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[wierd]

The few rays of light I get when others see without help us one of the few bits of hope I have for the world.

I am glad you caught the reference.

[Sergarr]

Quite possible. I am very world weary.  However, other people being unable to comprehend me without extensive hand holding does not help either. Since the mention of the parable is confusing, I will hold hands once again.

Like the parable, the people in this discussion are making arguments and theses centered on their own limited experiences, and so find themselves in complete disagreement about the nature if what they are observing.

The people on the far end of the political spectrum that have seized the reins of power, likewise.

Each describes what they see, and how it affects them, but dismiss the reports of the other, favoring more familiar reporting.

I learned a trick to hold two seemingly simultaneously contradicting truths, and see both equally. I find it makes me have to reevaluate my naturally limited perspective, because I can then glimpse the whole elephant, figuratively.

To ever see the whole elephant, you have to see how all claims can be true.

You cannot do that by being dismissive.

The "counter swing" is because of the lack of care or consideration for the other groups impacted by the heavy push toward progressivism in the past century, due to this POV bias.  Try to see the whole elephant, even though it is nihilistic and depressing.

Are you implying that progressivism and anti-progressivism are equal to each other?

Because if you do, then I have to say that they're not. For one, progressive thought is backed by scientific studies, while the anti-progressive thought is backed by, literally, "feelings", as Newt Gingrich has put it.

Also, progressive thought was the main reason for the existence of many nice things, such as, you know, rights, and democracy. Anti-progressive thought was, in comparison, mainly responsible for producing enormous body counts in all wars, famines, institutionalized oppression...

Though it's not surprising that you don't see any difference between those two, if your vision of the world can be summed up with "grey". Real world has colors, real world has texture, real world has many, many things other than a single 1-line white-black gradation. It's impossible to really understand the world without seeing that things can be not-white, not-black, but yet still vastly different from each other, some better, like yellow sunlight, which can still burn your skin if you have too much of it, but in moderate amounts, it's pretty good, and some much, much worse, like gamma rays, which, sure, could maybe be used for something useful, like killing cancer cells, but are far more likely to come in a form of a deadly indiscriminate burst, irradiating your body and causing you to die really, really painfully.

Excuse me for not wanting to accept moral equivalence between those two.

[wierd]

Wars have been fought, and thousands killed over imaginary gods that exist only as feelings.

It is foolish to dismiss such facts, or to expect it to just go away because you have proof that satisfies you. That is why it is depressing.

These people will fight you, with weapons if need be, because of their feelings.

Dismissal is wrong in so many ways.


Also, you are misinterpreting a single one line statement to disastrous effect.

It is meant to convey that there are no absolutes, only percieved differences based on frames of reference. Not that everything is everything else too.

[smjjames]

'sunlight' includes a wide array of spectra (though some of it gets absorbed by the atmosphere before it ever reaches you) and nobody has proven that yellow wavelength light harms your skin, so, your 'yellow sunlight' analogy fails because it's ultraviolet rays that 'burn' your skin, not 'yellow sunlight'.

Though obviously if you take a magnifying glass to concentrate the light, it could still burn due to the concentrated energy.

[Reelya]

It would be more true if he just said "sunlight" without the adjective, because sunlight as a whole includes UV. But that makes it less yellow if anything. People who can see UV (e.g. from the loss of the eye's lens, which blocks UV), report it as bluish/purplish white).

[smjjames]

The entire point that weird is making is that you need to see it from multiple points of view and not be boxed (or bubbled) into one echo chamber. Which is a real problem today with people isolating themselves into filter bubbles and echo chambers, which is how we got to the polarized state we are in. Read the wiki page on the parable.

[Reelya]

Jonathan Haidt touches on that subject well in some of his videos. I think it's just about one of the most interesting political questions of the modern day, although I've encountered hostility from both sides to questioning it (which is kind of the point). Some argue that political polarization on both sides is becoming the new "race divide". Certainly the way that both sides refer to the other with disgust and using anger to shut down discussion is every bit as hostile as the worst racially-motivated language.

EDIT: for example, one of the most common ways I've heard some liberals talking about how the left/right divide is going to be overcome is that the conservatives will die off and liberals will win by default. I've been guilty of that sentiment in the past myself, but I'm really starting to question the thinking behind that. That's almost the exact definition of head-in-the-sand thinking and we as liberals should steer away from such sentiment. Pretending we don't have to engage with the opposition because "they'll be dead soon" is not the way forward.

[wierd]

Exactly. Also, the danger of ostracising a force that caused hundreds of years of suffering in Europe, burned women in Salem, and now empowers modern Nazis complete with salutes, are certainly not things to just dismiss.

Understanding that all parties are grasping their respective bits of the elephant, and denying the reports from all other parties, is essential to understanding what is going on.

The Nazis see trump as supporting their views, which he has publicly disavowed. (They refuse to hear) they continue as if supported by god. It will end badly.

The trump group sees money, and only money. Politics is seen through the lens of monetary gain. That is why he is selecting foxes to run the henhouse. He does not see foxes, he sees champions of industry that will manage regulatory agencies with deep industry knowledge. (And ignores outside input or reports.) It will end poorly.

The left sees its views (need not elaborate.), and likewise, does not listen to outside views about how these actions have further hamstrung the middle class, and are onerous and dismissive to the rich. It has ended poorly.

[Radio Controlled]

"Test everything, hold fast to what is good." seems like a nice middle road.

[smjjames]

"Test everything, hold fast to what is good." seems like a nice middle road.

Except there's hardly any centrists on either side (Republicans especially), let alone a middle road, and both parties have a different idea of 'good'. I hear the Democrats are going to try and take the high road by trying not resorting to the same stupid tactics that the Republicans did for every single thing for Obama. Doesn't mean they won't fight tooth and nail against Trump's bad ideas.

Kind of hard to take the middle road when one side refuses to do so. And yeah, it'll end badly for both.

The Democrats seem to be attempting to see outside their bubble, but time will tell if they're successful.

(moved down from an earlier post as it might not have gotten read)

I try to look at stuff outside the filter bubble occasionally, but keep getting repelled by the way conservatives talk about liberals. Not ALWAYS repelled, but the hate is there and making me not want to read the article when it's there.

[Baffler]

"Test everything, hold fast to what is good." seems like a nice middle road.

That would be fine if we could freely restructure society as seriously and frequently as we want. We can't. The years it takes to implement a policy, see how it works in the real world, then shut it all down if it doesn't would be ruinous if we just did it willy-nilly. Conservatism is an extremely important check on chaotic "progress."

[smjjames]

"Test everything, hold fast to what is good." seems like a nice middle road.

That would be fine if we could freely restructure society as seriously and frequently as we want. We can't. The years it takes to implement a policy, see how it works in the real world, then shut it all down if it doesn't would be ruinous if we just did it willy-nilly. Conservatism is an extremely important check on chaotic "progress."

True, but it doesn't help to violently yank it back decades.

[Reelya]

The left sees its views (need not elaborate.), and likewise, does not listen to outside views about how these actions have further hamstrung the middle class, and are onerous and dismissive to the rich. It has ended poorly.

One point Haidt mentions in his videos is the hegemonic world views of academia. It's really a new phenomena. e.g. up until the mid 90s, American colleges had about about 1/4 conservative lecturers. So there was always a liberal majority but there were enough conservatives that you could still get a healthy debate. Since then however, the ration of liberal to conservatives shrunk to 1/15 - 1/60 depending on which college you go to. And those few conservatives who are left aren't in the humanities schools at all. So liberal academics "won" the debate in North America by gradually excluding conservatives from the academy. And now expressing even a remotely non-conforming opinion on US campuses is met with disbelief and outrage. Which is why you get examples like "banning Nietzsche" because Nietzsche's dangerous ideas make students feel unsafe.

Haidt also points out that if you're in an echo-chamber, you never need to defend your views. So people on both sides have become less and less able to articulate the reasons they believe what they believe, because their views are much more rarely challenged. Therefore people are less equipped to debate their points of view, and the result is a quicker resort to anger or name-calling to shut down debate.

[wierd]

SMJJames:
That same hate is also seen from the left.

Labeling everything and everyone "racist" and "misogynist" is a good example. It repells moderate Republicans the way the hate in the right repells moderate democrats.

Extremism does that. It pushes away from the middle.

[Radio Controlled]

"Test everything, hold fast to what is good." seems like a nice middle road.

That would be fine if we could freely restructure society as seriously and frequently as we want. We can't. The years it takes to implement a policy, see how it works in the real world, then shut it all down if it doesn't would be ruinous if we just did it willy-nilly. Conservatism is an extremely important check on chaotic "progress."

It's meant on a more personal level.