Thanks for sharing this, Quiet; I’m sad to say I agree with you. I think rationality as a movement can’t afford to be associated with ritual. It’s just too hard to believe that it’s not a failure mode. I personally find Raemon’s perspective inspiring and convincing. Raemon, it seems to me that you have a very sane perspective on the role of ritual in people’s lives. And I’m all about trying to acknowledge and work with our own emotional needs, e.g. in this post. But I personally think openly associating with Ritual with a Capital R is just too sketchy looking for the community. It saddens me to have to worry about such alarm bells going off, but I think it’s the reality.
Of course there are other easier-to-worry-about negative effects of ritual than simply appearances; what I’m saying is that, Raemon, even if you are able to avoid those failure modes—and I have to say, to me, you seem very trustworthy in this regard—I think strong ritual associations are worth avoiding for signaling alone.
I just want to say — lest Raemon, other ritual-type-event-organizers, or people who share their values and views on this subject, get the wrong idea — that we should distinguish between these two positions:
“Rituals make Less Wrong look like a cult, or otherwise make the LW community look sketchy/disreputable/creepy” (optional addendum: ”… and because of this, I don’t want to associate with LW”)
“I don’t like rituals, am personally creeped out by them, and wish LW communities wouldn’t engage in them” (optional addendum: ”… and because of this, I don’t want to participate in LW communities”)
I, personally, am not concerned about LW’s image, or my image if I associate with LW, and I make no comment about the strategic implications (for e.g. CFAR) of LW communities engaging in rituals; I just want to head off any conclusion or assertion that the only reason anyone would object to rituals is a concern about appearances, reputation, or the like.
(This, I think, is a special case of “well, people don’t like X because they don’t understand X” — “no, I understand X just fine and I still don’t like it”. Relatedly: “We shouldn’t do X because people might draw the wrong conclusions about us” — “Well, let’s do X and just not tell anyone” — “Actually, I think we shouldn’t do X for reasons that have nothing to do with other people’s opinions of us for doing X!”)
I second this. I think it’s kind of bad for LW’s image to be associated with cult-like stuff, but I don’t think it matters that much. But it would be really bad for ME if LW became really about ritual.
It really does; already there were some unfortunate occurrences when I tried to initiate new acolytes, ahem, I mean when prodding some friends across the inferential chasm.
LWers are primates, too, so some of us need this pack bonding thing in a form of a ritual. I’m not one of those, but I can see how others can feel differently. And given that rituals, whether religious or civic, are pretty much standard and often spontaneous in most communities, I don’t see how having a ritual for some subgroup would harm the High Ideals of Rationality. It even might make the participants appear more human, by counteracting the perception of “straw Volcan”ness.
I’m not saying rationalists should avoid engaging in ritual like the plague; but I do a lot of promoting of CFAR and rationality to non-LW-readers, and I happen to know from experience that a post like this in Main sends bad vibes to a lot of people. Again, I think it’s sad to have to worry so much about image, but I think it’s a reality.
And given that rituals, whether religious or civic, are pretty much standard and often spontaneous in most communities, I don’t see how having a ritual for some subgroup would harm the High Ideals of Rationality.
Rationality Itself remains unphased by a backyard party blog meetup, that’s for sure.
I think Academian’s post on the role of narrative in self-image touches on the seemingly disjointed purpose of a Rationalist Ritual. We all have our unique approaches to rational thought—my own experience consists largely of the dissolving of narratives in search of actual cause & effect. Not all narratives are destructive (or even wrong), but my employment of rational thought has never included them. Constructing and reinforcing narratives is what ritual is all about. Subjectively, the two just don’t click for me.
Using Less Wrong as a maypole to dance around seems.. goofy, at best. Lesser things have been rot13′d around here.
It even might make the participants appear more human, by counteracting the perception of “straw Volcan”ness.
If this is what it takes to signal that we have emotional lives, then fuck me running.
Thanks for sharing this, Quiet; I’m sad to say I agree with you. I think rationality as a movement can’t afford to be associated with ritual. It’s just too hard to believe that it’s not a failure mode. I personally find Raemon’s perspective inspiring and convincing. Raemon, it seems to me that you have a very sane perspective on the role of ritual in people’s lives. And I’m all about trying to acknowledge and work with our own emotional needs, e.g. in this post. But I personally think openly associating with Ritual with a Capital R is just too sketchy looking for the community. It saddens me to have to worry about such alarm bells going off, but I think it’s the reality.
Of course there are other easier-to-worry-about negative effects of ritual than simply appearances; what I’m saying is that, Raemon, even if you are able to avoid those failure modes—and I have to say, to me, you seem very trustworthy in this regard—I think strong ritual associations are worth avoiding for signaling alone.
I just want to say — lest Raemon, other ritual-type-event-organizers, or people who share their values and views on this subject, get the wrong idea — that we should distinguish between these two positions:
“Rituals make Less Wrong look like a cult, or otherwise make the LW community look sketchy/disreputable/creepy” (optional addendum: ”… and because of this, I don’t want to associate with LW”)
“I don’t like rituals, am personally creeped out by them, and wish LW communities wouldn’t engage in them” (optional addendum: ”… and because of this, I don’t want to participate in LW communities”)
I, personally, am not concerned about LW’s image, or my image if I associate with LW, and I make no comment about the strategic implications (for e.g. CFAR) of LW communities engaging in rituals; I just want to head off any conclusion or assertion that the only reason anyone would object to rituals is a concern about appearances, reputation, or the like.
(This, I think, is a special case of “well, people don’t like X because they don’t understand X” — “no, I understand X just fine and I still don’t like it”. Relatedly: “We shouldn’t do X because people might draw the wrong conclusions about us” — “Well, let’s do X and just not tell anyone” — “Actually, I think we shouldn’t do X for reasons that have nothing to do with other people’s opinions of us for doing X!”)
I second this. I think it’s kind of bad for LW’s image to be associated with cult-like stuff, but I don’t think it matters that much. But it would be really bad for ME if LW became really about ritual.
It really does; already there were some unfortunate occurrences when I tried to initiate new acolytes, ahem, I mean when prodding some friends across the inferential chasm.
(edit: Answered Raemon per PM)
I would like to hear more about that.
BTW, there’s inferential distances, and there’s fuzzy-inferential distances, the latter being rationalization distances past some length.
I’m saying I don’t think it matters much if it scares away random people.
LWers are primates, too, so some of us need this pack bonding thing in a form of a ritual. I’m not one of those, but I can see how others can feel differently. And given that rituals, whether religious or civic, are pretty much standard and often spontaneous in most communities, I don’t see how having a ritual for some subgroup would harm the High Ideals of Rationality. It even might make the participants appear more human, by counteracting the perception of “straw Volcan”ness.
I’m not saying rationalists should avoid engaging in ritual like the plague; but I do a lot of promoting of CFAR and rationality to non-LW-readers, and I happen to know from experience that a post like this in Main sends bad vibes to a lot of people. Again, I think it’s sad to have to worry so much about image, but I think it’s a reality.
Oh, I agree that the optics would be better if the post in question was in Discussion, not Main.
Rationality Itself remains unphased by a backyard party blog meetup, that’s for sure.
I think Academian’s post on the role of narrative in self-image touches on the seemingly disjointed purpose of a Rationalist Ritual. We all have our unique approaches to rational thought—my own experience consists largely of the dissolving of narratives in search of actual cause & effect. Not all narratives are destructive (or even wrong), but my employment of rational thought has never included them. Constructing and reinforcing narratives is what ritual is all about. Subjectively, the two just don’t click for me.
Using Less Wrong as a maypole to dance around seems.. goofy, at best. Lesser things have been rot13′d around here.
If this is what it takes to signal that we have emotional lives, then fuck me running.