yep the purpose of the essay was to:
1) show the situations in which politics can't be discussed productively (dogmatic ideologies)
2) show how to avoid being dogmatic yourself
I absolutely encourage people to discuss politics productively
1) show the situations in which politics can't be discussed productively (dogmatic ideologies)
2) show how to avoid being dogmatic yourself
I absolutely encourage people to discuss politics productively
An example in this article is the following part
> my angle ... becomes that of opposing their tribalism. Unfortunately ... most people just view me as the opposite of their own tribe
But this part totally fails self-reflection: it talks about your "conservative friends" and your "liberal friends". They are labelled "conservative" or "liberal". How does the author know that the interlocutor did not act exactly like the author: the interlocutor brought a subject, from their point of view their position on it where pretty neutral and sensible, the author reacts by playing the devil's advocate. They therefore see the author as the "conservative" or "liberal" person, and if they follow the author's strategy, they will play the devil's advocate. And then, THE AUTHOR fails to realize they don't actually care about the conclusion.
The lazy answer is: I'm smarter than them, I can tell when it's the case or not. Or: the subject I bring are not political, they are just common sense and sensible position, but they sometimes bring something I disagree with, and this is not common sense and sensible position.
In both case, it's weak and does not acknowledge the possibilities that you may have done the same mistakes as them from time to time (either classifying a "moderate" as "far" just because they were doing the devil's advocate, or presenting opinions that are not "trivially moderate" from the eyes of your interlocutor). It's a detail, but because of that, I'm not sure the author is as "non dogmatic" as they think they are: they are saying what everybody is saying. The large majority of people don't say "I'm dogmatic and my opinions are crazy" (if they believe their opinions are crazy, then it means they don't believe in their opinions and it is not really their opinions).
If you see others as being "insufficiently equipped" to handle nuance, "because it's hard" or "because they are too resistant" is a judgement I prefer not to pass on others.
> "Because if a desire to seek truth isn't there"
Who defines the truth? As much as I understand there is a need to draw a line somewhere, I also believe that everyone has a right to their truth. And that's my truth. I let everyone have their perspective and don't see a need to impose mine or look down upon them if they don't agree to mine, this included :)
These sorts of claims are as incoherent as the equally intellectually jejune skeptical positions ("there is no truth" or "we cannot know the truth" or variations thereof). It's rare to see anyone outside of first year philosophy students make them.
Why can't you just say we have disagreements about what the truth is?
The sentence that covers this in the piece:
"If someone is self-aware enough to consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble, that’s totally fair. I respect it like I’d respect anyone who chooses to participate in a more traditional religion. My issue is when this view is falsely passed off as an intellectually-driven one."
It's the problem with this sentence:
> Because if a desire to seek truth isn't there
The behavior of other people makes way more sense if you just consider that people have different values and different interests. If you take your list of values, people that are not aligned with you will, by definition of not being aligned, look to you as they are not desiring to seek the truth. For two reasons: 1) because some of the things you believe being truth are just BS. You are wrong (as we all are sometimes on some topics), and you are just seeing them dismissing something false and, in fact, they are the ones being interested in seeking the truth while you are not, 2) because some of the things you believe being an important truth is not important or relevant for them. I'm pretty sure you don't "display a desire to seek the truth" when it comes to the VIIth century Buddhist philosophy. Sure, if someone talks about it to you, you may say you are interested and follow what they say, but you still will look "not desiring to seek the truth": if they bring a conundrum in this topic to you, you will not drop everything and scream "oh my god, I need to find the answer, nothing else matter now". That's an extreme example, and there is a spectrum, but that illustrates that some of these people who you categorize as "not desiring to seek the truth" are in fact desiring to seek the truth, just not with the same path as you are, so they look like that to you. And, guess what, _you_ look like you don't desire to seek the truth to them.
That sentence is, to me, very very telling: it did not even one second occur to you that maybe they are interesting in seeking the truth but are doing it in a different way or on different subjects. And by doing so, by not carefully considering all the possibilities, you show that yourself you have equally no desire to seek the truth. (if you see what I mean: you see Mr A not exploring all the possibilities on the subject that you like, so you conclude that they have no desire to seek the truth, but then, Mr A sees you not exploring all the possibilities on some subjects that you are overlooking. How is that different?)
That is exactly the same problem with the "consciously acknowledge their choice to remain in the bubble": a majority of them are not in a bubble, but it looks like that you because you are not aligned with them. And you are explaining that moderate like you, some of them are in a bubble, but others are not. The only possibility to your eyes to not be in a bubble is to be aligned with you. The only possibility for them to not be in a bubble is to be aligned with them.
I'm not just inferring this from different values. As I said in the article, people are openly and literally telling me they'd prefer to stay in the bubble:
"I'll often ask: if the opposite of your beliefs were true, would you want to know?
Surprisingly, I've had good friends, who enjoy political debate, explicitly answer ‘no’. And even many who initially answer ‘yes’ will later admit to the answer really being ‘no’."
Desiring to seek truth is not referring to the energy someone is willing to expend, it's related to this^ ignoring, or asking to stop once an exploration proves the fundamental belief their world rests on as false.
edit: punctuation
For example, how do you correct for the sample bias? You are saying in your article that "moderate" (aka, people aligned with your current evaluation of what is sensible) are the ones that are more prone to get outside of their bubble. You don't evaluate that on a unbiased sample, you evaluate that amongst your friends, with whom you have, according to you, had longer discussion on the subject (and if you did not, then, this question is not very reliable).
So, first, if someone is not aligned with you, the conversation relationship will not be the same as someone aligned with you. You even say that you play the devil's advocate, but playing the devil's advocate with a moderate person or a person with a more particular word view does not lead to the same conversation relationship. For illustration, let's put people on a 1-to-10 scale. The moderate is "5", the "far-left" is "0" and the "far-right" is "10". If you play the devil's advocate with a far-left that says "0 is great", you will say "10 is great", which is 10 distance away in dissidence. If you play the devil's advocate with a moderate that says "5 is great", then you can say "0 is great" or "10 is great", which is just 5.
In other words, it is easier to "alienate" or "put on a defensive" a non-moderate than a moderate. It does not mean that the moderate is more open, just that they are, circumstantially, in a situation where your game is easy for them to play (if the world was -5 to 5, then "5" would answer "no" after you played the devil's advocate by defending the option "-5").
On top of that, you are probably a worst devil's advocate when it comes to play the devil's advocate with someone that you agree a lot with (if you had good argument against being a moderate, then you will probably be yourself convinced by these arguments and not be a moderate).
Also, it's interesting that they say "no", it shows that they care a lot about what is true or not. Basically, what they say is that they care so much about what is true that in the unrealistic case that they are abominably wrong, knowing it was the case would be very sad for them. They also did not form their belief spontaneously: they grow up into it, step by step, each step based on their evaluation of what is true or not. Your question is basically the same as asking "would you be happy to hear it that you personally failed repeatedly during your whole life", which is strongly emotional. Again, the situation is not the same for a moderate, which may just not care much about the truth or be happy to adopt whatever position (or not, but it's a counter-example where answering "yes" may not prove that someone cares about the truth).
After that, you may say "they will not get out of their bubble because of the emotional cost", but you will still have nowhere to conclude if they value the truth less or more than you. Maybe they value the truth more than you, and it is why you failed to reach the same belief alignment than them: they choose these beliefs because they were looking for the truth and they are convinced that these beliefs are better aligned with the truth, while, on your side, you did not care enough about the truth to find the same path. (it is not what I think, but it is a counter-example where someone will say "no" to this question and yet be more interested of the truth than someone who will say "yes")
The hypothetical question should rather be "if you lived in a parallel universe where the opposite of your current beliefs were true, would you grow up to end up believing in the opposite of your current beliefs".
There is a trade off between energy expended vs accuracy needed vs accurately communicating, but the de-referenced concept is not a matter of human perspective. Coordinating truth is why we have standards and protocols to build on.
The major mistake/misunderstanding I see now is thinking that a stupid, vindictive asshole who failed upwards would be a good person to run the country.
I don’t think I’m susceptible to that. I’ve never viewed anyone the way a lot of these people view Donald Trump. I can’t imagine I ever will. Is it a failure of imagination or is something really different between us?
I agree with Slavoj Zizek's take on Trump's appeal and why a lot of criticism of him seems to either have no effect or increases his fan appeal: As a general rule, people relate to others by identifying with their weaknesses, not only or not even primarily with their strengths. You aren't susceptible to his appeal because you're of a different class or background which has different sets of strengths/weaknesses which make it hard for you to relate to Trump.
The weaknesses Trump has - his stubborn ignorance, his impulsiveness, his might-makes-right mentality and disdain for rules, his vindictiveness - are deeply shared with his fans. They will forgive his sins because it is their sins too. For example when Trump is attacked for an impulsive comment, they relate to the risk that they could also be cancelled for some comment that is seen as racist or sexist or something. His policy framework is made of the kind of simple ideas you'll find in a pub, I once heard Trump described as "the average guy from Queens" and it made a lot of sense to me. "Nobody knew healthcare was so complicated", "We're going to build a wall".
I belong more to a white collar, professional class. I probably have a blindspot on the weaknesses and sins more endemic to my group, ones that I share with the figures I find appealing. If I had to guess I'd say it's something like an ideological/theoretical zeal, bureaucratic dysfunction, and an exclusionary judginess. When a politician unveils some theoretically elegant project and it largely fails and runs over budget and gets mired in bureaucratic hell, I'm maybe too quick to forgive that as it's a relatable sin.
I'm very much not convinced "that you are equally susceptible from the mistakes/misunderstandings that you blame others for." People are not the same. I'm smarter than some people, dumber than others. I'm stronger than some and weaker than others. Surely the same is true here. Understand that I am also susceptible to mistakes/understandings? I'm 100% on board with that. But equally susceptible to the same ones? I really don't think so.
Similarly, it is worrisome that people vote for what will profit the most for them instead of what is the more just and fair (sometimes even voting against your own profit). It leads to stupid situations, for example where idiots are for protectionist measures whatever the consequences on other countries, but at the same time are angry when people in another country are voting for protectionist measures that affect theirs negatively. It is quite clear with the Trump supporter: they are furious if someone else treats them like they treat others, and seems to not even realise the absurdity.
It is really hard to live in a society with people like that: it just creates lose-lose situations for everyone.
Realistically, no democracy can really depend on widespread familiarity with the hard skills of civic & political management. It just gets really technical and complicated, voters naturally have to reason about what little they understand, and you understand what you relate to.
I'm not trying to make the point that voting for the reality TV show candidate is good, my point is that the problems with reality TV show candidates are in their blindspot but there are other bad leaders that will fit in your own blindspot.
edit: sorry I just realized that you already made this point in one of your earlier comments! And yes, I personally agree with much of what you say.
"[9] Fully understanding I can be the one in the wrong -- however, when this is the case, the person explaining is usually able to:
understand my argument convey their disagreement in good faith without circular reasoning or rhetorical tricks"
"There's a 40% chance this succeeds because of A, 25% chance of B, 10% of X, and 5% something we haven't thought of"
For example: "understand my argument" is assuming that the argument is obviously correct. When someone presents to you an incorrect argument, 1) this person thinks the argument is correct (otherwise they will not present that argument), 2) you will not answer by saying "I've understood", you will argue. From their point of view, you are the one failing to understand. Now the question is: how many time this person was you? How many time you presented a bad argument and then blamed the interlocutor for "not understanding" when they don't accept a faulty argument?
Same with "circular reasoning or rhetorical trick": when I disagree, it is always very easy to convince myself that there is a problem in the interlocutor logic. Especially if I failed to understand or misunderstood the argument. I would even say that for all discussions that are not trivial, there are always elements that can be seen as circular or rhetorical trick.
"Understand my argument" does not imply correctness in the slightest.
It's possible to understand an incorrect argument and show where it's going wrong, plenty of people can detect fallacies. I've both done it to others and had it done to me.
This seems to be a combining of "understanding" and "agreeing", which are separate things.
If it is your argument, it means you believe in it, it means you think it is a good argument and not a bad argument. So maybe in fact they are right and they understood the argument correctly, but you are the one mistaken. How can you tell?
Let's, for the sake of discussion, imagine that your argument is bad. You believe it is good, but it is bad. It means that you don't yourself understand your own argument. How can you therefore judge if someone has understood the argument or not?
You were saying that you can see when they use "circular reasoning" and "rhetorical trick". That's exactly the first impression that everyone has when they defend a bad argument and someone points at the flaws in it.
I'm not mixing up "understanding" and "agreeing", I'm saying that you claim that you can tell if someone "understand", and I'm simply saying that it is not possible to tell if someone has understood if yourself you believe the argument is correct and they belief the argument is incorrect.
I think the civil war is interesting and nuanced topic to interrogate once in awhile, and can usually find some points of agreement with most people.
The legal, moral, and philosophical questions around it are fascinating. For example, how do you reconcile people's right to self-determination with a desire to carry out abhorrent actions. Historically speaking, the civil war and failures of reconstruction are probably the single most defining aspect of modern American political life.
To me, the concepts of self-determination and owning humans are in conflict. I think it’s appropriate and important to honor the gallantry and sacrifice individual soldiers.
But it’s important to appreciate that the Confederacy was explicit in its evil, and the labor of those soldiers in civilian life was cheapened by the aristocrats who founded the Confederacy to preserve their human property. And the (specious) ideals of self-determination were discarded as the demands of the first modern war demanded centralized control.
Did you peel that back to the next layer? Did they want to reintroduce slavery? Or did they want independence from a distant government?
I knew folks in the South who thought some of the craziest racist things and probably would've been OK with slavery (I did hear them promote segregation).
At the same time, the vast majority folks I knew who defended the Civil War or wanted secession didn't want slavery or segregation, but local (and often less) government. Did they misunderstand the role of slavery in the Southern secession? Usually. Does that change their _current intent_? No.
The latter group (which was much larger) should be engaged with on the issue of local government and secession, especially in the context of folks in Blue States who've been rattling about secession under Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
Unfortunately I don't think the group of 'just want to secede' is "much larger" than those willing to commit civil rights violations after years of practical experience living in the south. The people saying it in the context of the blue states doing it mostly realize it won't work, and the amount of civil rights violations either way skyrocket in the process.
People love to talk about what they think is important, but NOT when they think they're being setup or playing into someone else's hand.
but here's how we can change that, etc
There are lot's of people who won't stop, when you push the wrong button (speaking a wrong word).
It's like all those videos of dogs barking angrily at each other through a closed gate, then suddenly becoming quiet and peaceful, their whole body language changing, when the gate is opened.
For most people, very few friendships form with an expectation of political agreement: activists met at a common protest or campaign, generic regulars of a popular political party or union, old style secret societies, and so on.
If you insist on talking politics when the host or other guests don’t want to you’re a rude idiot.