Hmm, what about such things as feeling that you need to defend the truth from criticism rather than find a way to explain it better? Or nagging doubts that you’re ignoring, or a feeling that your opponents are acting the way they are because they’re stupid or evil? Or wanting to censor someone else’s speech? I take all these things as alarm signals.
A communist friend of mine once said, after I’d nailed her into a corner in a political argument about appropriate rates of pay during a fireman’s strike, “Well under socialism there wouldn’t be as many fires.”. I reckon that there must be a feeling associated with that sort of thing.
Defending the truth from criticism also feels exactly the same as defending what you wrongly think is the truth from criticism.
The feelings you list correspond to very common ways people behave. So they’re very weak evidence that you’re wrong about something. Unless you’re a trained rationalist who very rarely has these feelings / behaviors.
Most people first acquire a belief—whether by epistomologically legitimate ways or not—and then proceed to defend it, ignore contrary evidence and feel opponents to be stupid, because that’s just the way most people deal with beliefs that are important to them.
Hmm, what about such things as feeling that you need to defend the truth from criticism rather than find a way to explain it better? Or nagging doubts that you’re ignoring, or a feeling that your opponents are acting the way they are because they’re stupid or evil? Or wanting to censor someone else’s speech? I take all these things as alarm signals.
A communist friend of mine once said, after I’d nailed her into a corner in a political argument about appropriate rates of pay during a fireman’s strike, “Well under socialism there wouldn’t be as many fires.”. I reckon that there must be a feeling associated with that sort of thing.
Defending the truth from criticism also feels exactly the same as defending what you wrongly think is the truth from criticism.
The feelings you list correspond to very common ways people behave. So they’re very weak evidence that you’re wrong about something. Unless you’re a trained rationalist who very rarely has these feelings / behaviors.
Most people first acquire a belief—whether by epistomologically legitimate ways or not—and then proceed to defend it, ignore contrary evidence and feel opponents to be stupid, because that’s just the way most people deal with beliefs that are important to them.