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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   27868 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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Consider my sister, who is a staunch activist in the domain of climate change, yet recently bought a new gas guzzling car, has never given any serious thought to reducing her meat consumption, and takes 12+ international flights a year. Or consider my dad, who says extremely negative things about Muslims (not just Islam), yet who has a large number of Muslim friends who he'd never dream of saying a bad word about.

I'm curious if you've ever asked these people about this disconnect in beliefs. How they rationalize these things might cut away at the perceived contradictions. For example, your sister may believe that her consumption is a drop in the ocean compared to the emissions of large manufacturing corporations or states with industrial policies. Your father may say that he's vetted the friends he has, but Muslims as a group are generally not good.

This can be a dangerous activity - your sister may decide that climate change actually doesn't matter, or your dad might decide to abandon his friends. Fully consistency was not made with humans in mind.

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I would argue that human beings are actually perfectly consistent with their beliefs and that the issue lies with the limitations of language to both rationally understand and express these beliefs. My view is that people struggle to translate beliefs (perhaps better defined as values), which are primal and instinctual, into words and concepts that the "civilised" part of ourselves can understand. This process is further complicated by the layers of self deception and censorship that accrue naturally from living with other humans.

As a consequence I don't believe anyone truly understands their own beliefs, let alone those of others. The best we can hope for is a vague approximation, good enough to inform decision making.

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