It’s really hard to actually know when the “respectable” opinion is severely delusional…
I disagree. Of course, it’s hard to know this with consistent reliability across the board, but there are plenty of particular cases where this is perfectly clear. Many of these cases don’t even involve topics that are ideologically charged to such extremes that contrarian conclusions would be outright scandalous. (Though of course the purveyors of the respectable opinion and the officially accredited truth wouldn’t be pleased, and certainly wouldn’t be willing to accept the contrarian discourse as legitimate.)
To give a concrete example, it is clear that, say, mainstream economics falls into this latter category.
Just watch out that when you say “The experts on X are wrong; don’t believe them” that you aren’t telling people to sell nonapples. “Don’t believe in YHVH” doesn’t mean that you should go believe in Zenu.
I don’t mean rejecting the mainstream view in favor of some existing contrarian position—of which the majority are indeed unavoidably wrong, no matter what the merits of the mainstream view—but merely applying the very basic tools of common sense and rational thinking to see if the justification for the mainstream view can stand up to scrutiny. My point is that often the mainstream view fails as soon as it’s checked against the elementary laws of logic and the most basic and uncontroversial principles of sound epistemology. It really isn’t hard.
I disagree. Of course, it’s hard to know this with consistent reliability across the board, but there are plenty of particular cases where this is perfectly clear. Many of these cases don’t even involve topics that are ideologically charged to such extremes that contrarian conclusions would be outright scandalous. (Though of course the purveyors of the respectable opinion and the officially accredited truth wouldn’t be pleased, and certainly wouldn’t be willing to accept the contrarian discourse as legitimate.)
To give a concrete example, it is clear that, say, mainstream economics falls into this latter category.
Just watch out that when you say “The experts on X are wrong; don’t believe them” that you aren’t telling people to sell nonapples. “Don’t believe in YHVH” doesn’t mean that you should go believe in Zenu.
I don’t mean rejecting the mainstream view in favor of some existing contrarian position—of which the majority are indeed unavoidably wrong, no matter what the merits of the mainstream view—but merely applying the very basic tools of common sense and rational thinking to see if the justification for the mainstream view can stand up to scrutiny. My point is that often the mainstream view fails as soon as it’s checked against the elementary laws of logic and the most basic and uncontroversial principles of sound epistemology. It really isn’t hard.