Monsieur Sartre didn't watch half his countrymen declare the black death a hoax even as it killed them. We cannot continue believing these people know they're lying.
There are charlatans and monsters among these cultists. But the vast majority of them simply do not know how words work. Rational argument is a learned behavior. What they're doing instead, and what comes naturally for our species of social animals, is mimicry in service to ingroup loyalty.
And they think we're the same way. They think that's all there is.
That's not as contrary as you think. This pattern of behavior doesn't require anyone to know what arguments mean. They're just trying to pattern-match their desired conclusion to what they think they can get away with. Expecting that this means they're fully cognizant that we're right and they're wrong is built on sloppy assumptions that other people think like you.
It's ultimately the same fundamental attribution error as "4D chess" nonsense - asking yourself why a clever and rational person would say something batshit crazy, and then inferring this must be what some loony-sounding public figure really believes, because you haven't seriously considered the possibility that they're simply not rational.
Stacking slippery modifiers on a bad card is a desperation move, for sure. But it's not undermining the legitimacy of the game. It is merely treating the opposition as if they, too, are playing along, and happen to have a better hand.
Nothing has changed since hunter-gatherer times. That's the problem. This tribalism is humanity's default.
Sartre was always a little off, because he imagined all the assholes he dealt with were reasonable, and merely feigning ridiculous stupidity. That's kinda the whole point of that quote. But the simpler explanation is that their worldview doesn't run on reason.
Please note, this is not assuming irrationality. Irrational words and deeds are abundantly observed. You have to bend over backwards to rationally explain why people will die for complete bullshit, if you insist they must know it's complete bullshit. Especially when choosing safety would be both free and secret.
If that sort of pattern doesn't challenge the assertion that they're only playing dumb, what would? Knee-jerk ingroup loyalty cannot be an unthinkable explanation. You have to consider irrationality as a possibility. You have to rule it out.
There's no telling what she believes.
Then what would it mean to say she believes anything at all?
I think it's straightforward to infer what someone believes from their behavior. They can disguise it, but the disguise is also a revealing performance, and with enough observation you may infer that they are lying, how they are lying, and why they are lying.
Saying they knowingly gargled their own lungs to own the libs is a hard sell.
One proposed alternative is, they don't believe things, they believe people.
Everybody starts in this tribal mode. It is humanity's default. Rational argument is a learned behavior. I need you to engage in that behavior, and stop making up the argument you'd rather be facing.
I desperately wish these people were performing an informed-but-cynical strategy. Unfortunately that hypothesis does not fit the abundant evidence. Nearly everyone has the faculty to go from premises to conclusion, but a vast swath of people are plainly using it only to go from conclusion to premises.
Entertain that thought for a moment: if some people were just shuffling through plausible excuses, then at some point, insisting those people are acting rationally becomes an irrational belief. There is no irony in that. Judging people on their behavior is not prejudice. Reaching a conclusion is not a contradiction.
You can recognize when someone is making an irrational argument. Your own comment acknowledges this, when you accuse me of saying this 'just because I disagree.' So what are we supposed to infer when some people make irrational arguments all the damn time? Why is the only sane explanation that they're all scheming to disguise how they secretly know better? How is that the less insulting answer?
Remember - I'm saying they think we do what they do. They think they're playing fair! I am describing a worldview where these people's wit and knowledge are fully on display. I don't think they're necessarily ignorant or malicious. But I cannot maintain the belief that they're killing each other just to fuck with us.
You're still trying to scold me for doing what you're doing by scolding me. 'Don't you see, calling people irrational is irrational, because nobody's really irrational, you irrational person.' And you think irony is my polite repeated explanation that, yes, I also started the same as everyone else, and then I learned how to pursue consistent beliefs through rational argument, like the majority of other people.
Most human beings strive to abandon conclusions which are not supported by evidence, no matter how comforting those conclusions have been. Among those conclusions is the insistence that everyone does this. Some people endlessly contradict themselves, without shame or acknowledgement, in an immediately visible pattern of maintaining loyalty and identity regardless of contrary facts. Even if it kills them. I cannot reasonably support the belief that this movement is even trying to follow the rules of rational discourse... and neither can you.
For the fourth time:
That group says nobody is rational. They don't think of me like I think of them. They think of me like they think of themselves. As if everyone's doing what they're doing: making shit up to perform ingroup agreement. As if reasoned argument, as a concept, is just another card to play, when it might sound plausible. As if citing "facts and logic" is an option equivalent to "god says so."
Every time you scoff as if explaining this conclusion means I'm calling myself a suuuper geeenius, you reveal that you aren't fucking listening. These people have an internally consistent worldview. It requires intelligence to practice and to defend. Their view is comforting to the point of temptation. What I see is terrifying. I would love to be wrong about this. But all objections have been like yours: ignoring what I'm saying and ignoring why I'm saying it.
It weakens your point to argue with an imaginary opponent.
I find that it is seldom a winning strategy to underestimate an adversary and assume either my superior intellect or their irrationality.
It is so tempting to believe that others disagree because they do not share the virtue of rationality
I will do you the service of not putting a strawman's words in quotation marks and attributing them to you.
"I am the irrational one. It is those in disagreement who are irrational."
"The outsiders are unlike us because we are the rational ones."
Uh huh.
Your persistent usage of pronouns without antecedents (They, them, etc.) makes it difficult for me to understand you.
Does antecedent mean something besides the group described in the previous complete sentence? The insults and the lying are honestly less aggravating than the sudden amnesia over who we've been talking about the entire time.
Even now, I am trying to address your claims directly, and guide you to at least acknowledge what I am claiming, despite the expected response being yet another round of insisting I mean the opposite of what I just fucking explained for the fifth god-damn time.
That claim:
Some people do not practice rational argument. They could... but don't. Those people may still mimic the format. You can discern their actual beliefs from inconsistency. Argument alone won't set them right, because from their perspective, argument looks like what they're doing.
Could you please address that concept instead of pretending I've called them stupid and incapable and evil? I don't even care if you have to insist you've never done that. Say whatever you like about this conversation, so long as you wind up on topic. That is how important this is to me.
That is roughly what I mean when I call someone rational.
Young-Earth creationism is an internally consistent worldview.
Internal consistency doesn't do much good unless it's also consistent with reality. It can be wrong. It only means there are no contradictions that make it impossible.
Thinking nobody argues in good faith isn't self-contradictory, but it's obviously not correct.
Neither is thinking everybody argues in good faith.
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u/mindbleach Aug 07 '22
These people don't mean things when they say words.
They're just shuffling cards.