"The Alternative to Ideology"

[Tammuz]

Jerry Taylor explains why he abandoned libertarian ideology:

The Alternative to Ideology

I have abandoned that libertarian project, however, because I have come to abandon ideology. This essay is an invitation for you to do likewise — to walk out of the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.” Ideology encourages dodgy reasoning due to what psychologists call “motivated cognition,” which is the act of deciding what you want to believe and using your reasoning power, with all its might, to get you there. Worse, it encourages fanaticism, disregard for social outcomes, and invites irresolvable philosophical disputes. It also threatens social pluralism — which is to say, it threatens freedom.

The better alternative is not moral relativism. The better alternative is moderation, a commodity that is rapidly disappearing in political life, with dangerous consequences for the American republic.

My hope is that I might best convince you to leave ideology behind by holding up a mirror to an ideological culture that is likely not your own — the world of libertarianism — and discussing the reasons why I left it behind. I suspect that, for those who hold to an “–ism,” the ideological culture of my old world doesn’t look too terribly different from your own.

I really like this essay.

I have noticed two things about ideologically passionate people:

1. They are rarely pragmatic. They are pretty uninterested in real-world data. It is only of interest if it can be used to bolster that ideology. Otherwise, it is minimized if not outright ignored. In other words, motivated reasoning, which the essay discusses.

2. If you disagree with them in the slightest, they go out of their way to take offense, and assume that you are "on the other side", thereby assigning to you positions which you may not have said anything at all related to (i.e they don't really know your position, they assume they do because you disagree with them, so you are in the enemy camp). A very annoying feature.

(I am not anti-label, but I recall Neil deGrasse Tyson saying that he rejects labels because once you go by a label, other persons will assign all sorts of baggage to you because they think that they know everything about you. And I have noticed how very ideologically passionate people do that. Like, seriously, stop it!)

I'd much rather consider each question unto itself on its own merits. We should all do that, explicitly acknowledging the values that influence our positions to arrive at well-supported conclusions, rather than engaging in motivated reasoning to justify preconceived conclusions.

 

[rousseau]

I think you may have started another similar thread previously.

I largely agree with the benefits of doing away with ideology, and especially not labeling or pigeon-holing oneself. Sometimes it can make it hard to make friends, but it's a lot more freeing.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I may come to the wrong conclusion but at least I know it’s my wrong conclusion. Being unshackled from labels allows me to reach for more information. Often this information is lazy in that I know it’s likely to support the opinion I currently hold. But at least I recognize this and am mindful to challenge myself often by listening to opposing viewpoints.

Why does Jerry Taylor still feel a need to wear a label? Don’t be a moderate. Be moderate. As soon as we label ourselves, we build walls and are obligated to defend them.

 

[J842P]

This is fundamentally true, and the motivated reasoning aspect of it is a huge problem.

 

[rousseau]

This is fundamentally true, and the motivated reasoning aspect of it is a huge problem.

Depends on how you look at it. Someone's motivated reasoning may very well get them what they want - respect of their peer group, networking, social contacts. It just doesn't necessarily contribute to a broader community.

So maybe it's a problem in the same sense that getting in car accidents is a problem with driving. It hurts, but you're not going to give up driving to avoid it.

 

[Elixir]

This is fundamentally true, and the motivated reasoning aspect of it is a huge problem.

Depends on how you look at it. Someone's motivated reasoning may very well get them what they want - respect of their peer group, networking, social contacts. It just doesn't necessarily contribute to a broader community.

So maybe it's a problem in the same sense that getting in car accidents is a problem with driving. It hurts, but you're not going to give up driving to avoid it.

Yeah. Sociopaths suck.

 

[rousseau]

This is fundamentally true, and the motivated reasoning aspect of it is a huge problem.

Depends on how you look at it. Someone's motivated reasoning may very well get them what they want - respect of their peer group, networking, social contacts. It just doesn't necessarily contribute to a broader community.

So maybe it's a problem in the same sense that getting in car accidents is a problem with driving. It hurts, but you're not going to give up driving to avoid it.

Yeah. Sociopaths suck.

I wouldn't even go that far, it's pretty normal human behavior. To think it can be otherwise or fixed seems like the stranger idea to me.

 

[Elixir]

Yeah. Sociopaths suck.

I wouldn't even go that far, it's pretty normal human behavior. To think it can be otherwise or fixed seems like the stranger idea to me.

I think that's very generous of you rousseau. I believe a lot of it is circumstantial; a lot of the evident sociopathy is an emergent feature of large species overcrowding/overpopulation. Maybe Covfefe virus is a godsend, but it's going to have to get a lot more lethal to have more than a passing effect.

 

[rousseau]

Yeah. Sociopaths suck.

I wouldn't even go that far, it's pretty normal human behavior. To think it can be otherwise or fixed seems like the stranger idea to me.

I think that's very generous of you rousseau. I believe a lot of it is circumstantial; a lot of the evident sociopathy is an emergent feature of large species overcrowding/overpopulation. Maybe Covfefe virus is a godsend, but it's going to have to get a lot more lethal to have more than a passing effect.

I recall hearing an argument from Pinker in The Blank Slate that the world isn't going to be undone by psychopaths or sociopaths, but rather otherwise normal people who are completely oblivious, and uncaring in a way that's insidious, and yet normalized to an extent that we don't notice it.

You could call that sociopathy, but I'd reserve that term for people who are truly evil. The kind of behavior that manifests itself in self-interest, and motivated reasoning mostly just comes from normal people trying to fit in with their peer group. They act in fully self-interested and detrimental ways, but we pass over this type of thing as every day discourse. The problem is that it's beneficial from a survival/reproduction standpoint. So while I'm all about idealism and speaking out against it, I don't have much hope that it'll ever stop.

 

[Tammuz]

Why does Jerry Taylor still feel a need to wear a label? Don’t be a moderate. Be moderate. As soon as we label ourselves, we build walls and are obligated to defend them.

I agree with that! I would simply say that I take a piecemeal approach to politics. I evaluate each issue independently, or at least I try to. I have no allegiance to any political faction. Sometimes I agree with the left, sometimes I agree with the right. Not necessarily in equal measures though. It can vary from country to country, because the political spectrums in different countries can be quite different, and different places have different hot issues.

(But it must be said, it is very little that I agree with the American right on, especially under the current incarnation under Trump.)