The main problem I see with your discussion is that it fails to distinguish between the face value of beliefs and their implicit signaling value. If you try to disentangle the internal logical structure of a typical (smart and well-informed) person’s political and ideological beliefs, you will not find a neat logical network of axioms, facts, and their implications, but a jumbled mess of extremely vague propositions whose logical connection with their concrete positions is tenuous at best, and with a bunch of seemingly random unprincipled exceptions. The entire structure will reflect status- and affiliation-signaling considerations far more than logical and factual accuracy.
For example, you list “democracy with universal suffrage is the best form of government” as a core influential belief that might determine a wide range of someone’s positions. But if you try to analyze what this belief says, you’ll see that it’s in fact extremely vague, and implies nothing concrete without an entire hairball of implicit beliefs, preferences, and values that are normally associated with this proposition in our culture, with signaling implications hopelessly entangled with reasoning all along the way.
Without undertaking the tremendously difficult task of disentangling this hairball, your approach will still lead to people talking past each other. (Or worse, understanding the implicit conflict instinctively and responding accordingly.)
Sure. This is sort of idealized, Spock-politics. Issues of irrationality and signaling are a whole other kettle of fish. They’ve also been extensively discussed on this site.
The thing is, a network of axioms, facts, and their implications is hard enough to understand. If we wanted to understand the differences between different people’s beliefs, on any subject, we’d need to tackle a very scary mathematical/computational problem.
I am aware that the mere mention of politics gets on your nerves. They are, however, a good example of a sort of belief that
Just about everybody has. Lots of salient examples available that everyone will recognize.
Differs a lot from person to person.
People (at least the smart and well-informed ones) spend time trying to reconcile and make coherent.
So you hate politics. What else do almost all people have opinions about, where the opinions vary, and people bother with implications and internal coherence?
No, I don’t hate politics. In fact, I enjoy discussing it if it’s done the right way; those things that get on my nerves, I simply ignore. With posts like this one, I see some potential for an interesting discussion, but for this to happen, it is necessary to clarify some misconceptions and make sure we stick to reality, not false idealizations and metaphysical fictions.
The trouble here is that analyzing the structure of people’s political beliefs while ignoring signaling and related considerations is like trying to analyze the structure of the atom nucleus while ignoring the strong interaction. It is simply too large a step away from reality to allow for any accurate discussion.
It’s easiest to see this if you just ask people to state some of the core principles underlying their political and ideological beliefs, and then do some Socratic questioning about their various implications. It’s very easy to get them into a self-contradiction, or to demonstrate that a straightforward deduction from these principles leads to something they’d never subscribe to. At the end, you’ll get a stream of annoyed and incoherent special pleading and rationalizations aimed to uphold the positions your interlocutor deems to be desirable and respectable, not a coherent logical structure where you might start locating the root of your disagreements.
The main problem I see with your discussion is that it fails to distinguish between the face value of beliefs and their implicit signaling value. If you try to disentangle the internal logical structure of a typical (smart and well-informed) person’s political and ideological beliefs, you will not find a neat logical network of axioms, facts, and their implications, but a jumbled mess of extremely vague propositions whose logical connection with their concrete positions is tenuous at best, and with a bunch of seemingly random unprincipled exceptions. The entire structure will reflect status- and affiliation-signaling considerations far more than logical and factual accuracy.
For example, you list “democracy with universal suffrage is the best form of government” as a core influential belief that might determine a wide range of someone’s positions. But if you try to analyze what this belief says, you’ll see that it’s in fact extremely vague, and implies nothing concrete without an entire hairball of implicit beliefs, preferences, and values that are normally associated with this proposition in our culture, with signaling implications hopelessly entangled with reasoning all along the way.
Without undertaking the tremendously difficult task of disentangling this hairball, your approach will still lead to people talking past each other. (Or worse, understanding the implicit conflict instinctively and responding accordingly.)
Sure. This is sort of idealized, Spock-politics. Issues of irrationality and signaling are a whole other kettle of fish. They’ve also been extensively discussed on this site.
The thing is, a network of axioms, facts, and their implications is hard enough to understand. If we wanted to understand the differences between different people’s beliefs, on any subject, we’d need to tackle a very scary mathematical/computational problem.
I am aware that the mere mention of politics gets on your nerves. They are, however, a good example of a sort of belief that
Just about everybody has. Lots of salient examples available that everyone will recognize.
Differs a lot from person to person.
People (at least the smart and well-informed ones) spend time trying to reconcile and make coherent.
So you hate politics. What else do almost all people have opinions about, where the opinions vary, and people bother with implications and internal coherence?
No, I don’t hate politics. In fact, I enjoy discussing it if it’s done the right way; those things that get on my nerves, I simply ignore. With posts like this one, I see some potential for an interesting discussion, but for this to happen, it is necessary to clarify some misconceptions and make sure we stick to reality, not false idealizations and metaphysical fictions.
The trouble here is that analyzing the structure of people’s political beliefs while ignoring signaling and related considerations is like trying to analyze the structure of the atom nucleus while ignoring the strong interaction. It is simply too large a step away from reality to allow for any accurate discussion.
It’s easiest to see this if you just ask people to state some of the core principles underlying their political and ideological beliefs, and then do some Socratic questioning about their various implications. It’s very easy to get them into a self-contradiction, or to demonstrate that a straightforward deduction from these principles leads to something they’d never subscribe to. At the end, you’ll get a stream of annoyed and incoherent special pleading and rationalizations aimed to uphold the positions your interlocutor deems to be desirable and respectable, not a coherent logical structure where you might start locating the root of your disagreements.