On the way home today (driving = meditation) , I realized that if I wasn’t making any headway comparing and contrasting my parent’s rationality—all I came up with were paradoxes and conundrums, enough for a small novel—it was because they are both exceptionally rational. However, their extended families are caricatures of irrationality.
My mother’s family succumb to magical thinking—oh wow, they do. My grandmother is afraid of bridges AND cars, and whenever she drives over a bridge (being driven, she can’t drive) she says a prayer so that everyone’s souls will stay in the car and not go under the bridge. My father’s family are Republicans and never notice how conveniently all facts about the world fall straight down party lines. (“Well, of course, one side can THINK and the others are morons.”)
Rationality-wise, from this single case study of my families, I’d say one family being argumentative and competitive about beliefs led to good [instrumental] rationality and closed-mindedness, and one family being confrontation-avoidant led to poor [instrumental] rationality and open-mindedness. I would never claim such a thing in general and would be curious about other data points.
… thinking about it further, I’ve decided I don’t know them well enough. I haven’t spent that much time with them.
I have an increasingly uneasy feeling about the possible value of reducing 30 people to 4 hand waving generalizations. I don’t understand why I can’t anticipate the anxiety until after I post the comment.
On the way home today (driving = meditation) , I realized that if I wasn’t making any headway comparing and contrasting my parent’s rationality—all I came up with were paradoxes and conundrums, enough for a small novel—it was because they are both exceptionally rational. However, their extended families are caricatures of irrationality.
My mother’s family succumb to magical thinking—oh wow, they do. My grandmother is afraid of bridges AND cars, and whenever she drives over a bridge (being driven, she can’t drive) she says a prayer so that everyone’s souls will stay in the car and not go under the bridge. My father’s family are Republicans and never notice how conveniently all facts about the world fall straight down party lines. (“Well, of course, one side can THINK and the others are morons.”)
Rationality-wise, from this single case study of my families, I’d say one family being argumentative and competitive about beliefs led to good [instrumental] rationality and closed-mindedness, and one family being confrontation-avoidant led to poor [instrumental] rationality and open-mindedness. I would never claim such a thing in general and would be curious about other data points.
Real open-mindedness or just verbal pleasantry? Can you give a concrete example of them acting on a new idea they were open to?
… thinking about it further, I’ve decided I don’t know them well enough. I haven’t spent that much time with them.
I have an increasingly uneasy feeling about the possible value of reducing 30 people to 4 hand waving generalizations. I don’t understand why I can’t anticipate the anxiety until after I post the comment.