|
Post by Fingerplucked on Sept 20, 2013 10:52:01 GMT -5
Personally, my objection is the negative connotations the word "righteous" in the title brings to my mind. It may not be what he intends to communicate -- there is a perfectly good meaning to the word. But I've dealt with enough self-righteous people that the word rubs me wrong. (risking ducking back in here. I think he's implying the negative connotation. I think that's the thesis. We think we're right FIRST....and everything else stems from that presumption) I don't know about the first part. He addressed "Righteous" early on, but I don't think I was paying attention. You could be right. You're definitely right with the second part, that we think we're right FIRST. It's our default position. What other alternatives are there? 1. I think I'm wrong, let me explain why ....
2. I think I'm wrong, let me do some research so that I can change my mind.
3. I don't know what I think, let me explain why ....
4. I don't know what I think, let me find some facts before I form any opinion.
We probably all do one or more of the above from time to time. And we probably all start off with one opinion and wind up changing that opinion after deliberate reasoning or finding new information. But those times tend to be relatively rare, as they probably should be. We trust our gut. Just think how crappy NCIS would be if Gibbs was always saying "I don't know, let me go check Wikipedia."
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Sept 20, 2013 10:57:07 GMT -5
"You're definitely right with the second part, that we think we're right FIRST."
That's often true, but not always. I've changed my views on some major issues because thinking and evidence led me to a different view. I don't see how such changes can be reconciled with a view that we start with the opinion. But maybe he deals with that.
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Sept 20, 2013 11:00:29 GMT -5
You're definitely right with the second part, that we think we're right FIRST. It's our default position. What other alternatives are there? 1. I think I'm wrong, let me explain why ....
2. I think I'm wrong, let me do some research so that I can change my mind.
3. I don't know what I think, let me explain why ....
4. I don't know what I think, let me find some facts before I form any opinion.
Maybe, 5. I am right. I mean, we don't always enter any conversation not knowing anything. Maybe, just maybe, we actually do know what we're talking about.
|
|
|
Post by Fingerplucked on Sept 20, 2013 11:07:44 GMT -5
Of course we do. And when you and I, for example, disagree, we can still both be right. We're just right about different things because we're each more concerned about different aspects of the same issue.
And then there are those times one of us is just plain more wrong than the other.
|
|
|
Post by Fingerplucked on Sept 20, 2013 11:14:44 GMT -5
"You're definitely right with the second part, that we think we're right FIRST." That's often true, but not always. I've changed my views on some major issues because thinking and evidence led me to a different view. I don't see how such changes can be reconciled with a view that we start with the opinion. But maybe he deals with that. He does. By nature, we tend to look for info that confirms our opinion and we dismiss contradictory info. It's the can/must thing from a few pages ago. But other times we change our mind on issues based on new information. Facts alone rarely cause a shift in opinion. Facts or experiences that hit us on a gut level, facts that change our feelings can have that effect though.
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Sept 20, 2013 11:35:00 GMT -5
Well, this part I find interesting. My views on most political issues are reached by what is essentially a cost-benefit analysis. Facts that don't prompt any discernible emotions in me can change my assessment of the costs and benefits. Maybe I'm partly descended from Mr. Spock.
|
|
|
Post by Doug on Sept 20, 2013 12:43:20 GMT -5
That can't be as Spock is from the future. Well it could be one of those paradox things, like I'm my own grandpa. ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Sept 20, 2013 13:18:51 GMT -5
Well, this part I find interesting. My views on most political issues are reached by what is essentially a cost-benefit analysis. Facts that don't prompt any discernible emotions in me can change my assessment of the costs and benefits. Maybe I'm partly descended from Mr. Spock. A serious question- do you actually know anybody who approaches things differently?
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Sept 20, 2013 13:24:49 GMT -5
A serious answer--yes, I know people who pretty much deduce all their specific opinions from a broader worldview.
I don't know how most people approach such things. I was only discussing my approach because it's the only one I know, and I thought I saw aspects of it that seemed inconsistent with the thesis that was being discussed.
|
|
|
Post by Fingerplucked on Sept 20, 2013 14:25:30 GMT -5
Well, this part I find interesting. My views on most political issues are reached by what is essentially a cost-benefit analysis. Facts that don't prompt any discernible emotions in me can change my assessment of the costs and benefits. Maybe I'm partly descended from Mr. Spock. You know you better than I know you, and Mr. Haidt knows this theory better than I do . . . Now that I think about it, I'm going to be the guy who knows the least about anything. But that won't stop me from offering an opinion. I suspect Haidt would point out that you're no Mr. Spock. If he hung out on the Soundhole he'd know you to be a smart guy with relatively moderate political views, but with a really crappy taste in history books. (Sorry, I'm still trying to get over that book on the rise of the west.) Earlier in the book he used two criteria to produce a two-dimensional graph and to locate people in one of four quadrants. (I'm sure you've seen similar graphs.) The criteria were empathy and systematic (I think). The stronger people relate to empathy, the more inclined they were to look at the big picture and to relate to emotions. The systematic people were more analytical and more inclined to immerse themselves in data, facts and detail. Based on what you said above, I think he'd rate you high on the systematic side in relation to empathy. Very few people showed up on the extremes. The only people without any empathy at all were mentally ill or brain damaged. They operate purely on reason and logic, but have trouble functioning because they cannot make the simplest decisions. They want to consider all the facts, but without feelings, they tend to give all facts equal weight and then get overwhelmed because the human brain is incapable of juggling more than 6 or 8 factors at a time. In short, I think Haidt would account for your approach with the innate human values that he is just beginning to discuss. (Listening to The Economist is eating into my Righteous Minds time - I'm falling behind.) I'm betting he'd say you too are feeling those intuitions and reacting to them before the higher brain functions kick in, but that part of your values include a reasoned approach. So you feel things just like the rest of us, but you then make an extra effort to toss things around, examine it, seek out new info, examine that, and so on. For example, House Republicans voted yesterday to cut funding for food stamps. Didn't you have an immediate reaction to that, before you finished reading even the first article? (I did.) By the end of the day you could have been the most knowledgeable person in the country on food stamps. You could have started off with a negative view of Republicans for cutting the program when you saw the headline and wound up understanding and agreeing with them by the time you finished your fifth article. But most of us have an immediate reaction to something like that, long before we've taken in anywhere near all the facts. Another thought: based on the title, I'm expecting to get a detailed theory of why the left sees things differently than the right. But if this book accounts for no one other than partisan lefties and righties, he's ignoring about eighty percent of the population. I'm trusting that that is not where this book is headed. I'll be disappointed if that's all I get.
|
|
|
Post by aquaduct on Sept 20, 2013 15:03:46 GMT -5
A serious answer--yes, I know people who pretty much deduce all their specific opinions from a broader worldview. I don't know how most people approach such things. I was only discussing my approach because it's the only one I know, and I thought I saw aspects of it that seemed inconsistent with the thesis that was being discussed. That's what I figured. I'm not so much concerned with the rational thought processes, but rather that you seem to think before drawing a conclusion as opposed to drawing the conclusion first and then trying to backfill it with rationalization which seems to be Haidt's premise. That would be what I would expect from most everybody as you noted. That doesn't make you Spock, it makes you what we like to call "normal".
|
|
|
Post by millring on Sept 20, 2013 15:16:47 GMT -5
A serious answer--yes, I know people who pretty much deduce all their specific opinions from a broader worldview. I don't know how most people approach such things. I was only discussing my approach because it's the only one I know, and I thought I saw aspects of it that seemed inconsistent with the thesis that was being discussed. That's what I figured. I'm not so much concerned with the rational thought processes, but rather that you seem to think before drawing a conclusion as opposed to drawing the conclusion first and then trying to backfill it with rationalization which seems to be Haidt's premise. But that's not exactly Haidt's premise. I think one way of expressing Haidt's perspective: He's making observations about a generalization that runs remarkably true. Look, for all the open-minded claims, the folks on this forum are pretty much perfect examples of at least the polarity he's addressing. For all the claims of moderation, there isn't any doubt -- after fifteen years of knowing each other -- on how most of us would vote. And curiously, the most adamantly NON-committed, open-minded moderates are the very most party-faithful. It's just that nobody who wants to think of himself as intellectual likes to be also thought of as predictable. But he is. Haidt's trying to explain why -- dwelling on the why, not the exceptions. (and, for a delicious irony, the very darting toward the exceptions to save your point is EXACTLY making his). And he does address how a change of mind is arrived at. Or at how a change of mind is arrived. He's just addressing why it seems so hard -- why it's not just a matter of presenting a person with facts. The favorite barb around here....I mean besides "I love it how..." or "Let me get this straight..." is "Don't confuse millring/aqualung/racistjeff with facts". That's all part of what Haidt's pointing out. We are under the illusion -- not just that we are following facts wherever they might take us -- but that the other side isn't following a different, possibly equally plausible set of facts. He's addressing how we might actually break through that barrier SO THAT facts might change opinions. Or something like that.
|
|
|
Post by Fingerplucked on Sept 20, 2013 15:20:00 GMT -5
Good post, John.
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Sept 20, 2013 15:25:47 GMT -5
Interesting thoughts, Jim. I shouldn't be challenging his point of view when I haven't read it. As for the book you disliked, I liked it so much that I reread it a couple of months ago. It's all taste.
|
|
|
Post by Fingerplucked on Sept 20, 2013 15:31:21 GMT -5
It's ok to challenge his theory. The bigger problem is that I'm only about a third of the way through the book, so I don't really know a lot of what's in there.
But I'll never forgive you for that book. I like you and all, but that book . . . I just don't know how you're ever going to make it up to me.
|
|
|
Post by millring on Sept 20, 2013 15:35:26 GMT -5
I might just add that the notion that the others unthinkingly follow the tribe, while I do not, is also exactly what Haidt would suspect a person to say.
It's like that study that came out earlier this year wherein they found out, much to their (the researcher's) surprise that those MOST educated/engaged politically were the ones MOST likely to believe falsehoods told about the opposing position-holder.
Haidt's pointing out that just maybe we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do. That, and in the final analysis we end up comforting ourselves with some notion of "righteousness" (we may call it "intellect") that actually functions as "I am better than those with whom I disagree". If we don't actually couch it in terms of "morality" we simply substitute "intellect" for "morality". And, thus, the wall of communication is further fortified.
And that's an epistemological handicap.
|
|
|
Post by Cornflake on Sept 20, 2013 15:49:46 GMT -5
"I like you and all, but that book . . . I just don't know how you're ever going to make it up to me." Maybe with a better recommendation. Have you tried the book of Leviticus? It's gripping.
|
|
|
Post by Supertramp78 on Sept 20, 2013 19:06:43 GMT -5
"For all the claims of moderation, there isn't any doubt -- after fifteen years of knowing each other -- on how most of us would vote."
Which I don't see as a valid way to judge whether someone is moderate. It just says that when facts with one of two options, we pick the one closest to us or avoid the one farthest away. Someone can be moderate and consistently vote one way or the other.
|
|
|
Post by millring on Sept 20, 2013 19:55:00 GMT -5
Another note: I can't be the only one who noticed (probably about ten years ago, 'cause I first noticed it on the original TTT) that when engaged in one of our online disagreements/arguments, it is actually counter-productive to make long posts that try to address an issue from all sides. There are a number of us who still cannot resist the temptation to do so -- to address a point of view as exhaustively as is possible within the context of a forum. Even so, I bet even those of us who so succumb, do the occasional forehead slap and the subsequent "Why did I DO that again?"....
....because almost without exception the response to the longest, most detailed post will be someone who is taking an opposing position picking out ONLY the weakest of the dozen points made, and addressing ONLY that point. Oh, we don't usually go as low as to criticize grammar or spelling in lieu of the actual content of the issue. But we'll do stuff that's not much less of a red herring.
That's exactly the "can/must" thing Haidt is talking about. We fish for the one thing that will allow us to dismiss what we "must" believe. And we'll cling to the finest thread that will allow us to continue believing what we want to believe -- like when someone else comes into a thread merely to either cheerlead our point of view, or trash our "opponent".
|
|
|
Post by RickW on Sept 20, 2013 20:33:45 GMT -5
I have come late to the party on this. An interesting discussion.
My take on morals, and common morality across cultures, is a simple one. I don't much believe in divinity giving me something at birth, and I do believe in Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is simply this: through a good deal of pain and hardship, people learn that violence quite often ends up in a long spiral of violence. "Family" values, that is, that support the family, provide a support mechanism when things go south, and a solid basis to procreate the species. Kindness does breed kindness in return. We are indeed clannish by nature, and on that I'm divided as to how much it's hardwired, and how much is simple self protection.
And John, have to agree on the long posts. It's sad, but true.
|
|