Would any of you really trade being well-informed for the convenience of not having to hold your tongue? I know I wouldn’t.
I’m curious whether you’d extend that principle to arbitrarily extreme hypothetical situations.
Imagine the most disreputable factual belief you can think of, and then suppose (for the sake of the argument) that there is in fact some strong evidence in favor of this or some equally disreputable view, which is however ignored or dismissed by all respectable people. Furthermore, suppose that if you find out about it and update your beliefs accordingly, this knowledge will not give you any practical benefit, but merely place you in a situation where your honest beliefs are closer to truth, yet extremely disreputable.
Mind you, we’re not talking about your views merely causing some irritation or provoking heated arguments. We’re talking about a situation where in most social and all professional situations, you are unable to look at people’s faces without thinking that they would consider you an abominable monster unfit for civilized society if they knew your true honest thoughts. You have to live with the fact that people around you (except perhaps for a few close friends and confidants) respect you and are willing to work and socialize with you only insofar as they are misled about what you really believe and what you truly are.
Would you really prefer this outcome to staying blissfully ignorant?
Probably not. A sensible person ought to be willing to suffer for a few very important things… but very few. So a very disreputable belief ought to also, in some way, also be very important to be worth believing. In practice, when a contentious issue also seems not very important (or not very relevant to me) I don’t bother investigating it much—it’s not worth becoming disreputable for.
This, however, means that your above comment is in need of some strong disclaimers. Unless of course it’s directed at someone who lives in a society in which all highly disreputable beliefs happen to be false and outright implausible from an unbiased perspective. (But would you bet that this is the case for any realistic human society?)
SarahC:
I’m curious whether you’d extend that principle to arbitrarily extreme hypothetical situations.
Imagine the most disreputable factual belief you can think of, and then suppose (for the sake of the argument) that there is in fact some strong evidence in favor of this or some equally disreputable view, which is however ignored or dismissed by all respectable people. Furthermore, suppose that if you find out about it and update your beliefs accordingly, this knowledge will not give you any practical benefit, but merely place you in a situation where your honest beliefs are closer to truth, yet extremely disreputable.
Mind you, we’re not talking about your views merely causing some irritation or provoking heated arguments. We’re talking about a situation where in most social and all professional situations, you are unable to look at people’s faces without thinking that they would consider you an abominable monster unfit for civilized society if they knew your true honest thoughts. You have to live with the fact that people around you (except perhaps for a few close friends and confidants) respect you and are willing to work and socialize with you only insofar as they are misled about what you really believe and what you truly are.
Would you really prefer this outcome to staying blissfully ignorant?
Well, yes. You mean you don’t want to secretly have a powerful and dangerous dark side?
Probably not. A sensible person ought to be willing to suffer for a few very important things… but very few. So a very disreputable belief ought to also, in some way, also be very important to be worth believing. In practice, when a contentious issue also seems not very important (or not very relevant to me) I don’t bother investigating it much—it’s not worth becoming disreputable for.
Knowing whether disreputable beliefs are true is helpful in figuring out what intellectual institutions you can trust.
This, however, means that your above comment is in need of some strong disclaimers. Unless of course it’s directed at someone who lives in a society in which all highly disreputable beliefs happen to be false and outright implausible from an unbiased perspective. (But would you bet that this is the case for any realistic human society?)
I absolutely prefer that outcome. Aren’t we all used to having to censor ourselves in all kinds of surroundings?