![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vandrendehareHum along if you know this song: you've got yourself a lifeboat that can accommodate 20 without sinking. There are 10 people in the boat already and 20 in the water. Furthermore, supplies are limited. Not sure how limited, just no one is going to be comfortable, and living long enough to be rescued is not certain. Who do you save? How do you choose?
Now, let's say one person on your boat has a drill and is threatening to drill a hole in the boat if two people don't jump into the water, right now. Supplies are limited, says this fucker, and 8 have a better chance of surviving to rescue than 10 and don't you dare pull anyone out of the water. We need fewer people in this boat. Two more people have latched on to this plan and are backing him up. One, a shark-eyed homunculus of a man, is 100% committed to putting more people in the drink and one is about 70% committed. How do you react?
Now, let's say, if you do anything other than join in this drilling plan or sacrifice yourself, the guy with the drill will start shouting "Why are you trying to sink the boat, are you crazy, you'll get us all killed!" He'll shout long and loud, even as he cranks and the sawdust corkscrews up. Some of your fellow passengers are confused, some are frightened fit to freeze, and any time you try and talk to them, the guy with the drill just shouts, with one of his lackeys holding a megaphone up to his mouth and the other with an oar ready to fight. What do you do?
You could try to attack them, but three on one is bad odds, unless you're the God-damned Bat Man (for the sake of this thought experiment, let's say you are not Bat Man). Even if you got some people together to fight on your side, a lifeboat scrum in stormy seas is not going to end well for anyone.
Now, let's say the three start discussing how, once two people are gone from the boat, they're going to demand two more, since 6 have a better chance of surviving than 8. What then?
Because 6 is driller/non-driller parity, and 4 have a better shot than 6, right? Right?
And then there is this other motherfucker, who has been heretofore silent piping up and saying if we give in to the driller's plan, maybe we can convince the 70% committed guy to stop demanding more sacrifices.
This last guy has a name, and it's Jonathan Haidt.
So my cross-posted essay about the fucking parade was inspired partly by my recent exposure to aforementioned smug ex-liberal prick Jonathan Haidt. I suppose I've let the cat out of the bag for how I feel about the man and his work so far. So far, I have only heard a couple reviews of his books and watched all I can stomach of the man speak on You Tube, so my sample is, so far, pretty limited.
His focus has been what appears to be a facile take Hume's "reason is the slave of passion," line of thought. I think comes from Hume. Is it Hume? I ought to look that up.
**looks it up**
Yup. Anyway, one of his books is apparently looking at that through the lens of modern neuroscience that, at least to an extent, bears that assertion out. I don't have anything against Hume, and, in this case, I think he's not wrong. But Haidt takes it to politics and that's where I want to choke the man out. And then Hume, for good measure.
I don't recall ever having such a strong reaction to someone I've never read. I kind of want to pirate his books to hate-read them. Like, not even get them from the library, but pirate them.
Anyway, when he takes this to Anglo-US politics, it feeds into his thesis that everyone (for certain values of everyone) holds certain values sacred ("worships" them in his parlance, and DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THAT); Fairness is the one I can think of that he says everyone holds in common, but that liberals and conservatives differ on at a certain point. Conservatives, according to Haidt, have two sacred things most liberals don't - Nationalistic Pride and Religious Reverence. Because of this liberals fail to make effective moral arguments to conservatives, since they can't appeal to the full spectrum of the things people worship.
I want to punch this man in the face until I have no hands with which to punch.
I might be misconstruing based on his presentation in the lectures I've seen him give. I'm in an interesting place where he is concerned. I do not want to support him. He's much impressed by the current wave of ethno-nationalist populism, enamored with Libertarians, and you can just tell he uses the phrase "Judeo-Christian" unironically. Or at all. But I would like to understand his argument better so I can tell you when, where, how, and why he's wrong.
At the same time, I thought it might be a worthy experiment to make a moral argument for or against something, using one of the sacred things that the guy who's 70% committed to drilling holds as such that I usually don't. Lo and behold, I got one - arguing against 45's military parade from Nationalistic Pride - and I didn't have to be disingenuous to make the argument.
And then my Johnny-Woke-Lately, Checking his Privilege all Over the Place (Singing 'WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU') pal Dan had to start a Facebook fight with my mom.
The struggle continues.
But I'm not done with Haidt.
Now, let's say one person on your boat has a drill and is threatening to drill a hole in the boat if two people don't jump into the water, right now. Supplies are limited, says this fucker, and 8 have a better chance of surviving to rescue than 10 and don't you dare pull anyone out of the water. We need fewer people in this boat. Two more people have latched on to this plan and are backing him up. One, a shark-eyed homunculus of a man, is 100% committed to putting more people in the drink and one is about 70% committed. How do you react?
Now, let's say, if you do anything other than join in this drilling plan or sacrifice yourself, the guy with the drill will start shouting "Why are you trying to sink the boat, are you crazy, you'll get us all killed!" He'll shout long and loud, even as he cranks and the sawdust corkscrews up. Some of your fellow passengers are confused, some are frightened fit to freeze, and any time you try and talk to them, the guy with the drill just shouts, with one of his lackeys holding a megaphone up to his mouth and the other with an oar ready to fight. What do you do?
You could try to attack them, but three on one is bad odds, unless you're the God-damned Bat Man (for the sake of this thought experiment, let's say you are not Bat Man). Even if you got some people together to fight on your side, a lifeboat scrum in stormy seas is not going to end well for anyone.
Now, let's say the three start discussing how, once two people are gone from the boat, they're going to demand two more, since 6 have a better chance of surviving than 8. What then?
Because 6 is driller/non-driller parity, and 4 have a better shot than 6, right? Right?
And then there is this other motherfucker, who has been heretofore silent piping up and saying if we give in to the driller's plan, maybe we can convince the 70% committed guy to stop demanding more sacrifices.
This last guy has a name, and it's Jonathan Haidt.
So my cross-posted essay about the fucking parade was inspired partly by my recent exposure to aforementioned smug ex-liberal prick Jonathan Haidt. I suppose I've let the cat out of the bag for how I feel about the man and his work so far. So far, I have only heard a couple reviews of his books and watched all I can stomach of the man speak on You Tube, so my sample is, so far, pretty limited.
His focus has been what appears to be a facile take Hume's "reason is the slave of passion," line of thought. I think comes from Hume. Is it Hume? I ought to look that up.
**looks it up**
Yup. Anyway, one of his books is apparently looking at that through the lens of modern neuroscience that, at least to an extent, bears that assertion out. I don't have anything against Hume, and, in this case, I think he's not wrong. But Haidt takes it to politics and that's where I want to choke the man out. And then Hume, for good measure.
I don't recall ever having such a strong reaction to someone I've never read. I kind of want to pirate his books to hate-read them. Like, not even get them from the library, but pirate them.
Anyway, when he takes this to Anglo-US politics, it feeds into his thesis that everyone (for certain values of everyone) holds certain values sacred ("worships" them in his parlance, and DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THAT); Fairness is the one I can think of that he says everyone holds in common, but that liberals and conservatives differ on at a certain point. Conservatives, according to Haidt, have two sacred things most liberals don't - Nationalistic Pride and Religious Reverence. Because of this liberals fail to make effective moral arguments to conservatives, since they can't appeal to the full spectrum of the things people worship.
I want to punch this man in the face until I have no hands with which to punch.
I might be misconstruing based on his presentation in the lectures I've seen him give. I'm in an interesting place where he is concerned. I do not want to support him. He's much impressed by the current wave of ethno-nationalist populism, enamored with Libertarians, and you can just tell he uses the phrase "Judeo-Christian" unironically. Or at all. But I would like to understand his argument better so I can tell you when, where, how, and why he's wrong.
At the same time, I thought it might be a worthy experiment to make a moral argument for or against something, using one of the sacred things that the guy who's 70% committed to drilling holds as such that I usually don't. Lo and behold, I got one - arguing against 45's military parade from Nationalistic Pride - and I didn't have to be disingenuous to make the argument.
And then my Johnny-Woke-Lately, Checking his Privilege all Over the Place (Singing 'WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU') pal Dan had to start a Facebook fight with my mom.
The struggle continues.
But I'm not done with Haidt.
