tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65622170949747616362024-03-13T09:36:45.129-04:00Check Your PremisesThinking Critically About Ayn Rand's ObjectivismHenry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-25631490517594231522024-03-12T00:13:00.002-04:002024-03-13T09:35:43.756-04:00Robert J. Bidinotto's Post: FROM EMOTIONS, TO NARRATIVES, TO IDEOLOGIES -- and my Response<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Below I’m sharing a post by Robert J. Bidinotto. Robert has been influential in Objectivist circles since the 1980s. Before turning to writing a series of thrillers he served as editor-in-chief of The Atlas Society’s monthly magazine of politics and culture, The New Individualist. Robert and I met in college in the early 1970s when he introduced me to the work of Ayn Rand. Robert’s Facebook post starts below followed by my response. </span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">ROBERT’S POST: </span><a href="https://bidinotto.blogspot.com/2024/03/from-emotions-to-narratives-to.html" style="font-family: verdana;">FROM EMOTIONS, TO NARRATIVES, TO IDEOLOGIES</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">.</span></span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">In intellectual circles, it is common to believe that ideology is a decisive social force on its own -- that abstract philosophical systems underlie societies and cultures; and that to change a society, you need only promulgate a different philosophy/ideology.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Of course, intellectuals *want* to believe in the decisive "power of ideas," because as promulgators of ideas, this belief confirms their lofty view of their own social importance and power. And certainly the connection of ideologies to societies, movements, and governments is obvious and undeniable -- which is why I used to accept this conventional view, too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But a lifetime of promoting philosophical ideas has caused me to reconsider my views about the role of philosophy/ideology in human life and society. Introspection, observation of people close to me, and sobering realizations about how marginal and fleeting the impacts of philosophical persuasion, by myself and by many other skilled communicators, have been -- all of that has led me to conclude that personal and cultural change is much more complicated than simply spreading the "right" philosophical ideas.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Summarized simply, I believe...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">...that the vast majority of people, including intellectuals, are actually driven not by ideas, but by emotions, often fairly crude ones, rooted in values, often only implicit;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">...that over time, these values-laden emotions, if widely shared, are transformed into Narratives -- into inspiring popular myths, legends, and stories -- which provide explanations and justifications for those feelings;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">...that only later do the more intellectual believers in these emotionally appealing, values-laden stories, myths, and Narratives try to buttress them with more sophisticated, abstract theoretical rationalizations -- i.e., with explanatory philosophies, ideologies, theologies, etc. The intellectuals do this to flesh out and support the core themes and underlying motives of their Narratives, granting them the social weight and gravitas of an "intellectual" image and justification.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">You see that pattern historically with every creed that has attracted significant followings and becomes a mass movement. They start with a set of core emotions, driven by values broadly shared across a large social group; then follows the development of a popular mythology that dramatizes and evokes the group's shared emotions and values; and finally comes a complex theoretical rationalization for the mythological Narrative (and its values-driven emotions), crafted by the social group's intellectuals. In this last stage, the abstract system can take on a life of its own: it is taught and promoted in "movement" schools and texts, to which believers cling tightly, because it offers reassuring intellectual support and explanations for their underlying feelings and Narratives.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But the foundational appeal of philosophical, ideological, or theological systems does not lie in their theoretical abstractions themselves; pure abstractions carry no emotional appeal or motivational power. Instead, the believers' commitments are fundamentally to their core Narrative -- to the explanatory mythology or story -- and to the emotions and values it embodies and evokes. All that the theoretical abstractions offer are rationalizations and reassurance that the story is valid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">This explains why you can so often argue with someone using reason, logic, and overwhelming facts, until you are blue in the face, and get nowhere. Or why a person's "intellectual" commitments can seem so shallow and fleeting. Or why politicians and dictators rely so heavily on storytelling about their target constituencies' collective "identity," in the form of a high-stakes drama about villains (their political adversaries), victims (their constituents), and heroic rescuers (themselves). Or why a person's (or society's) "conversion" requires not just a new ideological argument, but instead begins with an emotional upheaval rooted in profound personal dissatisfaction with the status quo -- and which then leads to a confrontation with some appealing new Narrative that promises the dissatisfied individual a fresh identity: a meaningful new life role and purpose. The philosophical argument then comes along as a reassuring explanation for the wisdom of the conversion; but it alone is not the motivator of the conversion.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Let me emphasize that an abstract philosophy *can* serve legitimate and important purposes. It does not have to offer merely a sophistic rationalization for a bogus Narrative. If the Narrative is grounded in reality, then philosophy can provide a valid *rationale* for it. A rationale differs from a rationalization, because the former is true (based on reality), while the latter is false. And a valid rationale can flesh out our understanding, teasing out many important and helpful implications of the Narrative.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">But, to sum up, I now believe that personal persuasion and cultural change require us to effectively present a compelling alternative Narrative to those people open to its emotional appeal. Not everyone is -- not by a long shot. People who are emotionally committed to a Narrative that defines them, their identity, and their life purpose -- but which is hostile to one's own values -- aren't going to change, no matter how skilled and logical your presentation of facts and arguments. Abstract arguments will never penetrate the emotional/values barriers surrounding a contrary Narrative. Even a compelling counter-Narrative will not prove persuasive unless the target of your communication is already deeply dissatisfied with his own, and thus searching for (or at least open to) a fresh worldview.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">One corollary point, and it's important. I believe people with good values, and correspondingly good emotions, will be attracted to good Narratives -- and perhaps later, to good philosophies. The fact that they, too, are "Narrative-driven" is *not* necessarily a bad thing: it doesn't mean they are *irrationally* driven. If a kid is raised without any explicit philosophy, or even a bad one, yet becomes enamored of heroes in TV shows, movies, and comic books (oops, "graphic novels"), and then, inspired, goes on to do great things - - is that irrational?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">To my Objectivist friends, I would point out that I've just described the childhood-to-adulthood trajectory of your heroine, Ayn Rand, if you know anything about her autobiography. After all, *she* didn't start out with a conceptual philosophical understanding of the world; she started out, in the hellish environment of post-revolutionary Soviet Russia, simply as a brilliant child who became captivated by heroic literature and movies. That *emotional* orientation, driven by some core values she didn't understand at the time, were sufficient to propel her on a remarkable journey to becoming, as an adult, a storyteller and philosopher whose worldview was opposite everything around her.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">And those values-driven emotions first took form as a romantic Narrative of heroic individualism. That Narrative was a core part of her character by the time she reached her early teens. Rand didn't even encounter Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, and other thinkers who influenced her philosophical thinking until college -- by which time *her character and sense of life was already formed*. Her systematic philosophy did not fully take form until she was middle-aged, during the writing of ATLAS SHRUGGED; and I would argue that she managed to become a heroic individualist long before figuring it all out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Again, Rand's life and character were shaped indelibly and enduringly by a Narrative -- not by abstract philosophy or ideology. If that is true of her, then how can it not be true of others? Do we need formal, systematic philosophy in order to be rational, honest, independent, just, and productive? Were there no such people on Planet Earth before Rand incorporated those virtues formally into her Objectivist system?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I commend to you her book THE ROMANTIC MANIFESTO, especially its opening chapters, where -- in words different from mine here, but I believe very similar in meaning -- she explains the enormous power of stories, of Narratives, in shaping the human soul and our world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">--------------------------------------------</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>MY RESPONSE</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I agree with your position on this. I’d add a couple corollary points that don’t contradict yours. (At least I don’t think they do!)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">1.</span> <span style="font-family: verdana;">We are influenced by dozens of subconscious cognitive biases such as confirmation bias. We think we’re being objective without realizing how much of what we believe is influenced by these biases.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">2. Once we form our favored narratives, we tend to get our news from sources that reflect these narratives and discount someone who cites sources considered untrustworthy. This becomes a self-supporting cycle in which people consume news only from their trusted sources and don’t expose themselves to other sources. For instance, I’ve seen arguments between a liberal who cites CNN while the conservative who relies on Fox. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">3. We also have different languages. Arnold Kling’s book The Three Languages of Politics explains how liberals see things in terms of the oppressed versus the oppressors. Conservatives see the world as a conflict of civilization (law and order) versus barbarism. And libertarians think everything boils down to freedom versus coercion.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">4. While we have our rational side we still are influenced by our evolutionary tribal roots. As a result, we often see the world in terms of “us versus them.” (The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff identifies three “untruths” that many of our current youth have accepted: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">When discussing issues with people who I know don’t share my framework I’ve tried to come up with an approach that plants a seed of doubt. I’ve collected information from sources I think the person I’m talking to is more likely to accept to get them to open their mind a crack. It takes some work but it can be done!</span></p><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><br /><p></p>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-32599257419329440302023-06-26T15:33:00.002-04:002023-06-26T15:33:31.609-04:00Gell-Mann Amnesia: What is it?<p> <span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I recently learned about a term created by Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, Jaws and Andromeda Strain. He identified something he labeled the Gell-Mann Amnesia. (Crichton named it after a friend, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann who discovered and named the quark.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.”</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I have seen amnesia in action with people I know. As an example, I know a married couple who are devout Catholics. They distrust the reporting of The Boston Globe because they believe the Globe harbors an anti-Catholic bias. Yet they believe everything else the Globe says! I guess the Globe is biased only on one subject. Right?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I think there is another version of Gell-Mann Amnesia. Here is an example. During the Trump administration the media harped endlessly on his alleged collusion with Russia. When the Mueller report showed that there were no such ties, the people I know who bought into the Russia-gate story conveniently forgot how they were misled for years then move on to the next story. Their faith in their trusted news sources remains intact.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-47264614322038740452023-05-01T10:59:00.000-04:002023-05-01T10:59:07.722-04:00Tucker Carlson: Should We Care That He Is Off The Air?<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">A friend posted his reaction to Fox pulling Tucker Carlson’s show off the air by saying that he will shed no tears over his departure. Why? Because Carlson didn’t advocate individualism, free markets or limited government but represents “right-wing tribalism” and a push for conservative big government. Several other people expressed their agreement for my friend’s position.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Why do I bring this up here? Why should Objectivists or libertarians care? I’ll get to that later but first want to give my initial thoughts on Carlson’s silencing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">My opinion of Carlson isn’t quite as negative as my friend’s. I won’t shed tears for Tucker either but for a different reason. He probably will land on a platform where his audience will be even larger (like Joe Rogan who has an audience at least three times larger than Carlson’s) and will make much more money. (However, will he have as much influence?) What bothers me is how Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) openly called for taking Tucker off the air and, for whatever reason, Fox complied. (I’ve heard various theories what lead to his sudden silencing. My guess is that it was a combination of factors.) I find it interesting too that Schumer or AOC aren’t demanding Fox to remove Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or Jesse Watters. It bothers me that I haven’t seen much dismay among those who posted on my friend’s Facebook page about Carlson. I don’t feel bad for Carlson; I’m more concerned about the concerted effort to silence people who question the dominant narratives.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Despite his flaws, Tucker played an important role in challenging and questioning many of the narratives pushed by the Left and their media cheerleaders. He questioned or revealed Biden's financial ties to China (Tony Bobulinsky interviews), DEI's (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) adverse impact on meritocracy in the fields of airline piloting, medicine and corporate America, the incestuous relationship between pharma, government and media in pushing the vaccines and lockdowns while silencing and de-platforming doctors who disagreed, and the shady collusion between the various Federal agencies and Twitter (plus other social media platforms) to suppress mostly conservative voices. (Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, who Elon Musk recruited to produce the “Twitter files,” call this relationship the Censorship Industrial Complex. Shellenberger and Taibbi have been guests on Tucker’s show.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">None of the other mainstream media outlets said a peep about Bobulinsky or the Twitter files. Carlson’s shows on the January 6th protest/riot revealed a different version than what we were told by other media; his revelation of video on what happened when Jacob Chansley [“QAnon Shaman”] was inside the Capitol ultimately led to his release from prison. Chansley’s lawyer didn’t have access to this video before Carlson’s show.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Yes, Carlson has questioned our involvement in the Ukraine war, has talked about the claims of Zelensky’s corruption and the lack of accounting for how the funds and military hardware we sent are being used. Even if we endorse supporting the Ukraine militarily, concerns about Zelensky’s regime and lack of accounting for what is being done with our military equipment shouldn’t be minimized or ignored.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I'm not saying Carlson is an individualist or even a free marketer. I'd say he is a conservative populist. I know from watching Carlson he believes we have a uni-party government consisting of elites who impose laws and regulations that affect us but not them. So, OK, Carlson could argue that these perks for the elites should be stopped. Agree. But since the elite control the levers of government is that likely? Probably not. So, I speculate that Carlson argues instead for policies that could benefit the middle class. In principle, I disagree because it doesn't address the cause of the problem. As a practical matter, I don't like the idea, but I don't think it's cause to claim Carlson is the enemy and a Luddite.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">According to Megyn Kelly, Carlson wasn't fired. His show was taken off the air while Carlson is still under contract which was renewed in 2021 and expires in 2024. There is speculation that this was done to muzzle Carlson so that he won't influence the 2024 election. In any case, Carlson and his executive producer supposedly contacted a lawyer to work out a deal with Fox to end his contract.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">In evaluating Tucker Carlson, we need to weigh his positives and negatives. Others have covered the negatives, so I won’t repeat them here. I’d narrow Carlson’s positives to two themes. One, his concern over the breakdown of civilization. Two, his desire to protect free speech. (They are interconnected.) We can yearn for someone advocating individualism to take his place. I don’t see anyone coming to the rescue, and I’m not holding my breath! Meanwhile you can tell that, despite his flaws, Tucker was effective when you see the paroxysms of glee his departure has spawned on the left.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">You've heard the saying that the perfect is the enemy of the good. It seems that some Objectivists think we should dump (or dump on) Carlson because isn't a perfect representative of our side and therefore there is nothing good about him. To me this is like the position Rand and some of her followers took about dealing with libertarians. I recall that they chastised David Kelly for giving a talk at a libertarian event.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">What can we learn from Carlson’s influence? He argued strongly and with moral conviction against the trends such as the push to favor diversity over merit. Whether or not we agree with Carlson’s moral principles we can see that his passionate moral stand made a difference. Objectivists certainly have moral passion on their side! Moreover, Carlson marshalled facts and arguments, leavened with sarcasm and mockery, to punch holes in the various narratives. It’s not enough just to claim you have the moral high ground. You need to build up to that moral high ground with facts and logic.</span></p><p></p>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-4881626759696840282022-11-30T13:37:00.000-05:002022-11-30T13:37:31.892-05:00Scott Adams on Censorship and Voting<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert and host of daily video blog Coffee With Scott Adams on YouTube and Locals) posted this</span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1597603913275940864?s=20&t=VI3fb7XFE-ZtOmEZwDFoag" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;" target="_blank">tweet</a><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">with a provocative thesis.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Censorship determines the narrative. The narrative determines public opinion. Public opinion determines the vote. The vote determines who runs the country.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We have replaced voting with battles over who gets censored.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In response I posted this:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote>Behind the censorship is the postmodern idea that those who have the most power can decide and determine what is true.</blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Although I agree with Adams, I think he doesn’t go back far enough to the source of the censorship. The censorship Adams talks about doesn’t spring out of nothing like the Big Bang. We need to identify the beliefs that people use to justify imposing censorship that prevents certain ideas from being expressed or facts from being uncovered.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I believe postmodernism plays a role in many issues. I summarize postmodernism as the belief that there is no objective truth. Therefore, “truth” is determined by those who have the most power over the tools of communication such as social media, news media and over our language which includes the meanings of words and what is considered acceptable uses of these words. (There are some who claim that even silence can be oppressive because if you don’t vocally repudiate something that means you secretly support the “offensive” idea.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Therefore, I now use the term “partial news” when referring to the news media. (I know, it's not as catchy as Trump's "fake news." I’m also thinking of using “skewed news.”) Here the word “partial” has two meanings. The first meaning refers only part of the story being told so that leads us to the conclusion they want us to reach. The second meaning refers to our news outlets as being partial rather than being impartial (i.e., objective). Postmodernism lies behind this because postmodernists believe there is no objective truth. When the truth and facts no longer serve as a yardstick, your political agenda takes over. News stories can then be crafted to steer us to a predetermined conclusion rather than presenting other sides of the story. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-52571445283943417672021-11-01T12:45:00.003-04:002021-11-01T12:45:29.809-04:00Learn to Think with the Best of Them<p> <span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is the title of a section in Peter T. Coleman’s The Way Out: How To Overcome Toxic Polarization. Coleman’s book strives to show ways to deal with the strident difference of opinion we see all around us. I’ve chosen to put on long quote that I like. It relates to my July 29 post, Favorite Twitter Follows/Examples of Objective Thinkers. I believe many of the names in the table of that post present good examples of people with whom I don’t necessarily agree with but feel they strive to be objective. Prime examples would be Scott Adams, Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">As creatures of habit in a highly polarized era, most of us tend to follow the rule, “move toward similar others and away from different.” We are automatically inclined to surround ourselves with and therefore think with similar others who share “congenial information” versus “uncongenial information” – simply because it is easier and more comforting.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">…</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Most of us tend to close ranks and prefer to listen to those we mostly agree with during such tense times (it just feels so good!). This tendency to move toward the similar is intensified by the internet sorting algorithms employed today by many of the major technology platforms that automatically direct us to news, information, and opinion content that is complimentary to our own. This all serves to significantly reduce the nuance and accuracy of our understanding of complicated issues.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">One check on this echo-chamber effect is to actively choose to think and learn with different people; that is, intentionally choose to hear from people across the divide. No, it does not mean that you need to tune into the nut jobs on talk radio and cable TV that spout nonsense and conspiracy theories. But it does suggest that there is much to gain from seeking out the best representatives of people you disagree with and thinking through complex issues (although not necessarily agreeing) with them.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">…</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">So, if you are interested in gaining a more accurate understanding of a particular issue, learn to seek out the best thought leaders on the other side. [Emphasis added.]</span></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I’d say there is another reason to do this: to test our beliefs. Someone who disagrees with you might present information we hadn’t considered when reaching our position or they might reveal a potential weakness in our argument. It doesn’t mean we have to ditch our position; it might mean acknowledging that we need to tweak it.</span></div><div><br /></div>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-35882448720200262002021-10-04T10:11:00.000-04:002021-10-04T10:11:57.978-04:00New Neuroscience Reveals 7 Secrets That Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent - Barking Up The Wrong Tree<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2021/10/conflict/">New Neuroscience Reveals 7 Secrets That Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent - Barking Up The Wrong Tree</a>: Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes</span><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Eric Barker who wrote Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong also has a blog where he shares his insights based on Barker’s research. I recommend his book. I also recommend reading his summary of another book which I read recently. It’s Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes by Ian Leslie.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I’ve been reading several books lately on how to overcome the extreme polarization we see, particularly in politics. So far, I haven’t come across anything in these books that I found to be earthshaking, “eureka!” insights. But there is one that I believe deserves promoting; Eric Barker agrees. He devotes a long blog post to capturing the key points of Conflicted. Below I’ve provided Barker’s summary of these key points. I debated whether to do this because you might read the summary below and think, “Eh, what’s the big deal?” If so, I invite you to read Barker’s entire post to get a better idea what is behind these key points.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Without further ado, here is the final section of Barker’s post.</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Sum Up</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">This is how to have emotionally intelligent disagreements:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Remember The Relationship</b>: Enemies don’t say, “You are right. I am wrong.” Friends do.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>De-Escalate</b>: If your disputes sound even half as snarky as my writing, you’re doing it wrong.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Stop Trying To Control What They Think Or Feel</b>: When their autonomy is threatened, people attack or shut down.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Help Them Make Their Argument Stronger</b>: If you can’t disprove the best version of their argument, then you’re not “right”, you’re just playing tricks. And, more importantly, “steelmanning” shows you’re listening and that you’re sincere. <i>[HCS comment: steelmanning is the opposite of using a straw man argument in which we purposely oversimplify or exaggerate someone’s argument in order to discount it. Steelmanning involves trying to strengthen the argument of your conversational partner before trying to rebut it.]</i></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Disrupt The Script</b>: Constructive conversations have ups and downs. Don’t escalate tension. Make a joke or say something positive.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Get Curious</b>: So those aliens that talk to you, do they give good advice?</span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Help Them Question Their Own Thinking</b>: Therapists don’t say: “That’s ridiculous. Where in your brain did the stroke occur for you to have an idea so stupid?” No, they ask questions until you start to question your own thinking and it crosses the blood-brain barrier that what you’ve been saying is the equivalent of 2+2=147.</span></li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div></div>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-84434493046090886582021-07-29T22:34:00.001-04:002021-08-03T22:17:19.731-04:00Examples of (mostly) objective thinkers<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> If you read this blog regularly you know that I like to keep track of people who try to think objectively. Those who do are hard to pigeonhole into the usual categories such as liberal or conservative, global warmer or warming skeptic, true news or fake news, and so on. Some of the people on the list below, such as Tucker Carlson and Bill Maher, clearly fall into one category or another. Carlson is a conservative while Maher is liberal. However, both of them sometimes take unexpected positions on some subjects. Carlson has taken on the Republican establishment at times while Maher has strongly criticized Islam and the COVID shutdowns. Given my libertarian leanings I agree with Carlson more than I do with Maher. Nonetheless I follow Maher partly because he reveals the direction the left is taking but mostly because he occasionally breaks ranks with his colleagues (and takes heat for it).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">In the climate change debate Judith Curry has expressed concerns over those who claim global warming is man-made. While she says we do have some affect Curry believes the true story is more complicated. Same with Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Shellenberger, both of whom believe we affect the climate but think the people who try to scare us into drastic action on global warming grossly simplify the true story.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi are on the left, yet Greenwald fears the push to control free speech by some on his side of the fence. Taibbi, who hated Trump, feels the objectivity of the news media vaporized in the heat of their hatred for Trump.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Below I’ve picked my favorites out of the 900+ people and organizations I follow on Twitter and put my absolute favorites in bold. If I ranked them in order of priority it would be Scott Adams, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Turley. </span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="t1" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 563.5px;"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Category</b></span></p></td><td class="td2" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Name</b></span></p></td><td class="td3" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Twitter Handle</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Climate Change</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Bjorn Lomborg</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@BjornLomborg</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Climate Change</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Judith Curry</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@curryja</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Climate Change</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Michael Shellenberger</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@ShellenbergerMD</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>COVID</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Alex Berenson</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@AlexBerenson</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">COVID</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Ethical Skeptic</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@EthicalSkeptic</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">COVID</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Gummi Bear</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@gummibear737</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Critical Thinking</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Peter Boghossian</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@peterboghossian</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Free speech</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Glenn Greenwald</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@ggreenwald</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>General</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Andreas Backhaus</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@AndreasShrugged</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">General</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Critical Thinking 101</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@critical18495985</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>General</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Greg Lukianoff</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@glukianoff</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">General</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Hotep Jesus</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@HotepJesus</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>General</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Jonathan Haidt</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@JonHaidt</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>General</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Jonathan Turley</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@JonathanTurley</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>General</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Jordan Peterson</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@jordanbpeterson</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">General</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Megan McArdle</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@asymmetricinfo</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">General</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Mike Cernovich</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@Cernovich</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>General</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Scott Adams</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@ScottAdamsSays</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">General</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Steve Hilton</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@SteveHiltonx</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">General</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Steve Pinker</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@sapinker</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">General</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Bari Weiss</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@bariweiss</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">News Bias</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">AllSides</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@AllAidesNew</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">News Bias</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Ground News</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@Ground_app</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">News Bias</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Just The News</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@JustTheNews</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">News Bias</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Left Right News</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@leftrightnewsus</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">News Bias</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Sharyl Attkisson</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@SharylAttkisson</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">News/Politics</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Martin Gurri</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@mgurri</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>News/Politics</b></span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Matt Taibbi</b></span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>@mtaibbi</b></span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Personal Development</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Naval</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@naval</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Politics</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Alan Dershowitz</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@AlanDersh</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Politics</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Bill Maher</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@billmaher</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Politics</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Dave Rubin</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@RubinReport</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Politics</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Greg Gutfeld</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@greggutfeld</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Politics</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Tucker Carlson</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@TuckerCarlson</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Race</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">John McWhorter</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@JohnHMcWhorter</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Reporting</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Andy Ngo</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@MrAndyNgo</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Reporting</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Jack Posobiec</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@JackPosobiec</span></p></td></tr><tr><td class="td4" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 151.9px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Reporting</span></p></td><td class="td5" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 170.6px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Lara Logan</span></p></td><td class="td6" style="border-color: transparent rgb(0, 0, 0) rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px; padding: 0px 7.2px; width: 194.8px;" valign="bottom"><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 18.7px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">@laralogan</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span></p><br />Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-73582417603256207972021-02-16T20:12:00.000-05:002021-02-16T20:12:22.178-05:00Marcuse-Anon: Cult of the Pseudo-Intellectual - TK News by Matt Taibbi<span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://taibbi.substack.com/p/marcuse-anon-cult-of-the-pseudo-intellectual?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMDAyMDUxLCJwb3N0X2lkIjozMjQ4MTIyMCwiXyI6IkNsOUQ5IiwiaWF0IjoxNjEzNTE4NDUzLCJleHAiOjE2MTM1MjIwNTMsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMDQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.qF9NtyJzGWBMHBqsopqVVU8D0nMRh_2BcSjEqjDeKjk">Marcuse-Anon: Cult of the Pseudo-Intellectual - TK News by Matt Taibbi</a>: Reviewing "Repressive Tolerance" and other works by Herbert Marcuse, the quack who became America’s most influential thinker</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">We hear a lot about what is called the “Cancel Culture” and wokeism, especially from those on the political right who see these forces as threatening our civilization with its law and order. I’ve seen many on the right such as Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity bemoan this destructive trend but without offering a good explanation why this is happening or what can be done to stop it. For explanations of the ideas behind these forces of deconstruction I recommend Stephen Hicks’ book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault and Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I would now add Marcuse-Anon: Cult of the Pseudo-Intellectual, an insightful essay by Matt Taibbi, who writes for Rolling Stone and wrote books such as Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another. Taibbi comes from a journalist background and is politically on the left. However, I’d say he is closer to being a traditional liberal than a progressive one. His essay builds a case for explaining a lot of what is happening stems from Herbert Marcuse, a Marxist philosopher. My blog post won’t be able to do justice to Taibbi’s article, so I won’t try to summarize his argument or key points here. Instead, I’ll share some key quotes that stood out.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Here are selected quotes from different parts of the essay.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Most Americans have never heard of him — he died in 1979 — but his ideas today are ubiquitous as Edison’s lightbulbs. He gave us everything from “Silence Equals Violence” to “Too Much Democracy” to the “Crisis of Misinformation” to In Defense of Looting to the 1619 Project and Antiracist Baby, and from the grave has cheered countless recent news stories, from the firing of Mandalorian actress Gina Corano to the erasure of raw footage of the Capitol riot from YouTube.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">He was the real-world embodiment of Orwell’s utopian linguists who were impatient to rid the world of all those annoying words for shades of difference. Once you have a lock on “good,” why bother litigating degrees of its opposite? Bad is bad. He thought in binary pairs, and freely conflated concepts like inadequacy, misgovernment, and indifference with cruelty, repression, persecution, and terror, a habit of mind that’s inspired a generation of catastrophizing neurotics who genuinely don’t know the difference between disagreement and an attempt on their lives.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">We saw it in health officials who went from condemning anti-lockdown protests to, a week or two later, declaring that racism — not on their radar prior to the murder of George Floyd — was a “lethal public health issue” superseding the pandemic. We saw it with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez applying the transitive property of whatever nineteen times over to make Ted Cruz’s decision to refuse certification of the Electoral College mean he was “trying to murder me” and “almost had me murdered.” Same with the New York Times employees who declared their lives were thrust in peril by soon-to-be-fired editor James Bennet’s decision to run an editorial by Senator Tom Cotton.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Summing up, this is a theory of an intellectual elite forced to seize absolute power on behalf of racial minorities, the disabled, and other oppressed groups, while canceling free speech and civil rights for all others, and especially for the corrupted mass of working-class people, who are no friends of the revolution but actually ignorant conservatives obstructing the road to “pacification and liberation.” Does this sound familiar?</span></div></blockquote><div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It does indeed sound all too familiar!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I find Taibbi’s respect for facts and objectivity refreshing so I always look forward to his commentary and analysis, even when I disagree with him. These disagreements give me the chance to test my beliefs.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><br /></div></div>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-15618013810462775012021-01-03T11:36:00.002-05:002021-01-03T11:36:29.528-05:00'Loserthink' by Scott Adams - Narrative Corrections<a href="https://josephcaskey.substack.com/p/loserthink-by-scott-adams">'Loserthink' by Scott Adams - Narrative Corrections</a><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">One of the people I follow on Twitter and locals.com is Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert and trained hypnotist who specializes in persuasion. Adams runs a daily video blog where he offers his unique perspective on current events. He is one of the few people who predicted that Trump would win the 2016 presidential election based on what Adams saw in Trump’s methods of persuasion.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I’ve been meaning to review his most recent book, Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America, but the post by Joseph Caskey in the link above does a nice job covering the key points.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">What exactly is Loserthink? Per Adams, “Loserthink isn’t about being dumb, and it isn’t about being underinformed. Loserthink is about unproductive ways of thinking.” An example of Loserthink: mind-reading where we claim to know what another person is thinking then “refuting” that thought or intention.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Caskey’s review mentions a couple others such as the slippery slope argument but doesn’t mention one that I see all the time: using analogies to make predictions. Adams gives an example in this interview with Sharyl Attkisson.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I highly recommend Caskey’s review as well as Adams’ Loserthink and his other books. Check out Scott’s Twitter feed (@ScottAdamsSays) and his locals.com community (https://scottadams.locals.com/).</span></div><div><br /></div></div>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-13870036972683914632020-06-14T20:03:00.001-04:002020-06-14T20:03:19.087-04:00ROBERT BIDINOTTO: The Real Meaning of "Natural Rights"<a href="https://bidinotto.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-real-meaning-of-natural-rights.html?fbclid=IwAR2_v_mlOHt9ZqnGPVq3aYFVXZFevQ2DFofeNx9R4HORydPJgPXj0Hvi2lg"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ROBERT BIDINOTTO: The Real Meaning of "Natural Rights"</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Robert Bidinotto posted this on Facebook in reaction to those who are concerned about the restrictions the government imposed to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus. </span>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-61783324425905196122020-06-14T18:53:00.002-04:002020-06-14T18:53:53.663-04:00Dave Rubin On Where Liberals And Conservatives Can Agree, And Can't<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This review in the Federalist of Dave Rubin's Don't Burn This Book provides a balanced explanation of his "classical liberalism."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/13/dave-rubin-on-where-liberals-and-conservatives-can-agree-and-where-they-cant/">Dave Rubin On Where Liberals And Conservatives Can Agree, And Can't</a></span>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-4525244407344602182020-06-13T16:15:00.001-04:002020-06-13T16:15:35.399-04:00Left vs. Right = Empathy vs. respect?<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One of the people I follow closely is Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and author of several books such as his latest, Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America. Adams was </span><a href="https://youtu.be/L47qECorr8I" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt;">interviewed</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> recently by Hotep Jesus about the protests and riots triggered by the death of George Floyd. I found the interview to be filled with fascinating insights by both Scott and Hotep. While they didn’t agree 100% I liked how the respected each other’s viewpoint. I also was impressed with Scott’s reaction when Hotep said something that Scott didn’t necessarily agree with or didn’t understand the point Hotep was making. Instead of going on the defensive Scott asked Hotep something like “What does that look like?” which got Hotep to flesh out in clearer terms what he was truing to say. It was more like a true conversation than a traditional interview.</span></div>
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Scott commented on Hotep’s claim that Republicans’ and conservatives’ lack of empathy doesn’t resonate with blacks. If I recall correctly Scott said the right emphasizes respect more than empathy and that they suspect those who talk about empathy because it could be used to subvert the rule of law (which the right says protects civilization from collapsing into barbaric chaos).<o:p></o:p></div>
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This comment reminded me of an article Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, posted: “<a href="https://righteousmind.com/where-microaggressions-really-come-from/" style="color: purple;">Where microaggressions really come from: A sociological account</a>” which comments on a paper titled Microaggression and Moral Cultures by Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning. Their paper claims there are three moral cultures: <u>honor</u> which people have to earn, <u>dignity</u> which we have inherently, and <u>victimhood</u> in which people claim to be easily hurt by slights, real or imagined. Haidt posts parts of the paper with key text emphasized.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here is a quote from the conclusion of the paper, which Haidt provided in his post.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“What we are seeing in these controversies is the clash between dignity and victimhood, much as in earlier times there was a clash between honor and dignity. … One person’s standard provokes another’s grievance, acts of social control themselves are treated as deviant, and unintentional offenses abound. And the conflict will continue. As it does each side will make its case, attracting supporters and winning or losing various battles. But remember that the moral concepts of each side invokes are not free-floating ideas; they are reflections of social organization.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Why am I bringing up? I might be stretching things a bit too much to force fit into a theory I’m mulling: a parallel between Arnold Kling’s three languages of politics and these moral cultures. Kling claims conservatives explain things in terms of civilization versus barbarism and therefore defend law and order. (Look at how many of Trump’s tweets consist of “Law & order!” in response to the riots. Tucker Carlson has regularly harped on the breakdown of civilization threatened by the riots.) Liberals, on the other hand, see everything in terms of oppressors and the oppressed. Libertarians (who are the smallest and least visible group) focus on freedom versus coercion and advocate protecting individual rights. I’m thinking that conservatives gravitate toward the respect of the “honor” culture (and somewhat to the “dignity” culture) while liberals empathize with the victims of oppression. (Although I think it’s interesting that liberals claim most oppression comes from capitalism, not from the government which they see as the tool to abolish oppression.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I would admit that conservatives don't fall neatly into the respect culture. I think there are elements that fall into the dignity culture and some into honor. I'm also using honor in a broader sense than personal honor such as honoring tradition, law, the constitution, the family unit, etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This leads me to Integral philosopher Ken Wilber who proposes that humans (and cultures) go through stages of mental evolution; he uses colors adopted from Spiral Dynamics, created by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan, who based their work on Clare Graves, professor of psychology at Union College in Schenectady, New York. This model describes each stage of evolution. Red refers to gang culture (as in red in tooth and claw), blue for traditional culture with a clearly established hierarchy or pecking order (some conservatives) and laws, orange for Enlightenment values of reason, individualism and hierarchies based on meritocracy (libertarians and some conservatives) and green for liberals and the Green movement in which they denounce hierarchies in favor of egalitarianism. Wilber claims each stage, if it is to be a healthy evolution, should transcend yet include the previous stages. Pathologies set in when the next stage rejects the former stages entirely.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This might sound like New Ago woo-woo stuff but I think there is some merit to these distinctions that can help with the current situation. The trick is to find a way that integrates all of them. If the right wants to make progress with the black community they need to find a way to express their ideas and concerns in terms of empathy or in terms of fighting oppression. The same goes the other way too. If the left wants to be more convincing to those on the right they could coach their ideas more in terms of protecting traditions and civilization or, for libertarian, in terms of protecting rights. (Notice I said “if” in both cases. The problem is that it’s easier to band together with our selected tribe and tut-tut about how bad the other side is rather than making the effort to find ways to explain your position in terms that the other side is more likely to accept.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m sure someone could come up with better ideas but here is a first attempt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For the right they could say something like, “What happened to Floyd should not occur in a civilized society that recognizes the inherent worth of every person’s life regardless of their race or ethnic background. Just as racism oppresses blacks, excessive use of force by the police AND in response to the police oppress too, neither of which we do not condone.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Liberals could say something like; “Excessive force does not protect us and, as the resulting riots have shown, contributes to the breakdown of law and order, the very thing we on the left and the right value.” When both sides talk with a libertarian they could say; “What the policeman did to George violated his right to life and due process. The failure of the authorities to protect the people who live or have businesses in the areas ravaged by the riots amounts to violating their rights too.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m not saying this attempt to translate your language into a form that the other side uses will always work. I do think you stand a better chance of being heard than what is happening now which is a cacophony of outrage and demonization of the opposing sides.<o:p></o:p></div>
Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-64699445768988406602020-04-09T22:05:00.003-04:002020-04-09T22:05:44.539-04:00Review of How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It seems just about everyone agrees that the vicious rift in how we disagree with each other has never been worse than it is today, especially in politics. Friends have disowned each other over whether they support gun control, immigration, climate change or Trump. We all shake our heads as if this was a hopeless, irreconcilable divide. Although this might be ultimately be true I believe we should still try.</span></div>
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I’ve read several books and articles that offer suggestions on how to bridge this gap. Of the ones I’ve read I’d highly recommend How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide by Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay. Peter Boghossian is a faculty member in the philosophy department at Portland State University and is a speaker for the Center of Inquiry and an international speaker for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. James Lindsay holds degrees in physics and mathematics, with a doctorate in the latter. Because I liked this book I’ve been planning to write a review for this blog. However, this review by <a href="https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2019/12/change-someones-mind/" style="color: purple;">Eric Barker</a>, author of Barking Up The Wrong Tree, does such a nice job hitting the key points that I’ve decided to quote from his blog entry to share the key points from How to Have Impossible Conversations.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I should note that the book’s advice is laid out in a sequence starting with beginner’s level recommended skills then intermediate and expert levels. The authors explain that they evolved these skills “drawn from the best, most effective research on applied epistemology, hostage and professional negotiations, cult exiting, subdisciplines of psychology, and more.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Quoting more from the book, it is “organized by difficulty of application: fundamentals (Chapter 2), basics (Chapter 3), intermediate (Chapter 4), advanced (Chapter 5), expert (Chapter 6), and master (Chapter 7). Some techniques teach you to intervene in the cognition of others, instill doubt, and help people become more open to rethinking their beliefs. Other techniques are oriented toward truth-seeking. Some are just plain good advice. Their underlying commonality, regardless of your conversational goal, is that they all empower you to speak with people who have radically different political, moral, and social worldviews.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So what are the key points of this book? Here I’ll rely on Eric Barker’s summary. (I’ve edited it slightly and added comments to explain a point if it needs to be expanded.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b>Be a partner, not an adversary</b>: If you’re trying to win, you’re going to lose. The best approach is: Be nice and respectful. Listen. Understand. Instill doubt. (I refuse to change my mind about this.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b>Use Rapoport’s rules</b>: They can seem awkward but they reduce conflict better than Valium.<i> [I’ll add an explanation of Rapoport’s rules below.]</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b>Facts are the enemy</b>: Unless we’re talking about the savvy, attractive people who read this blog, yes, facts are the enemy. <i>[I have some additional thoughts below.]</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b>Use the “Unread Library Effect”</b>: Let them talk. Ask questions. Let them expose their ignorance. Do not cheer when that happens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b>Use scales</b>: Bring extreme statements down to earth with numbered comparisons. And unless they’re certain at a level 10, they’ll mention their own doubts which can aid your cause.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b>Use disconfirmation</b>: “Eric, under what conditions would disconfirmation not be effective?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b>Serious beliefs are about values and identity</b>: Don’t attack what they believe, focus on the validity of their reasoning process and whether that identity is the only way to be a good person.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What are Rapoport’s rules? Impossible Conversations explains, quoting from Daniel C. Dennett’s book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. (Rapoport is a game theorist.):<o:p></o:p></div>
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1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).<o:p></o:p></div>
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3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Mention anything you have learned from your target.<o:p></o:p></div>
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4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>And only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rapoport’s rules would fall under the concept “steelmanning” in which you restate your opponent’s case in the strongest possible way before challenging it. This approach treats your partner’s beliefs more fairly than using the “straw man” approach in which you purposely weaken or exaggerate someone’s case then refute it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What about facts? Why do Boghossian and Lindsay urge us <u>not</u> to argue with facts? Well, they don’t say you should never use facts. “It <i>does</i> mean that introducing facts into a conversation is likely to backfire unless done at the correct moment and with great care. … Many people believe what and how they do precisely because they do not formulate their beliefs on the basis of evidence – <i>not</i> because they’re lacking evidence. … Few people form their beliefs on the basis of rigorous consideration of reasoned arguments. Complicating matters, most people believe they <i>do</i> have evidence supporting their beliefs. … We tend to form beliefs on the basis of cherry-picked selective evidence that supports what we already believe or what we want to believe. Virtually everyone formulates most of their beliefs first then subsequently looks for supporting evidence and convincing arguments that back them up.” As Jonathan Haidt says, we think we’re being detectives who piece together the facts before reaching a conclusion when in fact we act like lawyers who choose facts to make a case.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The authors conclude that introducing facts can backfire and harden your partner’s viewpoint rather than leading your partner to change their mind. They suggest that a more effective way to work facts into a conversation is through questions and by saying something like “I may be wrong about this. It’s my understanding that …”<o:p></o:p></div>
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They also offer a valuable tip on choice of words: eliminate the word “but” and replace it with “and.” For instance, instead of saying “<b>Yes, but</b> how should we deal with the children of illegal immigrants?” we say, “<b>Yes, and</b> how should we deal with the children of illegal immigrants?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve found that when I disagree with someone on a subject the person I’m talking with often asks why I disagree. They’ll ask what evidence do I have. That gives me the opening to introduce the facts I’ve used to support my conclusion. I should note that sometimes my partner doesn’t ask for my reasons. The less reasonable person will just launch into an attack because I dare to disagree with their unshakeable opinions. In that case, I might still cite my reasons but find a way to end the conversation. Diplomatically, of course!<o:p></o:p></div>
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While I admit I haven’t mastered all of the techniques in this book the key points discussed above have helped me when talking with people who don’t see things the way I do. Read How to Have Impossible Conversations because I think it is possible to have reasonable conversations.<o:p></o:p></div>
Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-10351432407056669032019-11-22T14:58:00.001-05:002019-11-23T00:45:22.280-05:00News as selling mythologies<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’m reading Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another by </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Taibbi" style="font-size: 12pt;">Matthew Taibbi</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, a contributing
editor for Rolling Stone who has covered political campaigns. If you’re not
familiar with Taibbi I’ll note that he would never be accused of being a right-winger!
In reading his essays and his book it’s clear Taibbi despises Fox News and Donald
Trump. However, unlike many of his new media brethren who have jettisoned
objectivity to push their politics, Taibbi seems to value being objective even
when it leads him to uncomfortable conclusions. While he excoriates Fox and
Trump he also turns his guns (although with markedly less harshness) on CNN and
MSNBC.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the chapter titled How Reading The News Is Like Smoking, Taibbi
says the following.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The main difference between Fox and
MSNBC is their audiences are choosing different personal mythologies. Again:
this is a consumer choice. It’s not the truth, but a truth <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">product</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">People who watch Fox tend to be
older, white, and scared. They’re tuning in to be told they’re the last
holdouts in a disintegrating empire, Romans besieged by vandals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">People who watch MSNBC, meanwhile,
are tuning in to receive mega-doses of the world’s thinnest compliment, i.e.
that they’re morally superior to Donald Trump. The network lately has become a
one-note morality play with endless segments about Michael Flynn, Michael
Cohen, and Paul Manafort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The coverage formula on both
channels is to scare the crap out of audiences, then offer them micro-doses of
safety and solidarity, which come when they see people onscreen sharing their
fears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’ve written before about Arnold Kling’s book The Three
Languages of Politics in which he identifies three primary languages in American
politics. Liberals tend to talk in terms of oppressors and the oppressed.
Conservatives fret about civilization succumbing to barbarism. And libertarians
see things in terms of individual freedom from coercion. Based on listening
carefully how liberals, conservatives and libertarians talk I think Kling’s
model is valid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Taibbi’s description of Fox’s primary audience identifies
conservative’s fear of leftist barbarians undercutting the traditional foundations
of civilization, which reflects Kling’s language modal. While Taibbi doesn’t
discuss the views of MSNBC (or the other major news outlets) in the same terms
as Kling, I assume Taibbi would agree with many of the Trump haters I’ve met who
claim that Trump is a racist, misogynist and didn’t earn his wealth but who
obtained it by taking advantage of people. A common theme underlies these
charges: that Trump (and therefore his supporters) favor oppressing people
because of their race, gender or economic status.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Later Taibbi says:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’ve run into trouble with friends
for suggesting Fox is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> a pack of
lies. Sure, the network has an iffy relationship with the truth, but much of
its content is factually correct. It’s just highly, highly selective – and
predictable with respect to which facts it chooses to present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Here I’d say the same thing could be said about CNN, MSNBC,
ABC, CBS, NBC and NPR. Taibbi gives them a pass, as if they don’t do exactly
the same thing he attributes to Fox. On the other hand, the first appendix in
Hate Inc., “Why Rachel Maddow Is On The Cover Of This Book,” explains why Taibbi
put Maddow’s photo on the cover with Sean Hannity. He concludes the appendix
with this comment about Maddow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What she reads each night is not
the news. It’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stars and Stripes</i> for a
demographic, the same job that made Sean Hannity a star. Only she does it for a
different audience, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Face_in_the_Crowd_(film)">Lonesome Rhodes</a>
for the smart set. Even she must realize it can’t end well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">[Lonesome Rhodes was a character in a 1957 movie titled A
Face in the Crowd. Here is the Wikipedia summary of the plot: “The story centers
on a drifter named Larry ‘Lonesome’ Rhodes who is discovered by the producer …
of a small-market radio program in rural northeast Arkansas. Rhodes ultimately
rises to great fame and influence on national television.”]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While I’m only halfway through Hate Inc. I’ve read enough to
be comfortable with recommending it to people on the left or the right. As
Taibbi says, the news organizations “keep people away from the complexities of
these issues, by creating distinct audiences of party zealots who drink in more
and more intense legends about one another. We started to turn the ongoing
narrative of the news into something like a religious contract, in which, in
which the idea was not just to make you mad, but to keep you mad, whipped up in
a state of devotional anger. Even in what conservatives would call the ‘liberal’
media, we used blunt signals to create audience solidarity. We started to
employ anti-intellectualism on a scale I’d never seen before, and it ran
through much of the available content.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The only thing I’d add is that this anti-intellectualism
springs from shedding objectivity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-23698268230920512092019-10-07T11:57:00.002-04:002019-10-07T11:57:20.062-04:00Persuasion Mode, Demonization Mode - Arnold Kling - Medium<a href="https://medium.com/@arnoldkling/persuasion-mode-demonization-mode-f2aef2f51ae5">Persuasion Mode, Demonization Mode - Arnold Kling - Medium</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: 12pt;">In the linked article Arnold Kling distinguishes between two modes of political discourse: persuasion mode versus demonization mode.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">In persuasion mode, we treat people on the other side with respect, we listen to their logical and factual presentations, and we respond with logical and factual presentations of our own. In demonization mode, we tell anyone who will listen that people on the other side are awful human beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Later in the article Kling poses the following reasons why we tend to demonize people who disagree with us politically.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">As individuals, we seek to minimize cognitive dissonance. It troubles me to believe that there are good reasons for people to disagree with my views. The dissonance goes away if I can dismiss those who disagree as driven solely by bad motives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">As social creatures, we are motivated to demonstrate loyalty to our tribe. Demonizing people of other tribes is a way of doing this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Why have we devolved into demonization as our default mode of discussion? (How about that for alliteration?) Kling thinks its tied to how the mainstream news media.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">As best I recall, fifty years ago, more of the commentary in newspapers, magazines, television, and radio was in persuasion mode, and less of it was in demonization mode. But in recent decades Rush Limbaugh discovered that demonization could appeal to a mass audience and Paul Krugman discovered that demonization could appeal to the readers of the New York Times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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While I agree with Kling that despite our ability to reason objectively we still harbor deep-seated tribal instincts that can challenge or at times over-ride our objectivity. I would argue that the influence of postmodern philosophy makes it even harder for some people to maintain their objectivity or makes it easier for them to succumb to primitive, tribal forces.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What is postmodernism? For a detailed explanation and analysis please refer to Stephen Hicks Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Based on his study of postmodern writing he extracts the following summary. Warning: the quoted paragraph is long and uses philosophical terms but I think it’s worth plowing through it to get to Hicks’ main points.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Metaphysically</i>, postmodernism is anti-realist, holding that it is impossible to speak meaningfully about an independently existing reality. Postmodernism substitutes instead a social-linguistic, constructionist account of reality. <i>Epistemologically</i>, having rejected the notion of an independently existing reality, postmodernism denies that reason or any other method is a means of acquiring objective knowledge of that reality. Having substituted social-linguistic constructs for that reality, postmodernism emphasizes the subjectivity, conventionality, and incommensurability of those constructions. Postmodern accounts of <i>human nature</i> are consistently collectivist, holding that individuals’ identities are constructed largely by the social-linguistic groups that they are a part of, those groups varying radically across the dimensions of sex, race, ethnicity, and wealth. Postmodern accounts of human nature also consistently emphasize relations of conflict between those groups; and given the de-emphasized or eliminated role of reason, post-modern accounts hold that those conflicts are resolved primarily by the use of force, whether masked or naked; the use of force in turn leads to relations of dominance, submission, and oppression. Finally, postmodern themes in <i>ethics and politics</i> are characterized by an identification with and sympathy for the groups perceived to be oppressed in the conflicts, and a willingness to enter the fray on their behalf.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s see if I can digest Hick’s ideas a bit further. Before doing that I need to touch on his description of modernism, the philosophical outlook that preceded postmodernism. Modernism reflects the Enlightenment in which thinkers agreed that there is an objective reality and that we have the ability to reason from the facts to sound, objective conclusions that we can defend and explain.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: 12pt;">Postmodernism then fundamentally disagrees with the modernist, Enlightenment worldview. If, as postmodernists claim, that we can’t forge objective conclusions about the world then “truth” belongs to the winner of the inevitable resulting power struggle. And unfortunately that means we’re free to treat people who disagree with us as sub-human demons because they threaten our grasp on the reins of power</span><span style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><u style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: 12pt;">and</u><span style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: tahoma; font-size: 12pt;">they’re considered agents of oppression so it’s OK to ignore or even silence those who disagree.</span><br />
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Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-26536741920537518852019-02-11T11:24:00.001-05:002019-02-11T11:24:12.367-05:00Tips for Political Debate, part 1 and 2 – Fake Nous<a href="http://fakenous.net/?p=46"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tips for Political Debate, part 1 – Fake Nous</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I like and agree with Philosopher Michael Huemer’s guidelines on how to discuss politics with someone who doesn’t agree with you. His first tip sets the tone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>1. Guiding principle: Your goal is to make progress toward understanding, if not agreement.</b></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is not to “score points”, express emotions, prove your moral or intellectual superiority, humiliate the other party, or otherwise cause harm. (If this isn’t true, then you shouldn’t be engaged in discussion at all; you’re part of society’s problem.) Everything else follows from this.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Huemer follows this with four other tips in this post (which is the first of two on the subject): don’t beg the question, don’t be emotional, don’t take it personal, and don’t be dogmatic. These tips probably sound obvious but they have sub-parts to explain what Huemer means or gives examples to flesh out his point.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'd summarize his overall method as "Seek to understand and be understood rather than to win." I've never seen someone "win" a political debate. By that I mean I've never seen a debate that ends with one of the people saying, "You're right and I'm wrong. I'm going to jettison my long-held belief based on this discussion." The most you can hope for is to plant a seed of doubt. As Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff say in The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up A Generation For Failure disagreement "is part of the process by which people do each other the favor of counteracting each other's confirmation bias."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://fakenous.net/?p=54">Tips for Political Debate, part 2 – Fake Nous</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is part 2 of Huemer's tips on how to handle political debates. Continuing from the previous five tips Huemer offers the following: be charitable, don't confuse issues, don't be tribal, have modest aims, don't waste time, and don't misinterpret people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the first tip about being charitable Huemer recommends not straw-manning or weak-manning. Instead of straw-manning, "assume your opponent holds the most reasonable view that could plausibly explain his words, not the stupidest one." Regarding weak-man, "when defending a position, don't just address the least reasonable opponents. Address the most plausible, most interesting, and/or most common opposing positions."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Huemer doesn't refer to another concept called steel-manning in which you try to improve your opponent's position to be even stronger then address that position. Naturally this takes more effort and applies his tip of being charitable. Steel-manning might not be feasible to do in the heat of a discussion but we could think about an issue, say the opposing position on abortion or gun control, then think about how to make their argument the best you can think of then come up with your response.</span><br />
<br />Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-30281822063953730142019-01-19T09:21:00.003-05:002019-01-19T09:21:41.906-05:00Political Discussions: Wielding the Moral Hammer<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Before I tell the story of what triggered today’s post I
want to explain my usual approach to political discussions. In general, I avoid
them. Why? Because I’m a libertarian in deeply liberal Massachusetts and
because I’ve seen conversations between people who disagree quickly plunge into
emotional barrages of one-liners with no amicable resolution. I especially
avoid getting into political discussions with ideologues. Of all of the
discussions and arguments I’ve been party to almost none of them end with
either of us changing our minds. The only rare exceptions have been when the
person with whom I’m talking calmly asks me to explain why I believe what I do
or calmly asks questions about the source of the facts I’m citing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With that as background the story starts when I was playing
in my Friday morning men’s doubles tennis match with three other guys. One of
the guys, let’s call him George, almost always brings up politics between sets.
George hates Trump so he uses the changeovers as an opportunity to vent about Trump’s
latest actions that offends him. When our first set ended this week George came
to the net and asked his two friends (who also happen to be liberal) a question
that I’ll provide below along with the exchange I had with him. I’ve added some
comments in parenthesis to explain what I meant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George: Can we find someone to kill
Mitch McConnell? (A Republican and Senate Majority Leader. George was referring
to McConnell’s involvement in the current government shutdown.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Me: That’s what I love about liberals.
They want to kill people who disagree with them but if a conservative said
something like this they’d scream bloody murder. (I almost never come out this
strong but at this point I’d had enough of George’s weekly political rants. I
wouldn’t have reacted this strongly if he hadn’t used the word “kill.”)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George: So you’re OK with the
government shutdown?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Me: Yes. (Actually I think there
could be a better way to resolve the difference between what Trump wants for
border security and what Pelosi and Schumer want [whatever that is] but I
answered this way partly to shock George. I play tennis to get away from the
constant drone of politics.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George: Even though it hurts
people?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Friend #1: Good one! (Said with a
smug smirk on his face.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Me: As long as the border is not
secure people are going to continue to die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">George: You’re going to have to
explain that to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Me: Some other time. I came here to
play tennis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m not here to talk about the pros and cons of the shutdown
and immigration policy. My purpose is to share some observations and thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">1. </span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">I
consider George to be an ideologue. </span><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Merriam Webster</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">
defines an ideologue as “an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a
particular ideology.” </span><a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ideologue" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Oxford</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">
defines an ideologue as “an adherent of an ideology, especially one who is
uncompromising and dogmatic.” George fits this definition because there can be
no honest disagreement with him. He is like many other people I’ve seen who
think it’s OK to demonize anyone who disagrees with you. That makes it OK to
joke about killing, say, Mitch McConnell or Donald Trump. Yet they’re
apoplectic if don’t share their adulation for Obama or – horrors! – dare to say
one critical word about him! (George is not an aberration. Other liberal
friends have said they wished Trump would die until they realize that Mike
Pence would take over. This is unacceptable to them because they believe Pence
is more evil than Trump.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">2. George
thinks he wields the unquestionable moral trump card because he cares about
people while he believes Republicans, conservatives and libertarians don’t. I’m
not singling out liberals or progressives as the only people who climb onto
their moral high horse. Ideologues at each end of the spectrum believe they
have a monopoly on moral rectitude. This is one reason why many political
discussions end in a stalemate. Each side thinks they’re moral and that their
opponent is immoral. If you’re on the receiving end of this your natural
reaction is going to be defensive. Who wants to be called an immoral heathen while
also being asked to change your position?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></span></span><!--[endif]-->3. My
standard way of making my case is to avoid throwing the moral trump card onto
the table. If someone presents their favor for a policy such as trying to help
the poor or claim that regulations protect us from greedy businessmen I respond
by saying their policies often don’t accomplish their goals. Or if the topic is
climate change I’ll say my reading of several hundred scientific papers has
lead me to a different conclusion. (Of course my responses need to be backed by
research. Plus I know the facts I quote need to come from sources the person is
willing to give some credence.) However, when George trotted out the “you don’t
care who is hurt” ploy he was challenging my moral character. Countering with
practical issues such as the financial cost of securing our border or the
legality of trying to enter the U.S. without going through proper channels
wouldn’t have tackled George’s snarky attack on me as a person. So I felt the
proper response was to resort to a moral argument of my own and say that his
position on open borders results in no controls of who comes in, which means
some of the people could be criminals such as members of MS-13.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">I find it amusing how many liberals mock
religious fundamentalists or evangelicals because they constantly refer to God and
rigidly adhere to the Bible yet these liberals are just as fundamentalist about
their political beliefs and heroes.</span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-63970247255314576282018-05-04T14:55:00.001-04:002018-05-04T14:55:27.213-04:00The Big Book of Wisdom of Western Civilization | The Independent Whig<a href="https://theindependentwhig.com/2018/05/03/the-big-book-of-wisdom-of-western-civilization/">The Big Book of Wisdom of Western Civilization | The Independent Whig</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Independent Whig posts his choice of books that would comprise chapters of an overall book that tells "a comprehensive story of Western culture."</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The title and table of contents of my book of books would look something like the following. The first chapter-book lays out a foundational premise that each subsequent chapter-book logically follows, builds upon and expands, such that in the end a comprehensive story of Western culture can be comprehended. The appendices expand further still on the concepts told in the main story.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've provided the chapters but without the brief description why The Independent Whig chose each book. I'm posting this obviously because I agree with his choice of books. I've read four of them and own seven of the others, waiting to be read. That leaves just two books that I hadn't discovered prior to his post. I've added in brackets after each book whether I have read them or have them.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chapter 1: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker. <i>[Have] </i></span><i> </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chapter 2: Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences, by John R. Hibbing, Kevin B. Smith, and John R. Alford.</span></span> <i>[Have]</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chapter 3: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt. <i>[Read. One of my favorite books.]</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chapter 4: The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization, by Herman</span> <i>[Read. Found to be very enlightening.]</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chapter 5: A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, by Sowell. <i>[Have.]</i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chapter 6: Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy, by Goldberg. <i>[Have]</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chapter 7: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, by Peterson. <i>[Read. Also plan to read his Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.]</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Appendix 1: The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, by Drew Weston. <i>[Have]</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Appendix 2: Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, by Joshua Greene. <i>[Read]</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Appendix 3: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodard.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Appendix 4: The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America, by Kevin Phillips</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Appendix 5: Pathological Altruism, by Barbara Oakley. <i>[Have]</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Appendix 6: Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, by Paul Bloom. <i>[Have]</i></span></blockquote>
Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-4161236087202180882018-01-24T11:06:00.001-05:002018-01-24T11:06:12.082-05:00Why Can't People Hear What Jordan Peterson Is Actually Saying? - The Atlantic<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Why Can't People Hear What Jordan Peterson Is Actually Saying? - The Atlantic</span></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">This article in The Atlantic does an admirable job dissecting an "interview" of Jordan Peterson, a University of Toronto clinical psychologist, by British journalist Cathy Newman. I put the word interview in quotes because it actually would be better to describe the exchange as a debate because it was clear that Newman had an agenda she wanted to push by persistently distorting what Peterson said. He handled this admirably! I admire his patience.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">This interview runs about 30 minutes. Be sure to catch Newman's reaction at about the 23 minute mark when she tries to box Peterson with the question about whether people have the right not to be offended. Peterson's reply leaves her speechless, not because she was offended but because she couldn't think of a rebuttal.</span>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-17905043580518050972017-11-17T10:20:00.001-05:002017-11-17T10:20:39.568-05:00Nov 6, 2017: Discussion with Dr. Jonathan Haidt NYU - YouTube<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IBegL_V6AA"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nov 6, 2017: Discussion with Dr. Jonathan Haidt NYU - YouTube</span></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">This wide-ranging interview by Jordan B Peterson of Jonathan Haidt contains fascinating and rich insights that are too many and too broad to even summarize here. Both Peterson and Haidt touch on moral foundations, differences in how conservatives and liberals see the world, tribalism, free speech, and so on. It's over 90 minutes long. Highly recommended!</span>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-74345323178038285912017-11-07T14:54:00.000-05:002017-11-07T14:54:17.722-05:00Review of How To Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’ve read a number of books in the last few years that tell
us how we think we’re being objective but we’re actually hostage to a laundry
list of various biases, many of which influence us subconsciously. Daniel
Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow probably is the most influential of these
books based on how frequently it is cited in the other books. While Jacobs’ How
To Think tills some of the same ground there is a difference. Jacobs’ personal background
helps him see how biases influence how different groups of people perceive the
world and think about it. Why do I say this? Because he straddles two worlds.
He is an academic (teaches in the Honors Program at Baylor University) while
also being a Christian. This gives Jacobs a unique perspective where he can see
how different groups perceive each other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
I hear academics talk about Christians, I typically think, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That’s not quite right. I don’t believe you understand the people you
think you’re disagreeing with</i>. And when I listen to Christians talk about
academics I have precisely the same thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jacobs differs from Kahneman and others by saying that
thinking involves much more than recognizing and fighting our inherent bias. He
believes:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[W]e
suffer from a settled determination to avoid thinking. Relatively few people <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want</i> to think. Thinking troubles us;
thinking tires us. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits;
thinking can complicate our lives; thinking can set us at odds, or at least
complicate our relationships, with those we admire or love or follow. Who needs
thinking?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here is Jacobs’ suggested first step how to address this taken
from his <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-evangelicals-and-academics-talk-to-each-other-1508510502?mod=e2fb">Can
Evangelicals and Academics Talk to Each Other?</a> in The Wall Street Journal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[T]here
is a first step that all of us can take in resisting the hold of our Inner
Rings and the reflex to push away our “repugnant cultural others.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Inner Ring that Jabobs refers to is from a C. S. Lewis
talk titled “The Inner Rings” which describes our fear of being left out of our
preferred social group, of being considered an outsider to the ingroup that we
want to belong to. Jacobs’ discussion uses his term “repugnant cultural other”
(or RCO) throughout his book. RCO captures how we tend to be repelled by those
who disagree with us in politics, religion, or issues such as gun control.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or another way to summarize his approach is:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
person who genuinely wants to think will have to develop strategies for
recognizing the subtlest of social pressures, confronting the pull of the
ingroup and disgust for the outgroup. The person who wants to think will have
to practice patience and master fear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I do disagree somewhat with Jacobs’ explanation why some
people cast those who disagree with them as enemies worthy of being demonized
and even disposed of. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
you believe that the brokenness of this world can be not just ameliorated but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fixed</i>, once and for all, then people who
don’t share your optimism, or who do share it but invest in a different system,
are adversaries of Utopia. … Whole classes of people can by this logic become
expendable – indeed, it can become the optimist’s perceived <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">duty</i> to eliminate the adversaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wouldn’t label people who think this way necessarily as
optimists. I’d say they’re sadly lacking in objectivity. They’re not asking
themselves why people who disagree with them could possibly take that position.
I’ve seen this especially rampant here in Massachusetts among my liberal
friends, where I’ve chosen in some cases not to get into arguments. I know a
couple people who have quit talking to me simply because I disagreed with their
support for Hillary Clinton as president. Having said that, I’ve also seen
conservative, libertarian and Objectivist friends treat people who disagree
with them in a less than civil manner.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jacobs describes how each group creates their own keywords
so that allies can easily understand each other while judging other people by
their use of these keywords. (It reminds me of Arnold Kling’s Three Languages
of Politics in which liberals talk in terms of oppressors and the oppressed,
conservatives cast debates in terms of barbarism versus civilization and
libertarians judge whether acts impede our freedom or coerce us.) As Jacobs
correctly says, “keywords have a tendency to become parasitic: they enter the
mind and displace thought.” After all, it’s easier to slap labels onto ideas we
agree or disagree with than it is to objectively consider them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While Objectivists would agree with Jacobs’ overall
encouragement to think well I’m sure they will disagree with his position that
we don’t thinking independently. “Thinking is necessarily, thoroughly, and
wonderfully social. Everything you think is a response to what someone else has
thought and said.” Rand’s writings portrayed Howard Roark and John Galt as
heroically working and thinking in isolation, without the influence of others.
I’m sure we can find examples of people who indeed did heroically work out
their ideas in isolation. Based on the summary of ample psychological research
I’ve read in the books on how we think, I do believe we are swayed by how our
friends think and we tend to surround ourselves with people who tend to agree
with us. I agree with Jacobs and others (like Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous
Mind) that we are tribal in nature. However, I also believe that we can strive
for objectivity if we follow Jacobs’s advice such as “when faced with
provocation to respond to what someone has said, give it five minutes.” Or
“value learning over debating. Don’t ‘talk for victory.’ ”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before I close let me say that Jacobs doesn’t say we should
never come to firm conclusions. “You simply can’t thrive in a state of constant
daily evaluation of the truth-conduciveness of your social world, any more than
a flowering plant can flourish if its owner digs up its root every morning to
see how it’s doing.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe if you take the steps Jacobs puts in his final
chapter, The Thinking Person’s Checklist, you can still firmly hold and defend
your opinions while also accepting that people can disagree with you. You can
be secure in your beliefs without demonizing the other person.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the beginning I said that I’ve read many books, not just
on how biases can affect us. For a number of these books after I finish them I sarcastically
ask, “Gee, how did the author shoehorn the contents of a three page article
into a 300 page book.” By that I mean the author took an idea that made a good
magazine article then expanded it into a book by adding filler and stories but
not much else. Jacobs’ book sets an example of how to do the opposite: how to
pack many ideas into a slim 156-page volume. His book could have been titled
How To Think -- and Write.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-84592933922755608462017-09-21T15:06:00.003-04:002017-09-21T15:06:46.750-04:00More on the Fragile Generation<div class="MsoNormal">
In my earlier post on the fragile generation the interview
has this quote from Jonathan Haidt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In his forthcoming book Misguided
Minds: How Three Bad Ideas Are Leading Young People, Universities, and
Democracies Toward Failure, Haidt claims that certain ideas are impairing
students’ chances of success. Those ideas being: your feelings are always
right; what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; and the world is divided into
good people and bad people. ‘If we can teach those three ideas to college
students’, he says, ‘we cannot guarantee they will fail, but we will minimise
their odds at success’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I agree with Haidt about the first two ideas that the
current generation seems to believe. To me the first idea, that feelings are
always right, stems from the lack of teaching kids the ability to think
critically. Way back in the mid 1980s a friend and I designed and taught an
adult continuing education course on critical thinking. At that time we could
see that our adult students had never been exposed to thinking in a methodical,
logical way. It makes sense that if people don’t have even a rudimentary grasp
of logic and arguments they are subject to subconscious biases and to the push
of emotional reactions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve read a number of books over the last ten years that explore
how we form opinions and how we are unconsciously influenced by many biases. I
recall reading about one study in which some of the participants read a series
of words related to being elderly. When they were later given a series of
physical tasks to perform they completed them more slowly than the control
group that had not been exposed to those words!<o:p></o:p></div>
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As I explain it to people we like to think we’re being
detectives when we’re really lawyers. By that I mean a detective tries to find
out who committed a crime by objectively collecting and piecing together the evidence.
A lawyer, on the other hand, tries to build a case, either to defend their
client or to prosecute the defendant. The studies I’ve read about show that we
often come to a conclusion about an issue then go looking for confirming data.
We tend to ignore or discount data that doesn’t fit our conclusion.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I agree with Haidt with his identifying the second prevalent
idea that what doesn’t kill us makes us weaker. This idea seems to be rampant
among what some call the derisively call the “snowflake” generation. I think
this is tied to the first premise. That is, if you don’t have the tools to think
critically then we’re threatened by ideas with which we disagree.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My main objective is to touch on his third point: that the
world is divided into good people and bad people. I’m sure Haidt will explain
this more in his upcoming book and that he isn’t saying there are no evil
people. Being familiar with Haidt’s work, I believe he is saying that people
are too quick to lump those who disagree with them into the evil camp. I’ve
seen it happen many times where you’re demonized if you disagree with someone
politically. Liberals think conservatives are evil and vice versa. I’m not
saying everyone does this but a lot do. It has happened to me during the 2016
presidential election. A couple people have quit talking to my wife and me when
we disagreed with them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m assuming Haidt would agree that there are some evil
people. The clearly obvious examples would be Hitler, Mao and Stalin or murderous
sociopaths. But these are extreme examples. In our daily lives we rarely deal
with people who are truly evil. They might buy into ideas or policies that we
believe ultimately hurt people. For instance, conservatives and libertarians
believe gun control disarms the poor who might live in high crime areas.
Liberals believe gun control protects us from those who, in the liberal’s eyes,
can too easily obtain guns. Conservatives and libertarians think welfare
benefits eat away at the incentive for people to find work while liberals think
welfare is needed to compensate for the victims of an economy rigged in favor
of the rich and powerful. Neither side in these debates are necessarily evil.
But I’ve seen it happen too often where you get slapped with the evil label for
disagreeing! I assume Haidt’s book will delve into this in much more detail.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Before closing I’d recommend using something called <a href="https://lifehacker.com/utilize-the-steel-man-tactic-to-argue-more-effectivel-1632402742">steel
manning</a> and taking the <a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html">ideological
Turing test</a>. Steel manning is opposite of a straw man argument which involves
distorting what an opponent is saying then refuting it while the original
argument wasn’t really addressed. Steel manning means we take the opposite
approach of the straw man argument: you try to strengthen the argument of the
other side <u>before</u> trying to refute it. To do this means applying what
has been called the Turing ideological test where you try to state the argument
of the other side as fairly as possible, as if you actually are taking that
stand, then addressing it. I think if more people tried to do this we would
have more civil and productive disagreements.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Both steel manning and the ideological Turing test take a
lot of work! It means trying to think like your opponent then coming up with
your response. Unfortunately, we tend to take the easy way out. Haidt has said
in his earlier work that humans are still fundamentally tribal in nature. Once
we form an allegiance to a tribe we talk the language of our tribe (see Arnold
Kling’s The Three Languages of Politics) and look at the other tribe as the
“enemy.”<o:p></o:p></div>
Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-52740254551009003702017-09-09T09:25:00.001-04:002017-09-09T09:28:52.197-04:00The fragile generation - Jonathan Haidt Interview<a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-fragile-generation/20257#.WbPm4dN96SM"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The fragile generation | Books &amp; Essays | spiked</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is an excellent interview of Jonathan Haidt on the idea recently floated that it's OK to prevent certain people from speaking in public because their ideas are considered offensive and a form of violence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Here is a summary that appears at the end.</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In his forthcoming book Misguided Minds: How Three Bad Ideas Are Leading Young People, Universities, and Democracies Toward Failure, Haidt claims that certain ideas are impairing students’ chances of success. Those ideas being: your feelings are always right; what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; and the world is divided into good people and bad people. ‘If we can teach those three ideas to college students’, he says, ‘we cannot guarantee they will fail, but we will minimise their odds at success’.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So how can we resolve the problem of vulnerability among young Americans? Haidt says part of the solution must begin in childhood and will require parents to give their children daily periods of ‘unsupervised time’. ‘We have to accept the fact that in that unsupervised time there will be name-calling, conflict and exclusion. And while it’s painful for parents to accept this, in the long-run it will give them children that are not suffering from such high rates of anxiety and depression.’</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As for university students, Haidt references a recent quote from CNN commentator Van Jones. Jones said: ‘I don’t want you to be safe, ideologically.’ Building on this, he says universities should help students develop their ‘anti-fragility’.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
‘We need to focus on preparing students to encounter intellectual and ideological diversity. We need to prepare them for civil disagreements. We need to be very mindful of mental illness, but otherwise need to minimise the role of adult supervision in their lives. College is a major opportunity, once they have left home, for them to develop anti-fragility and we must not deprive them of that learning opportunity.’</blockquote>
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Here is an article from The Atlantic as well.<br />
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https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/why-its-a-bad-idea-to-tell-students-words-are-violence/533970/<br />
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<br />Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-63218077986311957532017-07-26T08:16:00.002-04:002017-07-26T08:16:24.689-04:00What's Worse Than Thieves? Thieving Police - Bloomberg: Applying the Three Languages of Politics Model<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-20/what-s-worse-than-thieves-thieving-police"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What's Worse Than Thieves? Thieving Police - Bloomberg</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">This article by Megan McArdle looks at civil asset forfeiture through Arnold Kling's Three Languages of Politics model. (For an explanation of civil asset forfeiture, here is what </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Wikipedia</a><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> has: "Civil forfeiture in the United States, also called civil asset forfeiture or civil judicial forfeiture or occasionally civil seizure, is a controversial legal process in which law enforcement officers take assets from persons suspected of involvement with crime or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing.")</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, this is a nice application of Kling's model (which Kling apparently supports because he </span><a href="http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/applied-tlp/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">posted</a><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> a link to McArdle's article on his blog).</span>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6562217094974761636.post-60040029843576688892017-05-31T10:13:00.001-04:002017-05-31T10:13:36.893-04:00The revolt of the public and the “age of post-truth” | the fifth wave<a href="https://thefifthwave.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/the-revolt-of-the-public-and-the-age-of-post-truth/">The revolt of the public and the “age of post-truth” | the fifth wave</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I found this essay to be rich and highly thought-provoking. It talks about the nature of narratives, the relationship between the elite and the public and the political battles over what constitutes the truth.</span>Henry Scuoteguazzahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17062216080138678023noreply@blogger.com0