Nice parable, but the author has stacked the deck. The Blues and Greens were originally divided over the issue of the color of the sky. These groups then developed their own cultures and attitudes that had nothing to do with what they believed was the color of the sky, though they were thus identified. The world had evolved to a point that the Blues and Greens had developed mutual tolerance based on a deeper understanding of their common humanity.
I suspect that in this new “secular” world, most people viewed the origins of their group name as fictive or ultimately unimportant and the news of the discovery of the True Color would not materially change their lives. The remaining Fundamentalists would, of course, respond in a variety of ways as outlined in the post and comments. It could get ugly but would probably not effect things too much. As the author notes, the discovery of a vast new world waiting to be exploited, would make the people see gold more than it would blue or green.
There are examples supporting and against your hypothesis. Most groups I can think of right now which engage in open and bitter vocal warfare are unlikely to erupt into violence even if new evidence totally destroyed one position. Arguably the reason that things are less volatile now is that intelectual debates have opened up for everyone, the culture of misinformed idealogical warfare using biased studies has desensetized people to the point where whether or not the founding principle of your beliefs is supported by the evidence no longer matters. In another culture this might not be the case, the greens and blues very well could start a civil war to settle things if one side felt betrayed by reality.
I am not assuming you’re wrong klfwip, but I would like some examples of times that ideology was the cause of mass warfare. It seems to me that ideology is usually just the justification for actions intended to produce material results.
I don’t think sociohistorical scholars can really believe that fascism would have risen without the threat of communism pushing the corporate class to pour massive amounts of money into fascist parties.
The crusades wouldn’t have happened without the Pope trying to expand his influence and gain wealth for the church through control of religious sites and artifacts
Nobody would care about the dumb question of corporate personhood if corporations hadn’t poured billions of dollars directly and indirectly into using the litigation of Citizens United to increase their own influence
Whether religion was ultimately the “cause of the crusades” is debatable, but it was the reason used to sell it to the masses. Surely a similar scenario could occur in the “blue vs green” debate outlined above.
Nice parable, but the author has stacked the deck. The Blues and Greens were originally divided over the issue of the color of the sky. These groups then developed their own cultures and attitudes that had nothing to do with what they believed was the color of the sky, though they were thus identified. The world had evolved to a point that the Blues and Greens had developed mutual tolerance based on a deeper understanding of their common humanity. I suspect that in this new “secular” world, most people viewed the origins of their group name as fictive or ultimately unimportant and the news of the discovery of the True Color would not materially change their lives. The remaining Fundamentalists would, of course, respond in a variety of ways as outlined in the post and comments. It could get ugly but would probably not effect things too much. As the author notes, the discovery of a vast new world waiting to be exploited, would make the people see gold more than it would blue or green.
Zarathustra running through the streets of their underground city screaming: “WHERE IS THE SKY?”
There are examples supporting and against your hypothesis. Most groups I can think of right now which engage in open and bitter vocal warfare are unlikely to erupt into violence even if new evidence totally destroyed one position. Arguably the reason that things are less volatile now is that intelectual debates have opened up for everyone, the culture of misinformed idealogical warfare using biased studies has desensetized people to the point where whether or not the founding principle of your beliefs is supported by the evidence no longer matters. In another culture this might not be the case, the greens and blues very well could start a civil war to settle things if one side felt betrayed by reality.
I am not assuming you’re wrong klfwip, but I would like some examples of times that ideology was the cause of mass warfare. It seems to me that ideology is usually just the justification for actions intended to produce material results.
I don’t think sociohistorical scholars can really believe that fascism would have risen without the threat of communism pushing the corporate class to pour massive amounts of money into fascist parties.
The crusades wouldn’t have happened without the Pope trying to expand his influence and gain wealth for the church through control of religious sites and artifacts
Nobody would care about the dumb question of corporate personhood if corporations hadn’t poured billions of dollars directly and indirectly into using the litigation of Citizens United to increase their own influence
Whether religion was ultimately the “cause of the crusades” is debatable, but it was the reason used to sell it to the masses. Surely a similar scenario could occur in the “blue vs green” debate outlined above.
The ideology wants material results, though, so how do you separate them?