If you hold a belief that is described with a name that has negative connotations, you have two options. You can either hide behind some sort of euphemism, or you can just come out and say “yes I do believe that, and I am proud of it”.
There is also a third option: Keep your identity small and pick your battles. Just because the society happens to disagree with you in one specific topic, that is no reason to make that one topic central to your life, and to let all other people define you by that one topic regardless of what other traits or abilities you have—which will probably happen if you are open about that disagreement.
Imagine that you live in a society where people believe that 2+2=5, and they also believe that anyone who says 2+2=4 is an evil person and must be killed. (There seems to be a good reason for that. Hundred years ago there was an evil robot who destroyed half of the planet, and it is know that the robot believed that 2+2=4. Because this is the most known fact about the robot, people concluded that beliving that 2+2=4 must be the source of all evil, and needs to be eradicated from the society. We don’t want any more planetary destruction, do we?) What are your choices? You could say that 2+2=4 and get killed. Or you could say that 2+2=4.999, avoid being killed, only get a few suspicious looks and be rejected at a few job interviews; and hope that if people keep doing that long enough, at one moment it will become acceptable to say that 2+2=4.9, or even 4.5, and perhaps one day no one will be killed for saying that it equals 4.
The third option is to enjoy food and wine, and refuse to comment publicly on how much 2+2 is. Perhaps have a few trusted friends you can discuss maths with.
Okay, but all I’m saying is that if you do decide to talk about your beliefs, you should use a more honest term for your belief system. I definitely agree with you that racists should not go around talking publicly about their beliefs! You seem to have inferred something from my post that I didn’t mean, sorry about that.
Okay, but all I’m saying is that if you do decide to talk about your beliefs, you should use a more honest term for your belief system.
Interesting. I’m fond of using a negative-connotation framing of myself and my beliefs, but I wouldn’t call it “honest”.
In general, socially admitted “beliefs” are actually actions. I see no reason to optimize them for anything other than effectiveness.
(LW is different. There is enough openness here and epistemic rationality norms that it’s actually a good idea to share your beliefs and get criticism.)
Of course, what I usually do is saying “2+2>3” when I want to sound politically correct and “2+2<6” when I want to sound meta-contrarian. (Translating back from the metaphor, those would be “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nurture” and “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nature” respectively.)
There is also a third option: Keep your identity small and pick your battles. Just because the society happens to disagree with you in one specific topic, that is no reason to make that one topic central to your life, and to let all other people define you by that one topic regardless of what other traits or abilities you have—which will probably happen if you are open about that disagreement.
Imagine that you live in a society where people believe that 2+2=5, and they also believe that anyone who says 2+2=4 is an evil person and must be killed. (There seems to be a good reason for that. Hundred years ago there was an evil robot who destroyed half of the planet, and it is know that the robot believed that 2+2=4. Because this is the most known fact about the robot, people concluded that beliving that 2+2=4 must be the source of all evil, and needs to be eradicated from the society. We don’t want any more planetary destruction, do we?) What are your choices? You could say that 2+2=4 and get killed. Or you could say that 2+2=4.999, avoid being killed, only get a few suspicious looks and be rejected at a few job interviews; and hope that if people keep doing that long enough, at one moment it will become acceptable to say that 2+2=4.9, or even 4.5, and perhaps one day no one will be killed for saying that it equals 4.
The third option is to enjoy food and wine, and refuse to comment publicly on how much 2+2 is. Perhaps have a few trusted friends you can discuss maths with.
Okay, but all I’m saying is that if you do decide to talk about your beliefs, you should use a more honest term for your belief system. I definitely agree with you that racists should not go around talking publicly about their beliefs! You seem to have inferred something from my post that I didn’t mean, sorry about that.
Interesting. I’m fond of using a negative-connotation framing of myself and my beliefs, but I wouldn’t call it “honest”.
In general, socially admitted “beliefs” are actually actions. I see no reason to optimize them for anything other than effectiveness.
(LW is different. There is enough openness here and epistemic rationality norms that it’s actually a good idea to share your beliefs and get criticism.)
Of course, what I usually do is saying “2+2>3” when I want to sound politically correct and “2+2<6” when I want to sound meta-contrarian. (Translating back from the metaphor, those would be “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nurture” and “for all we know, achievement gaps may be at least partly caused by nature” respectively.)