Steve, This is, of course, the inherent weakness of the socially liberal position*, right? Either you become a hypocrite, or you must agree with your antagonist's right to passionately hate your ideas. The person arguing against you has no such handicap. The cards are thus stacked from the beginning against the maintenance of a tolerant society, and some decent amount of planning and effort is needed to keep things stable.
Hey... that almost looks like something we could make a really good model of. You could certainly add several layers of real-world, empirically valid complexity on top of standard altruism models. Eric *The extra adjective is there because this is irrelevant to the financially liberal position. On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 12:37 PM, Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > Marcus - > > Very thoughtful summary and analysis. I *am* hopeful that the >intelligentsia of the world (of the West?) can somehow reason their >way >through the world's problems to some solutions. We here >(FRAIM-at-large) might be in some way a microcosm of that. > >My snide remark in response to Roger's (also thoughtful and >insightful) >analysis of the Dawkins/Hitchens/et alia thingy was in reaction to my >fear that (as Roger puts it) appearing to "all be reasonable >men" in >fact they might actually be as fervently unthinking as those they are >trying to "fix". > >One theme of my chiding here (usually of Doug) revolves around a form >of >hypocrisy that I, at least, find somewhere between difficult and >impossible to avoid. The epitome of this is "intolerance of >intolerance". It seems to be an example of Godel's Incompleteness. If >there any intuitively obvious allowance for intolerance it would seem to >be intolerance *of* intolerance, yet opening that door risks scope creep >on our subjects of intolerance. > >The Irony of Hitchens and company declaring Jihad on Islam itself was >too rich to skip over. I find your (Marcus') analysis here an >antidote >to my knee-jerk reasoning on the topic. Thanks for talking me off that >ledge (if only incidentally). > >- Steve >> On 9/26/2012 7:02 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: >> But start at 1:54:00 and listen to the last three minutes and >> fourteen seconds, and give me your interpretation. >> Around 1:47:30 Dawkins makes remark about finding out the "fact of >the >> matter". And how "passionate" he was about it. This >leads to >> Hitchens asserting that all religions are equally wrong, and that the >> menace of religion coming from the "surrender of the mind" >> >> I think an unstated psychological distinction is between `getting to >> truth Z' vs. `denying yourself truths A-Y'. To see anything like the >> truth in the natural world one must attempt to mask every bias and >> only to realize the truth will still be, even after extensive >> falsification, ambiguous. Having nothing nailed down is just more >> difficult and stressful. (Constrained views of the world apparently >> do make people happy -- >> http://pewresearch.org/assets/social/pdf/AreWeHappyYet.pdf .) But >> having the drive to some arbitrary Z has a psychological property seen >> in religion: belief without evidence. In this view, the surrender of >> the mind is also a sort of character weakness. Meanwhile, scientific >> culture even advocates pigheaded sloppiness known as the hypothesis. >> >> Hitchens goes on to talk about the distinction of offending one Muslim >> vs. a billion of them -- or rather why anyone would see the former as >> equivalent to the latter. It would be weakness to decide the merit >> of an idea based on the implied threats of an unthinking group; it's >> important to be prepared to go it alone. Just to prove he means it, he >> takes shots at more religions. (Mostly for dramatic effect, I'd say, >> but fair enough anyway.) >> >> Toward the end, what I think he's worrying about is the possibility >> that the greater (world) population just can't do without having >some >> stupid fairy tale to stick to (and especially to stick to each >> other). Since he equates religious thinking to disease contagion, >he >> clearly envisions a future where the fervent outnumber the sober. He >> only suggests one scenario, though. Part of what makes the U.S. >> government act is defense of secularism, the Constitution, and all >> that. Another part is that unleashed fervor is bad for business -- >> like when it involves valuable natural resources. Hitchens mentions >> the U.S. military as a likely appeal, but not other powerful secular >> actors of Asia that have their own interests to protect, and could be >> pretty nasty about it if they were so inclined. "Recess is over -- >> now put down that book of holy words and get your lazy *ss down to the >> factory, would you?" (I just knew globalization must have some >> benefit!) >> >> Marcus >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > >============================================================ >FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ------------ Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
