ShariaHeap
5mo ago
A secular education is such a no-brainer for successful civic outcomes. I'm not sure on some of your other points - I'm not sure it's 'been always thus' as you seem to imply at the end, because indoctrination has varied in kind and degree quite a lot.
America, through people like John Dewey have articulated clear visions of education, and have presumably had their influence. Now, I think we face a deeper issue with regard to post-modern ideas, break down in research academia, new technologies impacting etc. I think the conditions are for indoctrination to be unusually bad currently, over an arc say to the beginning of the 20th century.
If the rebuttal is that we've always taught propagandising myths around national identity, history etc, I'd entirely agree with you. But I think it's a different kind of situation because the basics of pedagogy/child development were still prioritised. With the postmodern morass we are losing our actual orientation to learning.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
That seems true from my limited knowledge of war contexts. Yes I'd say we are at a new time in history in that we have many perspective takers neutral to this or that conflict that see various wars, beyond geopolitical reasons and parochial local forces, as being somewhat pointless. US foreign policy has this sense of arbitrariness, where every action is completely justifiable from some strategic perspective, even if just undermining the region or wanting to spoil a rivals influence. But when the accounting is done some period after, the reasoning drops away and the action is ceased, reverted, like a cat that gets tired of playing with some half-dead mouse. Meanwhile the massive loss of infrastructure and often civilian life plants the seed for further deprivation and violence down the track, this justifying the next intervention.
The consequence for perspective takers that are not linked to either side is that they can start to make connections from war, to other bad outcomes, such as an influx of immigrants into your country.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Fair play, well I'm certainly not immune to arguments about different cultures having different features and I also believe you can privilege some as being more beneficial in some context.
I'm quite a fan of Fukuyama style political philosophy that looks at things like why India failed to have an imperial/hegemonic national system for very long prior to the English. There are many factors... or, why do English colonies seem to maintain institutional elements of governance better than Spanish ones.
And, purely from hearsay, Brazilians have more fun because they are sexually liberated and more fun-loving...
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
It does seem we prefer our own tribal groups and immigration seems to stand as an exemplar of the power of elites to override the common will. I suppose Dublin should celebrate being a modern economy? But to be fair to the obnoxious Brazilians, pejorative things are said about immigrants of any stripe in the early days, but differences tend to become less salient with subsequent generations. The other things you talk about could be more related to a marginal economic existence, rather than hard-grained cultural/ethnic? I'm presuming the average Brazilian family doesn't have mum popping out for nightwork?
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
I can see what you mean, and agree with the drawn out nature of many wars, especially proxy wars. But Im not sure previous wars where fighting was less restrained necessarily resolved issues such as contested land, though might-is-right was certainly understood well by the loser in heavy defeats. But these memories stay until fortunes change presumably and then the chance to even the score presents itself. I'm thinking regions like the Balkans - I mean they had a decent war not so long ago, but it hasn't resolved the tensions.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Well I don't have a solution to the larger problem of national rivalries over various interests. And I admit that my tendency is also to gloss over these things as well.
But we are influenced by our goverments and media. This prevents us from seeing our agency in at least some matters. The Iraq war was a coterie of hawks who hoodwinked the US and UK into a war. If journalism had highlighted true facts and enquired more deeply, they could have, perhaps, been stared down.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Oh right, see no evil, hear no evil...
Given that lives are on the line, a countries foreign interventions should ethically be of great concern, both for the lives of their own citizens but also foreign citizens. Even if you hold your own nationals as being more important, it would still be important to want to limit unnecessary foreign deaths where there are no strategic gains.
The idea that you would be happy just for innocent people to die, would put you in a pretty small set of people. Some people speak rhetorically in such a fashion but I question whether they would actually be able to kill an innocent person themselves if they knew there was no justification. As you point out, the key is not to know about it or to be in the fog of war.
If you're looking for relevant examples, think Iraq war. Lot's of innocent civilians dead, no strategic gains beyond regional chaos perhaps. This sort of thing is only possible when the truth is hidden. Otherwise people tend to understand that it's bad, because most of us value self-consistency and aren't psychopaths.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
The underlying nihilism of 4chan means that what starts as larping actually reifies the ideas in the community. They lose track of the meta, which reminds me of the quote, "The trouble with propaganda is you forget where you hid the truth".
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
I know that there is a tendency for some topics, in some weeks, to dominate, but I fail to understand this critique.
I'm frequently impressed with the depth, breadth and back and forth of some of the discussion I've seen here. Even on familiar topics, some of the ideas are frame breaking enough they lead me to question some unexamined prior.
Even the HBD and white nationalism stuff has merit in uncovering widely held views and pointing to the critique of liberalism moment we are in.
Also, as a majority single issue focus poster, it's called culture war and I resent people telling me to move on just because they have reached their peace. I'm sure you have issues that stir you and there's a gate-keepy flavour with pointing out topics that are 'overdone' that triggers me back to days of college, where no-one at parties wanted to talk philosophy with me...
I recognise some stuff gets repeated and may feel overdone, but it's easy to minimise main threads. I think even in frequently posted issues, there can be new levels of analysis/synthesis that evolve over time.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Don't be low effort? I guess you have tried but figured that white nationalism is basically correct. You're here to either explore the chance your wrong with people who are willing to put in more effort, or much more likely you're doing 4D chess because you find your own ideas on the matter compelling. You've basically been outed as bad faith, and that is the issue at hand. The other option is you're here to steelman the best arguments against your ideas so you can work away in private to dismantle them rhetorically.
I think you may have some strange meta personality such that you are the person who has the visceral hatred.
Why don't you just speak in the first person about your own ideas in a direct way?
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Yes, that's the kind of idea I was pointing at. What cognitive, cultural impact do religious ideas have, on culture broadly, and can we make the sort of suggestive claims about their relative strengths/weaknesses, as you have here.
I'm conscious that religions seem to have adopted aspects of other religions, so this seems a case for some kind of evolution. This is naturally a somewhat speculative exercise, and is hampered by the vastness of history and diversity of theology within even s single tradition. Also there's the valid question of how much impact high theological ideas have on the culture. Perhaps all along it is culture that drives, and religion reflects?
If we accept some kind of weak teleology, progress in human development, does this imply there's a meta-religion that can take the best of a plurality. Would this be, by definition, secular?
Of course the main function of religion is the framework and community basis, so perhaps that's the key step and the other bits somewhat incidental.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Not sneering, just trying to figure out what breed of Christian you're promoting.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Ah ha, this is my take. I expect to not know about stuff on the internet, but as you say, is this the level large sections of the online world are involved with? It sounds like celebrity gossip and petty rivalries of the most lurid reality tv type serial.
If there is lineage, as someone suggested, from 4chan, then this would explain a lot. Nothing good can grow from nihilism. Is internet just no good for popular communities to develop that actually lead to meaning-making as opposed to cynical audience appeal (and subsequent audience capture).
Is larping, hot-takes and terminally online self-referencing not wearing itself out by now?
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Do we expect the illiterate, post-apocalyptic Greeks to be the same morally and socially as their highly advanced ancestors?
I have related questions that intrigue me, such as what is the cognitive development at each stage of human development, how widespread is it, and how diversely expressed?
An an example of what I've thought more about than the Bronze Age, though somewhat related is the development of Abrahamic religions and precursors from the bronze Age collapse onwards. I am fond of the kind of frame that links the metaphors/symbols/archetypes that appear over history to fundamental shifts in cognitiion as a process of cognitive-cultural adaptation, or levelling up.
This kind of view (eg Petersonian religious big history thinking) might frame Christianity as a major stage of development beyond previous religious ideas such as Zoroastrianism and Judaism. My knowledge of religion is limited, and haven't yet traversed JPs religious series, but I understand that the claim can be made that ideas of forgiveness and salvation from sin become more central in Christianity, alongside a radical shift in perspective, whereby God is instantiated as the more personal God-in-Christ.
Jung points to this sort of idea in his Answers to Job. I may not be remembering it right, but hopefully a sketch in its direction is that God, in his demonstration of absolute tyranny through Satan shows that He lacks, temporarily, omniscience in all things in that he lacks access to the personal. In contrast Job, as a human, can see in his own suffering the injustice, and perhaps failure of empathy, of God. When God's omniscience at a larger scale reestablishes, this prompts God to incorporate himself in human form through Jesus Christ.
Now there are presumably innumerable examples across all religions of symbols that point to useful adaptive behaviour in humans. But can a case be made for a kind of integral theory hierarchy, and thus a need for all religions to adapt, or more controversially and argument that Christianity reflecting a more cognitively adapted human, and Old Testament the less evolved.
Or is it better to think that standards of cooperation that evolved in hunter-gatherer tribes are set early, and understandings around symbols that serve flourishing somewhat timeless, such that most religions have access to them in differing degrees and emphases.
Or, finally, do they each capture something unique, and thus we should seek wisdom through their plurality, essentially operating in a secular mode?
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
The refusal to connect with the trans issue when it's staring you in the face is also something you see with research. Like this article looking at the rapid spread of psychiatric illnesses in teen girls on social media, that somehow fails to even mention trans.
Or the endless line graphs of rising mental illness that Jonathan Haidt and co produce, corresponding also with social media use, but not showing the one on gender dysphoria, which shows the same trend.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Yes, it's not the right term, I agree.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Ah ha, yes perhaps my comment needs a few caveats, great link :) To be fair I was thinking real life woodworking clubs or walking groups, not internet fan-fiction clubs but on reflection I can see all sorts of human behaviour would be out there regardless.
I think cults are probably on a spectrum, where different degree ultimately separates into different kinds.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
Im over generalising and it's not the right term probably. I mean picking at the margins, like the 'well that doesn't sound exactly like a cult to me', when the OP was making parallels. Or, pointing out how rare it is, when the argument is not about volume.
It's not arguing the substantive points but rather deflecting in a manner that can be defended as being a legitimate argument, this hiding the true motive.
I may be projecting however...
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
I suspect this is tongue in cheek, but one wonders about the gish-gallop style of rebuttal that takes place here in contrast to debate on the substantive issues.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
I don't think a typical hobby group credibly meets the threshold of cult-like, although some would have their own characteristics, you must like X thing and not Y etc.
Agreed, the second part of what you talk about is what I am referring to by a culture bound syndrome, but there's also explicit manifestations that if not exactly characteristic of cults, are cult like. It's a modern social construction/transhuman cult perhaps. Religious belief is another relevant paradigm. I feel like we're arguing in the margins.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
I agree we should focus on economic issues and intergenerational disparities but gender ideology is ubiquitous - in the sense of scale it's huge, an attempted takeover of a prior social consensus. Just because a lot of people ignore it, doesn't mean it's not consequential.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
I didn't see it necessarily as trans ideology meeting every aspect of a cult just that there are obvious parallels.
The cult dynamics are most apparent perhaps in social media groups, where there is love-bombing, sanctioning and social games to influence vulnerable new members by the group and older figures, moderators acting as the cult leaders. These are places where teenage angst will be helpfully interpreted as a sign you're probably trans, and doubt about transitioning framed as internalised transphobia, or a need to stop listening to others or going to other places on the internet and just stay on 'trans-friendly sites'.
I think the current ideology has cult like manifestation but that it's better described as a culture-bound syndrome, or egregore, though that's a more nebulous concept.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
That number is likely an undercount -- even the most comprehensive data provider, Komodo, acknowledges this in their reporting-- and regardless why is the number important, or why is the fact that some people are particularly exercised by it an issue? Also your comparison is off, at least the way youve worded it -- you need to compare the number of adolescents who are already receiving puberty blockers with their baseline population, not just the annual figure of those who start puberty blockers.
Moral panic? The reality is numbers of dysphoric adolescents and those receiving blockers and hormones is rising exponentially. When something changes rapidly, some people are curious why -- there is an inherent urgency implied in understanding rapid change. And the sphere of influence, and age of influence of these ideas has gotten wider and younger, so depending on where you live and whether legislative changes occur, it will likely continue to grow. Unless individuals act to do something.
Some people have children (autistic children even) who are entering an education system where they will learn that they don't have a sex until they decide what it is, so they have actual skin in the game. We're also talking a legal, and progressive campaign to change society wholesale fundamentally, with people effective being compelled to accept unproven ideas around gender in the workplace, in medical clinics, in education. Factually inconsistent and wrong ideas about sex are spreading through medical institutions and acadme. I agree that this is just one manifestation of problems in science, academia, medicine and psychology, but it is a flagshap example and to paraphrase Blake, one where you can see the whole world-- progressive attempts at social engineering, post-modernist queerying of categories and truth, transhumanism, philosophical relativism and nihilism leading to bad ideas. Plenty of people are witness to transitioning children and adolescents and a growing number of parents are grieving there children and dealing with dissonance of being in a completely unemphatetic environment to their plight, all while kindness and inclusivity are preached.
Relative to drug addiction, gun and road deaths, yes it's small but rareness doesn't exonerate wrongness, and it's possible to care to varying degrees, or at least have an informed opinion about, many different issues at once.
This is a canary in the coalmine as part of woke progressive social engineering (along with anti-whiteness etc), so a lot of people have an interest. I would argue it's an important manifestation of where we are at as liberal societies with rising mental health issues for children and youth and a pervasive lack of meaning broadly.
Also, you're always interested in responding, so it's a funny charge to make when you are just as focused on the issue.
ShariaHeap
5mo ago
This seems likely to me too, but it could be a genetic fallacy. Islam, after all, is known as the religion of peace. Though presumably the peace comes when everyone is Muslim...
Yes, definitely agree with the need for the mythic element in society and something shared. I think we have to take on the insights of post-modernism around grand narratives, post colonial critiques etc but have to bring back/integrate with 'greatness'.
I've always been partial to liberal and cosmopolitan values to celebrate within a national spirit of democracy. But we are all beyond the naive stage with people now somewhat aware of the propaganda that has underlied previous national narratives and therefore sensitive to it. Also, it's hard to inspire if we all suspect things have gone awry with plutocracy, inequity, ie the disappearing American dream is no longer a central national myth.
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