RE: Ideological blinders

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 20:05:26 MST

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    In

    http://www.extropy.org/exi-lists/extropians/0303/5162.html

    Hal Finney writes

    > Lee Corbin wrote, in another thread:

    > > We *all* have ideological blinders. Just some
    > > of us refuse to admit it, or aren't aware of it.

    > It's mundane, but we can start with the definition
    > of "ideology" from dictionary.com:

    > 1. The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an
    > individual, group, class, or culture.
    > 2. A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political,
    > economic, or other system.

    > In the crudest form, ideological blinders prevent someone from seeing and
    > thinking about facts which would contradict the ideology.

    The most important aspect to me is whether we can distinguish
    political ideologies---in their effects---from other systems
    of belief. For example, most of your analysis might equally
    well apply, it seems to me, to my convictions about
    certain scientific or historical matters. If we take some
    theory that I've been exposed to for a long time, e.g., the
    Copenhagen collapse of the wave function, and I persist for
    decades in being unconvinced by it, then so far as I can tell
    the case is quite similar to that of political ideology.

    > As part of the mechanism, the blinders are sometimes
    > imperceptible, so that the ideologue thinks he is
    > considering issues dispassionately and objectively.

    I have to ask, how do people manage to consider issues
    "dispassionately and objectively" when they've already
    consistently reached certain conclusions years ago?
    You could take the extreme case of scientists who cling
    to theories that they've espoused all their lives; but
    even without going that far, it inflicts almost tangible
    *pain* to be forced to discard a major belief you've
    held on to for years.

    Here is the reason for that: we all want to have some
    kind of understanding of our world, and if a significant
    chunk of your understanding is shown to be unsupportable,
    then you have this swimming sensation; almost as if
    years of work is being lost.

    > More often, I think, people are at least vaguely aware
    > that they have blinders, but they accept them. You often
    > hear people say things like, "my mind's made up about that,
    > I don't want to hear any more about it."

    You do?? Then we are not talking about the same thing.
    I very seldom hear anyone say that.

    Here is a description of how I think the "blinders" work.
    To take a crude example, let's suppose that contrary to
    "common sense", you acquire at an impressionable age the
    belief that the Earth circles the sun, instead of vice-
    versa. By and by, the rest of your scientific knowledge,
    indeed, perhaps a great deal of your general knowledge
    is influenced and conditioned on that "fact". Thus, in
    a very important way, all your information is being
    *filtered* by the supposition that the Earth circles the
    sun. You more or less systematically discard any information
    that arises---e.g., witnessing a particularly beautiful
    sunrise---that might in some way serve to contradict your
    conditioned hypothesis.

    Well, bottom line, I think that this is the way it is with
    political ideologies as well. Unlike scientific beliefs or
    historical facts, these do not lend themselves to ordinary
    modes of refutation, however. Ideologies are to a great
    extent based upon *values*, I contend. As such, they can
    never undergo complete invalidation.

    > So this raises the question, why do people accept ideologies that impose
    > blinders? Do they have any choice? Lee's quote above suggests that
    > we do not, that all ideologies impose blinders, and that (presumably)
    > we all have an ideology whether we know it or not. I'm not so sure,
    > but I won't push the point right now.

    I think that there are a great many people who do *not* have
    political ideologies per se. Often they're young. Others
    are simply disinterested in sociological issues or find
    political considerations boring. But the rest of us? We
    have beliefs that seem to me similar in durability to our
    most long-held beliefs about history or science. Most people
    reading this have some appreciation of the limitations of the
    viewpoint of Karl Marx. Therefore most of us adopt a much more
    skeptical stance when listening to arguments from a Marxian or
    Marxist point of view, than we would if listening to say, an
    explanation of current events from a Hayekian perspective.
    Is it because we sense (or we are just lazy?) that the Hayekian
    analysis will be less jarring to our present perception of the
    world?

    > However, as Extropians, I think we should take a different approach.
    > Our philosophy is not oriented towards comfort. Rather, it is constantly
    > involved in challenging the status quo. Extropianism is far from
    > mainstream, even though it has come a long way towards acceptance in
    > the past 15 years. Extropians should be willing to accept intellectual
    > challenge and be reluctant to take the easy road which most people follow.

    While, as I say, I think you and I are not talking here about
    the same thing, the "easy road" the way I look at it is almost
    nothing more than an application of Occam's Razor. Why should
    I attend to sincere and apparently sophisticated arguments from
    a Flat-Earther? The main reason is simply that if he were right,
    then I'd have to start from scratch with almost everything I
    believe!

    Where I *can* take a firm and immovable position ;-) is to reject
    utterly the viewpoint that some positions on the political
    spectrum represent common sense, moral rightness, appreciation
    of reality, and extensive knowledge, while other parts are
    symptomatic of ignorance, low morals (i.e. "mean-spiritedness"),
    lack of practicality, or stupidity.

    Yet those accusations---stupidity, "can't see the obvious", "are
    morally infirm", "lack common sense", "are based on ignorance", etc.,
    are exactly the reactions that one naturally *feels* when one's
    most basic understanding of the universe is questioned. The
    blinders---and I do think they're real---have their most telling
    effect when they force some people to conclude that their political
    and ideological adversaries simply are stupid, ignorant, or immoral.

    Lee

    P.S. I wish also to address Peter McCluskey's recent comments
    but will do so in another post.



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