I have a feeling that perhaps in some sense politics is self-balancing. You attack things that are associated with your enemy, which means that your enemy will defend them. Assuming you are an entity that only cares about scoring political points, if your enemy uses rationality as an applause light, you will attack rationality, but if your enemy uses postmodernism as an applause light, you will attack postmodernism and perhaps defend (your interpretation of) rationality.
That means that the real risk for rationality is not that everyone will attack it. As soon as the main political players will all turn against rationality, fighting rationality will become less important for them, because attacking things the others consider sacred will be more effective. You will soon get rationality apologists saying “rationality per se is not bad, it’s only rationality as practiced by our political opponents that leads to horrible things”.
But if some group of idiots will choose “rationality” as their applause light and they will be doing it completely wrong, and everyone else will therefore turn against rationality, that would cause much more damage. (Similarly to how Stalin is often used as an example against “atheism”. Now imagine a not-so-implausible parallel universe where Stalin used “rationality”—interpreted as: 1984-style obedience of the Communist Party—as the official applause light of his regime. In such world, non-communists hate the word “rationality” because it is associated with communism, and communists insist that the only true meaning of rationality is the blind obedience of the Party. Imagine trying to teach people x-rationality in that universe.)
I don’t think it’s necessary for ‘rationality’ to be used an applause light for this to happen. The only things needed, in my mind, are:
A group of people who adopt rationality and are instrumentally rationalist become very successful, wealthy and powerful because of it.
This groups makes up an increasing share of the wealthy and powerful, because they are better at becoming wealthy and powerful than the old elite.
The remaining people who aren’t as wealthy or successful or powerful, who haven’t adopted rationality, make observations about what the successful group does and associates whatever they do / say as the tribal characteristics and culture of the successful group. The fact that they haven’t adopted rationality makes them more likely to do this.
And because the final bullet point is always what occurs throughout history, the only difference—and really the only thing necessary for this to happen—is that rationalists make up a greater share of the elite over time.
But if some group of idiots will choose “rationality” as their applause light and they will be doing it completely wrong, and everyone else will therefore turn against rationality, that would cause much more damage. (Similarly to how Stalin is often used as an example against “atheism”. Now imagine a not-so-implausible parallel universe where Stalin used “rationality”—interpreted as: 1984-style obedience of the Communist Party—as the official applause light of his regime. In such world, non-communists hate the word “rationality” because it is associated with communism, and communists insist that the only true meaning of rationality is the blind obedience of the Party.
Somewhat ironically, this is exactly the sort of cargo-cultish “rationality” that originally led to the emergence of postmodernism, in opposition to it and calling for some much-needed re-evaluation and skepticism around all “cached thoughts”. The moral I suppose is that you just can’t escape idiocy.
Not exactly. What happened at first was that Marxism—which, in the early 20th century, became the dominant mode of thought for Western intellectuals—was based on rationalist materialism, until it was empirically shown to be wrong by some of the largest social experiments mankind is capable of running. The question for intellectuals who were unwilling to give up Marx after that time was how to save Marxism from empirical reality. The answer to that was postmodernism. You’ll find that in most academic departments today, those who identify as Marxists are almost always postmodernists (and you won’t find them in economics or political science, but rather in the english, literary criticism and social science departments). Marxists of the rationalist type are pretty much extinct at this point.
I broadly agree, but you’re basically talking about the dynamics that resulted in postmodernism becoming an intellectual fad, devoid of much of its originally-meaningful content. Whereas I’m talking about what the original memeplex was about—i.e what people like the often-misunderstood Jacques Derrida were actually trying to say. It’s even clearer when you look at Michael Foucault, who was indeed a rather sharp critic of “high modernity”, but didn’t even consider himself a post-modernist (whereas he’s often regarded as one today). Rather, he was investigating pointed questions like “do modern institutions like medicine, psychiatric care and ‘scientific’ criminology really make us so much better off compared to the past when we lacked these, or is this merely an illusion due to how these institutions work?” And if you ask Robin Hanson today, he will tell you that we’re very likely overreliant on medicine, well beyond the point where such reliance actually benefits us.
postmodernism becoming an intellectual fad, devoid of much of its originally-meaningful content. Whereas I’m talking about what the original memeplex was about
So you concede that everyone you’re harassing is 100% correct, you just don’t want to talk about postmodernism? So fuck off.
This may be partially what has happened with “science” but in reverse. Liberals used science to defend some of their policies, conservatives started attacking it, and now it has become an applause light for liberals—for example, the “March for Science” I keep hearing about on Facebook. I am concerned about this trend because the increasing politicization of science will likely result in both reduced quality of science (due to bias) and decreased public acceptance of even those scientific results that are not biased.
I agree with your concern, but I think that you shouldn’t limit your fear to party-aligned attacks.
For example, the Thirty-Meter Telescope in Hawaii was delayed by protests from a group of people who are most definitely “liberal” on the “liberal/conservative” spectrum (in fact, “ultra-liberal”). The effect of the protests is definitely significant. While it’s debatable how close the TMT came to cancelation, the current plan is to grant no more land to astronomy atop Mauna Kea.
Agreed. There are plenty of liberal views that reject certain scientific evidence for ideological reasons—I’ll refrain from examples to avoid getting too political, but it’s not a one-sided issue.
As soon as the main political players will all turn against rationality, fighting rationality will become less important for them, because attacking things the others consider sacred will be more effective.
So, do you want to ask the Jews how that theory worked out for them?
I have a feeling that perhaps in some sense politics is self-balancing. You attack things that are associated with your enemy, which means that your enemy will defend them. Assuming you are an entity that only cares about scoring political points, if your enemy uses rationality as an applause light, you will attack rationality, but if your enemy uses postmodernism as an applause light, you will attack postmodernism and perhaps defend (your interpretation of) rationality.
That means that the real risk for rationality is not that everyone will attack it. As soon as the main political players will all turn against rationality, fighting rationality will become less important for them, because attacking things the others consider sacred will be more effective. You will soon get rationality apologists saying “rationality per se is not bad, it’s only rationality as practiced by our political opponents that leads to horrible things”.
But if some group of idiots will choose “rationality” as their applause light and they will be doing it completely wrong, and everyone else will therefore turn against rationality, that would cause much more damage. (Similarly to how Stalin is often used as an example against “atheism”. Now imagine a not-so-implausible parallel universe where Stalin used “rationality”—interpreted as: 1984-style obedience of the Communist Party—as the official applause light of his regime. In such world, non-communists hate the word “rationality” because it is associated with communism, and communists insist that the only true meaning of rationality is the blind obedience of the Party. Imagine trying to teach people x-rationality in that universe.)
I don’t think it’s necessary for ‘rationality’ to be used an applause light for this to happen. The only things needed, in my mind, are:
A group of people who adopt rationality and are instrumentally rationalist become very successful, wealthy and powerful because of it.
This groups makes up an increasing share of the wealthy and powerful, because they are better at becoming wealthy and powerful than the old elite.
The remaining people who aren’t as wealthy or successful or powerful, who haven’t adopted rationality, make observations about what the successful group does and associates whatever they do / say as the tribal characteristics and culture of the successful group. The fact that they haven’t adopted rationality makes them more likely to do this.
And because the final bullet point is always what occurs throughout history, the only difference—and really the only thing necessary for this to happen—is that rationalists make up a greater share of the elite over time.
Somewhat ironically, this is exactly the sort of cargo-cultish “rationality” that originally led to the emergence of postmodernism, in opposition to it and calling for some much-needed re-evaluation and skepticism around all “cached thoughts”. The moral I suppose is that you just can’t escape idiocy.
Not exactly. What happened at first was that Marxism—which, in the early 20th century, became the dominant mode of thought for Western intellectuals—was based on rationalist materialism, until it was empirically shown to be wrong by some of the largest social experiments mankind is capable of running. The question for intellectuals who were unwilling to give up Marx after that time was how to save Marxism from empirical reality. The answer to that was postmodernism. You’ll find that in most academic departments today, those who identify as Marxists are almost always postmodernists (and you won’t find them in economics or political science, but rather in the english, literary criticism and social science departments). Marxists of the rationalist type are pretty much extinct at this point.
I broadly agree, but you’re basically talking about the dynamics that resulted in postmodernism becoming an intellectual fad, devoid of much of its originally-meaningful content. Whereas I’m talking about what the original memeplex was about—i.e what people like the often-misunderstood Jacques Derrida were actually trying to say. It’s even clearer when you look at Michael Foucault, who was indeed a rather sharp critic of “high modernity”, but didn’t even consider himself a post-modernist (whereas he’s often regarded as one today). Rather, he was investigating pointed questions like “do modern institutions like medicine, psychiatric care and ‘scientific’ criminology really make us so much better off compared to the past when we lacked these, or is this merely an illusion due to how these institutions work?” And if you ask Robin Hanson today, he will tell you that we’re very likely overreliant on medicine, well beyond the point where such reliance actually benefits us.
So you concede that everyone you’re harassing is 100% correct, you just don’t want to talk about postmodernism? So fuck off.
This may be partially what has happened with “science” but in reverse. Liberals used science to defend some of their policies, conservatives started attacking it, and now it has become an applause light for liberals—for example, the “March for Science” I keep hearing about on Facebook. I am concerned about this trend because the increasing politicization of science will likely result in both reduced quality of science (due to bias) and decreased public acceptance of even those scientific results that are not biased.
I agree with your concern, but I think that you shouldn’t limit your fear to party-aligned attacks.
For example, the Thirty-Meter Telescope in Hawaii was delayed by protests from a group of people who are most definitely “liberal” on the “liberal/conservative” spectrum (in fact, “ultra-liberal”). The effect of the protests is definitely significant. While it’s debatable how close the TMT came to cancelation, the current plan is to grant no more land to astronomy atop Mauna Kea.
Agreed. There are plenty of liberal views that reject certain scientific evidence for ideological reasons—I’ll refrain from examples to avoid getting too political, but it’s not a one-sided issue.
So, do you want to ask the Jews how that theory worked out for them?