Great post. I’ve had a similar idea for a while but didn’t realize just how far it could be generalized.
I especially noticed this idea while reading C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, which seems to posit the hierarchy as being something like “Belief in Christianity because of social pressures / Disbelief in Christianity because who needs social pressures / Belief in Christianity because of comprehension of its ‘true meaning’ (or something)”.
I guess when there are potentially a lot of layers of meta-contrarianism like in Matt_Simpson’s example, that can easily lead to strawman arguments when you try to argue against a higher-level even (or odd) number as if it was a lower-level even (or odd) number.
Great post. I’ve had a similar idea for a while but didn’t realize just how far it could be generalized.
I especially noticed this idea while reading C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, which seems to posit the hierarchy as being something like “Belief in Christianity because of social pressures / Disbelief in Christianity because who needs social pressures / Belief in Christianity because of comprehension of its ‘true meaning’ (or something)”.
I guess when there are potentially a lot of layers of meta-contrarianism like in Matt_Simpson’s example, that can easily lead to strawman arguments when you try to argue against a higher-level even (or odd) number as if it was a lower-level even (or odd) number.