believe and strive to emulate these Christian values, whether you are aware of them or not.

Your reward comes when your mind strengthens within reductive thought, blessing you with every answer for every question since the only complexity or nuance the liberal, the atheist, the communist...they're all the same... invents in a deliberate choice to reject the simple truths of conservatism:

Ad infinitum.

Christianity lifts you in these conservative values, provided you have the right look, color of skin, and enjoy the appropriate sexual proclivities. Your new found intellect emerges, deducing the entire world from this conservative lens that appears to prove itself true over and over. The Christian girls flock to your arrogance, willing to only see your manliness no matter how terrible you are to others. Christian boys all want you because of that promise of the pure, one-man-only vagina, or in most cases, the least-used vagina, but make no mistake — this is all you are worth! Knowing they have been taught to submit to this purity illusion that mutates them into the strong, Christian, maternal house quartermaster garners no empathy from you — that’s the way bitches should be!

Still, only in white trash circles is such vulgarity acceptable.

To get the purest vagina you must maintain the strong, silent Christian man archetype. He is not always book smart, but he is honorable and wise from the traditions he holds dear. He holds his tongue when wanting to scream the N-word, (a model of self-control) and waits for the appropriate place among the men to release such pejoratives. All the while, the refined Christian woman stands to the side, clutching her pearls at the occasional foul word, not the God-given freedom of speech of racial and ethnic epithets. The refined Christians know the nudge nudge and wink wink or virtue signaling words, that announces to all other believers present, that they are authentic Christians:

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)" means N*****!
“Asians” means all Asians are the same.
“Inclusiveness” means being forced to sit near a nonwhite.
“Law” means Christian belief.
“Intersectionality” is the address of the cult of the victim.

As stated, conservatism works, well, as long as it works: until you lose a job, decide you love other girls instead of men, or you have a medical issue that forces you into bankruptcy. Maybe you’re like me and you worked, sacrificing endless hours to companies that couldn’t care less whether you lived or died. Work is what you do as a man! Maybe you suffered the slow withdrawal from conservatism, losing with each year the capacity to believe anything these people say since they can only recite the same ineffectual words and thoughts over and over...

If you awaken to the truth — that everything you learned is bullshit — you will likely discover you are part of that bullshit. You realize you became a vile, misogynistic, racist, classist person, a terrible parent, and an incompatible relationship partner. Despite the fact your family is just as shitty as you, you’re too shitty to be around. You are alone, struggling to overcome all the lies you now recognize.

Having let go of the conservatism that promises so much and delivers so little, life improves and your life and relationships improve. You find that the goals of conservatism that begin and end with accepting empty lots in life, like work, no longer suit you and you strive to improve yourself. Perhaps you exercise and learn new skills. You feel better and more actualized but you begin to notice that these new activities and knowledge come easier than ever before. You read more effectively and learn faster. You notice this shift in cognitive ability and you question why. Why was school so hard and now the same subjects come so easy? You take up writing, programming, art, or some other discipline and find your talents surpass what you once believed yourself capable of achieving. What has happened?

Slight anger arises in the realization that conservatism disabled you in a unimaginative state that limits creativity and therefore learning.

Conservatism as a Learning Impediment

I discussed elsewhere, at length, my adventure in academics , supporting myself for many years writing papers for students and teachers alike. When I attended school, I could barely learn certain curriculum and my education had many holes. I struggled with algebra, geometry, and became stuck in basic coding skills when trying to learn various languages. Undertaking the writing of papers for over a decade filled these gaps but the question lingered as to why my personal education held such difficulty.

For me and many others, the answer is multifaceted, starting with treatment as a student. A hidden curriculum exists with a prerequisite of needing to fit the mold of the white Christian male or female. In most of America, this hidden curriculum of values permeates education supporting the most ‘christian-like’ kids and ignoring the rest. The football star gets more attention than the mathlete and the cheerleader becomes the queen of the prom rather than the debate club champion. This hidden curriculum teaches kids they need the expensive clothes and smartphones because that makes them better than those with cheaper ones. Styles, slang, and other attributes of coolness change but the hidden curriculum reinforcing conservative Christian culture remains, mutating with every generation.

Though difficult to believe, this hidden curriculum hinders learning.

Worrying more about your appearance while sitting in class paranoid of your fellow students’ bullying, makes learning impossible. Yet, the unluckiness of not possessing the comeliness, money, or skin color the hidden curriculum favors, pales to the worse fate of the Christian culture inculcation. Whether a convert to the left like me, a supposedly liberal Christian person filled with kindness, or a right-wing Nazi, your indoctrination by Christianity instills a learning deficit, exacerbating all other issues such as bullying. You cannot see this impediment in the vast majority of students or in yourself because conservatism is considered normal.

As long as you fit the mold of the white Christian/conservative, no one challenges your thinking except in the most basic ways, and you lose your strongest learning asset — your imagination.

Learning requires some level of creativity to imagine various elements of the curriculum in order to understand and utilize the knowledge obtained. For example, if you understand 1+1=2 you can easily apply this knowledge to 1 car + 1 car = 2 cars. To connect the mathematics, you need the ability to imagine how the number 1 applies to other ideas, such as the car. This oversimplification clarifies imagination’s necessity for applying arithmetic and other subjects to various situations. Conservatism hinders this basic form of imagination, and subsequently, learning. The rigid necessity to believe Christianity causes an artificial learning impediment by assuming and demanding specific truths, which often clash with inductive and deductive learning by way of arresting one’s imagination.

A Little About Inductive & Deductive Learning

Inductive reasoning draws general conclusions from specific observations, allowing learners to recognize patterns and formulate broader principles based on individual cases. Since inductive reasoning moves from particular examples to general ideas, imagination plays a crucial role in making connections beyond the evidence at hand.

In contrast, deductive reasoning starts with general principles and applies them to specific cases. It follows a logical progression in which a known rule or premise leads to an inevitable conclusion. Imagination enhances deductive learning by allowing individuals to visualize how abstract principles manifest in real-world scenarios.

Understanding The Loss of Imagination & Impact on Learning

To understand evolution, you must be able to imagine, based on the facts known, that across the expanse of time, creatures evolved by way of those with the strongest traits surviving and reproducing, thus carrying forward their traits for survival while those lacking perish. You need to be able to imagine, based on known facts, how this natural selection process occurs over long periods in all earthly creatures whereby making their survival dependent on specific climate and environmental conditions. Dependency of creatures on climate and environmental conditions dictates they will not survive if the climate or the environment changes faster than they can evolve.

The relation between evolution and climate change seems like an obvious thought when one imagines the explosion of a volcano filling the air with heat and ash, thus altering the environment and climate, thereby killing any creatures caught in the eruption zone that cannot withstand the heat and poisonous gasses. However, the conservative mind imposes limits on the application of this thinking. The same conservative who runs from the volcanic explosion cannot imagine the same danger recreated from millions of smoke stacks and exhaust pipes expelling greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Inductive Argument (Imagination Helping Identify Patterns in Evolution)

Main Idea (Conclusion): Natural selection operates universally across species, allowing creatures with advantageous traits to survive while others perish.

Supporting Ideas (Premises):

Without imagination, one may struggle to see the long-term patterns shaping species’ survival.

Deductive Argument (Imagination Helping Apply General Principles to Environmental Change)

Main Idea (Conclusion): Human-induced climate change leads to destruction similar to natural disasters.

Supporting Ideas (Premises):

On the left, people view this lack of imagination as a lack of critical thought, cult mentality, willful ignorance, grifting, or as a propaganda induced fraud. Although these points hold merit, but a far more insidious problem exists. Conservatism’s environed nature with Christianity, or other Abrahamic brands, allows for contradictory thoughts to persist since the conservative cannot imagine the application of the many different, often oppositional, concepts they consider correct. If your imagination has been arrested by this fallacious thinking rooted in faith, conservatism becomes far easier to believe when given consideration, and infinitely more difficult to free oneself since contradictions in thought hold no meaning.

Sadly, everyone is at risk of being rendered unimaginative.

How Conservatism Stole Joe Rogan's Imagination

The contrarian views of conservatives should disturb everyone, but instead, conservatives seem oblivious to their contradictions. Contradictions bother most non-conservatives because they readily imagine the opposing viewpoints and consequences of inconsistent ideas. In fact, psychology refers to believing “fundamentally conflicting cognitions” (two opposing thoughts, or contradictions) as “cognitive dissonance”: an aberration of the mind. Dissonance can only exist without disturbing the thinker in a lack of imagination since the person must be able to visualize the counter points of an action. This unimaginative state exists not merely as a hypocritical stance but as a worldview of contrarian and opposing perspectives glued together by an irrational faith that embeds in culture, allowing for a plethora of justifications, rationalizations, magical thinking, and other fallacies to promulgate.

If you base your thought in something unreasonable, Christianity, then all subsequent thinking risks irrationality. This is how the Christian/conservatives become the aforementioned horrible people in an inability to reason and learn.

Believing dissonant ideas compartmentalizes life, often nonsensically. For example, freedom of speech is highly valued, as along as it is conservative in nature since the conservative holds the truth. You can ban books and limit protests with threats because what the opposition claims is simply not true, so it must be a lie, regardless of facts. Under the force of faith or just politics fueled by this faith, you lose thought autonomy as as conservatism provides all the answers to those tough questions, answering each one separately forming a mosaic of incongruent ideas. You wouldn’t think this possible of certain people because they seem to be the master of the circumstance that is stealing their imagination and rationality. Take for example, Joe Rogan.

Rogan earned a lot of respect when he stood against comedy plagiarism. He also gained tremendous following when he voiced opinions concerning free healthcare as well as being a gun owner and advocate. Much of Rogan's appeal stemmed from presenting himself as a non-political voice standing in the road between liberal and the conservative. However, this stance actually places him between a social position concerned with economically and socially bolstering people and the fend-for-yourself GOP plan. Rogan’s middling made him vulnerable to the theft of imagination and adoption of the Christian/conservative learning impediment. Kyle Kulinsky of Secular Talk bluntly reveals Rogan’s loss of ability to reason and learn in a series of clips showing the contrarian nature emerging over time.

Now, Rogan symbolizes the conservative mind's compartmentalization of dissonant ideas formed by lack of imagination, most notably with free speech:

Rogan no doubt would argue many of the guests on his show deserve freedom of speech, voicing the conservative brand of free speech that declares white supremacists in need of a platform to voice their many-times debunked racial, political, and social views. The Majority Report reveals this issue:

Lacking imagination, Rogan's all-encompassing free speech solution does not excuse for many people his platforming of white supremacists since freedom is not even the issue. The real argument for not giving air time to supremacists centers on their false claims. By providing white supremacists airtime (whether Rogan realizes it or not and whether he discusses with them racial taxonomy or not) he gives credence and merit to the repeatedly-debunked, racial-inferiority mythology since these people believe these ideas and Rogan believes they deserve an audience.

Rogan fails to recognize the difference between choosing to listen to someone and censorship stealing their voice. Almost laughably, Rogan platforms right-wing racists and pseudointellectuals to his millions of followers, reflecting exactly how there is no legal censorship taking place or he would not be able to platform these individuals.

White supremacists have websites, they are on social media, they have the right to protest, and they can voice their opinion as much as they want. It takes a modicum of imagination to understand the difference between being silenced by censorship and being rejected by organizations, social media, and people who simply believe your message sucks.

Rogan cannot see this issue because he is pigeonholed in a belief that freedom of speech is the only point. He also fails to see the white supremacist as just wrong — erroneously, fallaciously, and frankly morally. If I decide to create a DIY, home, brain surgery video, no one is stopping me. However, if I decide to discuss my surgery technique at a conference of nuerologists, I am pretty sure they would not let me speak. I have no credentials, no expertise in medicine, and only my belief that I can do it better than all those doctors. This is not censorchip, it is upholding the integrity of the organization or field. Something Rogan fails to do with his podcast.

The learning impediment Joe Rogan displays is obvious to the point of being absurd. Here is Rogan openly discussing his reason for voting for Trump in 2024:

Kyle Kulinsky, again, convincingly shows the ridiculous nature of Rogan’s logic. One cannot help but question how Rogan believes this asinine reason, which lends to the belief he must be a grifter. However, imagine for a moment the absurdity of this lie. Rogan is not that stupid and could have come up with a realistic lie for sure. What makes more sense? Rogan, the guy who took a stand against comedic plagiarism and once advocated for free healthcare and education, decided to start lying, or that he has been rendered irrational by a conservative ideology that steals imagination from believers.

Rogan is not alone; close to half of America suffers this learning issue. More importantly, he shows us you do not need to be a religious freak or even a part time churchgoer to fall prey to conservatism. Just living and working in the US is often enough but more importantly giving it time and attention. Given enough time and attention, conservatism transforms most people from independents, right leaners, and even some on the left to a Christian man or woman archetype claiming to advocate free speech by giving liars, fascists, and racists a loud speaker, or even just an ear. Given enough attention and time, conservatism renders many completely incapable of imagining how contradictory ideas negatively impact life. Given enough time and attention, every thought becomes as compartmentalized as Rogan’s podcast episodes and guests, where nothing connects cognitively. It all makes sense as you move from one contradiction to the next, even in total defiance of reality. There is no need to question the veracity of your expert guest’s claim because he is fueling your acceptance of the truth you already beleive. Like many of us, Rogan’s imagination eroded under the constant stream of conservatism that provides solutions to all issues, yet resolutions to none.