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Comment by savanaly | Hacker News Reader

You can't choose your skin color or where you were born, but you can choose your political beliefs. For that reason alone, I think statements like

"My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination."

miss the mark. Excluding people based on their beliefs is completely a judgement call about whether you think their beliefs are so far from your own that nothing productive can come from sharing a department with them. The feelings of the author (and me, and a lot of others besides) is that staunch liberals in academia might be flawed in excluding conservatives. But not because it's akin to racism, it's a different (and less objectionable) type of discrimination.

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You can't choose your skin color or where you were born, but you can choose your political beliefs.

...a judgement call about whether you think their beliefs are so far from your own that nothing productive can come from sharing a department with them.

it's a different (and less objectionable) type of discrimination.

Is this what we really want? A society of distrusting, hating separatist camps that vilify and exclude each other? Using organizational authority to actively punish "thoughtcrime" should be anathema to fellow liberals and those who espouse humanist values. However, there is (and always has been) a collectivist/identity/responsibility camp who thinks such authoritarian stances are ok.

A tolerant society needs to tolerate the free expression of dissenting and even reprehensible speech. A tolerant democratic society should tolerate legal political expression. As much as an enlightened company should have room for projects to experiment and "fail fast," a society should afford its citizens the opportunity to choose "the wrong" side. Really, the whole point of a democratic society, is that there's no one entity above imposing their idea of right and wrong over the populace.

Collectivism isn't evil and it is a deep part of what it means to be human, but it can't be allowed to trump the rights of the individual. People are best protected and served when collectivism and individualism are in balance.

I said it's less objectionable, not that it's not objectionable.

Liberalism isn't very liberal anymore.

Obviously I'm equivocating, since that would make no sense any other way. The smooth progression over the past 70-80 years where "liberalism" has turned a 180 that at times it seems like nobody has noticed is... I dunno... fascinating, if nothing else. Tolerance, diversity, free speech, many other words, all have rotated 180 degrees in that time frame.

In addition to the left-right spectrum, there's also an authoritarianism scale. The one dimensional left-right spectrum seems to be bent into a horseshoe, with the open end facing up. The up-down axis measures authoritarianism. So the further towards the ends of the spectrum you are, the more authoritarian your stance is.

Others map this on 2-axes, like the D&D alignment diagram.

The one dimensional left-right spectrum seems to be bent into a horseshoe [...] the further towards the ends of the spectrum you are, the more authoritarian your stance is.

Cool observation - I really like this. Though in effect it goes from being one dimensional to two dimensional: x being extent of services, production, distribution, and exchange controlled by state or private bodies, y being level of participation of the population in the decision making process.

You could add z to measure spending policy - now you can represent fiscal conservatism, level of democracy and social policy as a tetrahedron.

One of the thing that intrigues me is the number of ways in which "liberalism" (call it "doctrinaire liberalism", as practiced on universities) are convinced they believe in one thing by name even as they believe the opposite. Liberalism right now is actually highly authoritarian. It claims not to be, but uses every ounce of authority it can come across and seeks vastly more.

If you say "I'm a liberal but I'm not an authoritarian", then I'd suggest at this point you may not actually be a "liberal" anymore, or certainly not a doctrinaire one. There's a lot of people who are, IMHO, coasting on definitions now a decade or two out of date and voting for people who are labeled "liberal" without noticing the two "liberals" in question aren't the same thing anymore. It's a significant driver in the realignment process that we've begun seeing in the spectrum. (Trump is only the beginning of the realignment, not the end, and he is an effect, not a cause.)

It is also strange, for example, to see "liberals" who are, presumably, still considering them superior to those stuffy, stuck-up Victorians with their hangups about sex, even as they push consent laws that are far more constraining than a Victorian would ever have dreamed of.

There's a huge gulf between what doctrinaire liberals believe, and what they believe they believe (no typo). It boggles my mind.

Nowadays, I think of such liberals as "Collectivist." Some of them are even straight-up Marxist, though often they aren't open about that.

According to this, I'm center-left and anti-authoritarian:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

> Is this what we really want? A society of distrusting, hating separatist camps that vilify and exclude each other?

That's not what I want, but it's certainly the the message I hear from conservatives and the republican party in this country.

I also hear this message implicitly from the left.

Examples of collectivism:

Racism. Sexism. Class warfarism.

Collectivism isn't evil? It's an objectively false idea and actively destructive to human life. How is that not evil?

I accept the author's thesis as correct, but this quote still made me laugh:

“Why stop there [hiring conservatives]?” asked Steven. “How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?”

what's pretty ironic is that is typically the "conservative" argument against affirmative action...

Or rather, that it's the conservative argument against the "encouragement of diversity" defense of affirmative action.

edit: Which, IMO, is a weak argument specifically designed to avoid mentioning reparations, which can make some of the nicest white people go feral.

Conservatives are not against diversity.

> Excluding people based on their beliefs is completely a judgement call about whether you think their beliefs are so far from your own that nothing productive can come from sharing a department with them.

Would the author of this comment be willing to say the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot? Say, a high school refusing to hire someone based on their liberal beliefs (say, transgender people being able to use the bathroom they identify as)? After all, it's very possible for the school to say "nothing productive can come from sharing a department with them".

To the author of that comment your idea is nonsensical - if they are incontrovertibly correct, than any other viewpoint isn't and as such is not only wrong but malevolently so. This isn't about an exchange of ideas, it's identity politics. At most, this would necessitate the wielding of righteous indignation to 'correct' the mistaken impressions of misinformed person.

'Say, a high school refusing to hire someone based on their liberal beliefs (say, transgender people being able to use the bathroom they identify as)? After all, it's very possible for the school to say "nothing productive can come from sharing a department with them".'

Yes, the school could say that, but they might not be right (a case of a valid but unsound argument). In any case I view that hypothetical (barring a teacher based on what they think about transgender bathroom priveleges) as preferable to, say, barring a teacher based on something they had no say on such as their skin color (although, as I must continue to point out-- that doesn't mean it's not also preferable to not discriminate at all!)

> You can't choose your skin color or where you were born, but you can choose your political beliefs.

Can one? My political beliefs aren't my tastes: they are things that I believe. I can't choose what I believe to be true. Can you?

> I can't choose what I believe to be true. Can you?

Yes.

What you believe to be true and false can (and probably ought) be based on what you've observed, experienced and researched. Beliefs must be periodically challenged or they're merely blind faith. And that way lies madness.

This means your beliefs ought to be malleable. And when they don't change after evaluation you ought to have a reason for it. Even if it's just: No new evidence, evaluate later.

>I can't choose what I believe to be true.

Uhhh, what? Fundamentally belief is the acceptance in an idea as true or real. It represents the amount of confidence you have in what is presented to you. Confidence can be based on many things (evidence, social pressure, etc) and can change over time. So you are absolutely free to choose what you believe is true or false.

That doesn't make any sense: I don't choose to have confidence that something is true; I either have confidence that it is true; have confidence that it is false; or do not have sufficient confidence to know either way. I can't choose whether I believe something is true or false, any more than I can choose to wake up an aardvark tomorrow.

I think the reality is – we do have some limited degree of choice in our beliefs. For example, I can choose what books I read. If I choose to read two dozen apologies for Marxism, that is not guaranteed to make me believe in Marxism, but it almost certainly increases somewhat the probability I will end up believing in it compared to if I hadn't chosen to read all those books. (Substitute for Marxism any other belief system – Islam, atheism, Christianity, whatever – and the point still holds.) At the same time, I can't wake up tomorrow morning and decide out of the blue "I'm going to believe in Marxism today". Beliefs are ingrained habits of the mind – we have some conscious power over our own habits, but it requires a desire to change them, and a willingness to make concerted efforts over time to change them, and even after all of that there is no guarantee of success. (It's unusual for people to actually want to change their beliefs, but not completely unheard of; while most atheists are quite happy to remain atheists, some of them actually do want to believe in God, but can't; some of those try to make themselves believe it; many of those who try fail, but I'm sure some of them actually do succeed.) In most cases when people change their beliefs, it happens without any conscious effort to do so–the ideal of rationality says on the basis of new evidence or better arguments; however, given the reality of human non-rationality, I'd say that social and emotional factors are often more important in changing beliefs than rational or evidential ones.

Now, when it comes to the actual topic at hand – political liberalism vs. political conservatism – I don't think the vast majority of people's political beliefs are the result of a conscious choice to believe one thing rather than another – they are primarily the consequences of social and emotional and personality factors (reason and evidence do play a role, but far less than either side would like to think.) While in theory a person could consciously choose to try to make themselves believe in a particular political ideology, I doubt many people ever actually make that choice in practice.

> Confidence can be based on many things (evidence, social pressure, etc) and can change over time. So you are absolutely free to choose what you believe is true or false.

No, The second doesn't follow from the first. Sure, confidence can change over time. That doesn't mean that you can make a conscious choice to believe something. (With skill, you may be able to identify the factors that influence your belief and then chose behaviors which will lead to experiencing the factors that will influence your belief in the direction you wish, but its absolutely not directly and simply within your control, even before considering that a belief that something is true itself generally precludes the belief that you should believe that it is not true in the first place.)

At a base level, you could assert that none of us can "choose" anything and the universe is entirely deterministic, or it's at least deterministic at any level which affects us.

In practice, you're generally able to read as much as you want, talk to as many people as you want, and choose who you care about and what issues are important to you. A person's beliefs are changeable with time, effort and understanding of the world they live in.

> you're generally able to read as much as you want, talk to as many people as you want

No you can't. I'd love to read and research more on a wide range of topics but I don't have enough time. We all have to take shortcuts while developing our beliefs. Ultimately you have to choose a set of giant's shoulders to stand on, as they say. You can't thoroughly research everything on your own, and even if you could there's no guarantee that you'd come up with better answers than anybody else.

I certainly can't. I'm a victim of my own interpretation of the evidence. If I could choose what I believed, I'd choose a lot differently.

edit: I'm honestly jealous (and intolerant) of people who can. My deeply religious grandmother told me once during a long discussion about her Christianity that "faith" to her meant making a choice to believe. I told her that I have never had faith, and will never have faith. I have faith in that:)

Good point. I really want to believe that I'll win the lottery, but I just can't bring myself to accepting it.

> I really want to believe that I'll win the lottery, but I just can't bring myself to accepting it.

Probably for the best. Your belief that you will win the lottery doesn't mean that you actually will win the lottery, but it might lead to you losing a lot of money.

You don't choose to believe something different. You deliberate on your beliefs. And either find validation or repudiation or somewhere in between. Beliefs are formed over a lifetime and in constant (though perhaps slow motion) flux. Consider (for yourself) your present stance on a non-theological postition. Death penalty, abortion, universal suffrage, the draft, something. Consider what you presently believe and why. Then question it. Research or seek out the opposing view. Hold serious (non-strawman) debates in your own mind on the various potential stances and their rationales. Maybe you come back from this unchanged, changed to an opposing view, or to a middle ground. But you'll have arrived their deliberately.

That's the essence of being a rational human adult. If you can't, figure out why. If you won't, you're still a child.

It is possible for you to reinterpret the evidence.

With practice, one can objectify and analyze their beliefs. You can start to identify what lens is active that you're filtering reality through. I highly recommend such a practice as it will allow you to hold multiple conflicting beliefs simultaneously.

If you'd like a taste at some of the advanced stages that are available with belief objectification, I recommend this short PDF:

http://newpossibilitiesassociates.com/uploads/9_levels_of_in...

> I highly recommend such a practice as it will allow you to hold multiple conflicting beliefs simultaneously.

If two beliefs are mutually conflicting then at least one is wrong. If X^Y is false, then I don't want to believe that X^Y is true. That'd be insane!

> If two beliefs are mutually conflicting then at least one is wrong.

Not necessarily. Since you try bringing math in, then there are other possibilities—both could be consistent with your axioms. The continuum hypothesis is neither "true" nor "false", but rather independent of the axioms of ZFC. You are free to adopt it, or its negation, and proceed from there.

It may be insane to the typical person, but if you start to objectify the lens that is active, then you can see there are multiple conflicting truths.

As an example:

Belief 1: The floor I am standing on is real.

Of course it is real. I can experience it right now.

Belief 2: The floor I am standing on is not real.

Of course it is not real. Most materials are empty space and our nervous system generates the experience of solidity. Besides, time doesn't exist as there is only this present experience so there is no container for material things to exist in.

I regard both of these as true from different lenses.

Is it insane? Maybe. But it also avoids a ton of existential angst.

"You can't choose your skin color or where you were born, but you can choose your political beliefs."

You sound really confident about that, would you care to cite your research? My ignorant assumption would be that people's temperaments would segregate them into political views naturally. I know Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of research into this area, and he has some interesting ideas - "All political movements base appeals on different settings of the foundations—and the culture wars arise from what they choose to emphasize. Liberals jack up care, followed by fairness and liberty. They rarely value loyalty and authority. Conservatives dial up all six."[http://www.thelavinagency.com/blog-jonathan-haidt-difference...]

The racism that liberals show towards colored conservatives is Klan-grade. Justice Clarence Thomas' media portrayal is a testament.

Its very interesting why the all diversity loving liberals, live in heavily white neighborhoods. Actions, speak louder than words.

> The racism that liberals show towards colored conservatives is Klan-grade. Justice Clarence Thomas' media portrayal is a testament.

If its only against conservatives, its not racism.

> Its very interesting why the all diversity loving liberals, live in heavily white neighborhoods.

That's true of wealthy liberals (just as it is for wealthy conservatives), because they live in heavily wealthy neighborhoods, and wealth and race are correlated in the US (liberals, wealthy or not, tend to see this correlation as a problem, though.) Non-wealthy liberals tend to live in more ethnically diverse neighborhoods because (and, I suspect, moreso than do non-wealthy conservatives.)

Got it. "Uncle Tom" has no racial undertone.

Its a term predominantly used by black critics of a black seen as a collaborator with white oppressors of blacks.

If it is racist at all, it is racist against whites, as it communicates distaste for a person based on their relationship to another hated group (but even then, its not communicating a problem with their relationship with whites as whites, but with white oppressors as oppressors, so whether its racist against whites is probably questionable.)

There's scenarios where its use could be a form of paternalistic anti-black racism, such as its use by whites of a particular persuasion to criticize a black defector from white-led political program in favor of an opposing white-led political movement.

Refusing to admit the possibility of being wrong, much less anyone that would tell you so, means you never will be.

I'm not sure why you're downplaying this; in an academic setting, that seems just as objectionable as racism.

You can choose political beliefs if you are aware of alternative political beliefs existing. If you live, work, and learn in an environment that is actively excluding political beliefs, so that only one political belief exists in your environment, can you really choose your political belief then?

It's debatable if nothing productive can come from sharing a department with people whose beliefs are different from your own, but it's actively counterproductive to exclude those people.

Luckily people are very good at making judgement calls about who to include and who to exclude, right? "Culture fit" is a great way to end up with a diverse workforce, isn't it? And obviously "unconscious bias" isn't ever a thing.

good point. you can replace conservative with any other set of beliefs and see how absurd that statement is. I am not equating conservatives to the following groups but imagine if it said "....holocaust denying scholars.." instead.

the saddest part is how it equates war victims and trafficked children to conservative scholars.

Any set of beliefs? So religious discrimination is OK now?

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