I’m going to assume you’re not a radical leftist. What if your 16 year old kid started sharing every leftist meme because they’ve really thought about it and think it’s true?
I don’t think that most people who really think issues through agree with every leftists meme and think the meme is true. Part of modern leftish ideology is that you should say certain things even when they are not true, because you want to show solidarity. There’s also a belief that certain values shouldn’t be “thought through”. They are sacred and not supposed to be questioned.
It sounds like you’re setting the bar for epistemic hygiene (i.e. not being infected by a mind virus) at being able to justify your worldview from the ground up. Is that an isolated demand for rigor, or would you view anyone unable to do that as an unreasonable conformist?
I think you ignore that plenty of people do believe in epistemics that value not engaging in critical analysis in the sense of critical thinking but only in the sense of critical theory.
In leftish activism people are expected to be able to approve at the same time of the meme “homophobia should always be challenged” and “Islam shouldn’t be challenged”. Explicit discussions about how those values should be traded of against each other are shunned because they violate the underlying sacredness.
Frequently, there’s an idea that beliefs should be based on experience or trusting people with experience and not based on thinking thing things through. Valuing thinking things through is not universal.
I’m just not convinced that the radical left has epistemic norms or value priorities that are unusually bad. Imagine you were about to introduce me to five of your friends to talk politics. One identifies as a radical leftist, one a progressive moderate, another a libertarian, the fourth a conservative, and the fifth apolitical. All five of them share a lot of memes on Facebook. They also each have a blog where they write about their political opinions.
I would not be particularly surprised if I had a thoughtful, stimulating conversation with any of them.
My prior is that intellectual profiling based on ideology isn’t a good way to predict how thoughtful somebody is.
So for me, if Wei Dei Jr. turned out to be a 16 year old radical leftist, I wouldn’t think he’s any more conformist than if he’d turned out to be a progressive, libertarian, conservative, or apolitical.
That might just be a crux of disagreement for us based on differing experiences in interacting with each of these groups.
I don’t think that most people who really think issues through agree with every leftists meme and think the meme is true. Part of modern leftish ideology is that you should say certain things even when they are not true, because you want to show solidarity. There’s also a belief that certain values shouldn’t be “thought through”. They are sacred and not supposed to be questioned.
It sounds like you’re setting the bar for epistemic hygiene (i.e. not being infected by a mind virus) at being able to justify your worldview from the ground up. Is that an isolated demand for rigor, or would you view anyone unable to do that as an unreasonable conformist?
I think you ignore that plenty of people do believe in epistemics that value not engaging in critical analysis in the sense of critical thinking but only in the sense of critical theory.
In leftish activism people are expected to be able to approve at the same time of the meme “homophobia should always be challenged” and “Islam shouldn’t be challenged”. Explicit discussions about how those values should be traded of against each other are shunned because they violate the underlying sacredness.
Frequently, there’s an idea that beliefs should be based on experience or trusting people with experience and not based on thinking thing things through. Valuing thinking things through is not universal.
I’m just not convinced that the radical left has epistemic norms or value priorities that are unusually bad. Imagine you were about to introduce me to five of your friends to talk politics. One identifies as a radical leftist, one a progressive moderate, another a libertarian, the fourth a conservative, and the fifth apolitical. All five of them share a lot of memes on Facebook. They also each have a blog where they write about their political opinions.
I would not be particularly surprised if I had a thoughtful, stimulating conversation with any of them.
My prior is that intellectual profiling based on ideology isn’t a good way to predict how thoughtful somebody is.
So for me, if Wei Dei Jr. turned out to be a 16 year old radical leftist, I wouldn’t think he’s any more conformist than if he’d turned out to be a progressive, libertarian, conservative, or apolitical.
That might just be a crux of disagreement for us based on differing experiences in interacting with each of these groups.