Sometimes people want to go off and explore things that seem far away from their in-group, and perhaps are actively disfavored by their in-group. These people don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen when they do this, and they are very likely completely open to discovering that their in-group was right to distance itself from that thing, but also, maybe not.
People don’t usually go off exploring strange things because they stop caring about what’s true.
But if their in-group sees this as the person “no longer caring about truth-seeking,” that is a pretty glaring red-flag on that in-group.
Also, the gossip / ousting wouldn’t be necessary if someone was already inclined to distance themselves from the group.
Like, to give an overly concrete example that is probably rude (and not intended to be very accurate to be clear), if at some point you start saying “Well I’ve realized that beauty is truth and the one way and we all need to follow that path and I’m not going to change my mind about this Ben and also it’s affecting all of my behavior and I know that it seems like I’m doing things that are wrong but one day you’ll understand why actually this is good” then I’ll be like “Oh no, Ren’s gone crazy”.
“I’m worried that if we let someone go off and try something different, they will suddenly become way less open to changing their mind, and be dead set on thinking they’ve found the One True Way” seems like something weird to be worried about. (It also seems like something someone who actually was better characterized by this fear would be more likely to say about someone else!) I can see though, if you’re someone who tends not to trust themselves, and would rather put most of their trust in some society, institution or in-group, that you would naturally be somewhat worried about someone who wants to swap their authority (the one you’ve chosen) for another one.
I sometimes feel a bit awkward when I write these types of criticisms, because they simultaneously seem:
Directed at fairly respected, high-level people.
Rather straightforwardly simple, intuitively obvious things (from my perspective, but I also know there are others who would see things similarly).
Directed at someone who by assumption would disagree, and yet, I feel like the previous point might make these criticisms feel condescending.
The only times that people actually are incentivized to stop caring about the truth is in a situation where their in-group actively disfavors it by discouraging exploration. People don’t usually unilaterally stop caring about the truth via purely individual motivations.
(In-groups becoming culty is also a fairly natural process too, no matter what the original intent of the in-group was, so the default should be to assume that it has culty-aspects, accept that as normal, and then work towards installing mitigations to the harmful aspects of that.)
“I’m worried that if we let someone go off and try something different, they will suddenly become way less open to changing their mind, and be dead set on thinking they’ve found the One True Way” seems like something weird to be worried about.
This both seems like a totally reasonable concern to have, and also missing many of the concerning elements of the thing it’s purportedly summarizing, like, you know, suddenly having totally nonsensical beliefs about the world.
People don’t usually go off exploring strange things because they stop caring about what’s true.
On the contrary, there are certain things which people do, in fact, only “explore” seriously if they’ve… “stopped” is a strong term, but, at least, stopped caring about the truth as much. (Or maybe reveal that they never cared as much as they said?) And then, reliably, after “exploring” those things, their level of caring about the truth drops even more. Precipitously, in fact.
(The stuff being discussed in the OP is definitely, definitely an example of this. Like, very obviously so, to the point that it seems bizarre to me to say this sort of stuff and then go “I wonder why anyone would think I’m crazy”.)
Sometimes people want to go off and explore things that seem far away from their in-group, and perhaps are actively disfavored by their in-group. These people don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen when they do this, and they are very likely completely open to discovering that their in-group was right to distance itself from that thing, but also, maybe not.
People don’t usually go off exploring strange things because they stop caring about what’s true.
But if their in-group sees this as the person “no longer caring about truth-seeking,” that is a pretty glaring red-flag on that in-group.
Also, the gossip / ousting wouldn’t be necessary if someone was already inclined to distance themselves from the group.
“I’m worried that if we let someone go off and try something different, they will suddenly become way less open to changing their mind, and be dead set on thinking they’ve found the One True Way” seems like something weird to be worried about. (It also seems like something someone who actually was better characterized by this fear would be more likely to say about someone else!) I can see though, if you’re someone who tends not to trust themselves, and would rather put most of their trust in some society, institution or in-group, that you would naturally be somewhat worried about someone who wants to swap their authority (the one you’ve chosen) for another one.
I sometimes feel a bit awkward when I write these types of criticisms, because they simultaneously seem:
Directed at fairly respected, high-level people.
Rather straightforwardly simple, intuitively obvious things (from my perspective, but I also know there are others who would see things similarly).
Directed at someone who by assumption would disagree, and yet, I feel like the previous point might make these criticisms feel condescending.
The only times that people actually are incentivized to stop caring about the truth is in a situation where their in-group actively disfavors it by discouraging exploration. People don’t usually unilaterally stop caring about the truth via purely individual motivations.
(In-groups becoming culty is also a fairly natural process too, no matter what the original intent of the in-group was, so the default should be to assume that it has culty-aspects, accept that as normal, and then work towards installing mitigations to the harmful aspects of that.)
This both seems like a totally reasonable concern to have, and also missing many of the concerning elements of the thing it’s purportedly summarizing, like, you know, suddenly having totally nonsensical beliefs about the world.
On the contrary, there are certain things which people do, in fact, only “explore” seriously if they’ve… “stopped” is a strong term, but, at least, stopped caring about the truth as much. (Or maybe reveal that they never cared as much as they said?) And then, reliably, after “exploring” those things, their level of caring about the truth drops even more. Precipitously, in fact.
(The stuff being discussed in the OP is definitely, definitely an example of this. Like, very obviously so, to the point that it seems bizarre to me to say this sort of stuff and then go “I wonder why anyone would think I’m crazy”.)