On 01/05/2014 11:19 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > Bob Altemeyer's research on right-wing authoritarian (RWA) personalities > -- pdf at http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ > <http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/> -- finds that high scoring > RWAs suffer from severe cognitive disabilities which essentially render > them immune to reason. (Note that "right-wing" here is a technical term > meaning "adherent of the status quo".) > > But research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life > under the influence > of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting > sloppy reasoning, > highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, > self-blindness, a > profound ethnocentrism, and--to top it all off--a ferocious > dogmatism that makes it > unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic.
Excellent! This helps refine "reasoning about reasoning" in the way that worries me. The idea being that a "brain in a vat" might still be rational in some technical/strict sense of the word. But that's not what normal people mean when they _use_ the word "rational." What normal people mean is a combination of the ability to "think well" and be open to multiple options. It seems like the "openness" is the fulcrum of the concept. One of the aspects that worries me most is the _surety_ with which most people go about their daily thinking. But I find this in lots of people who would normally be considered quite rational. To me, it doesn't much matter how intelligent one is, or how many facts they may claim to have at their fingertips. What matters is the confidence with which they hold their own beliefs. The more confident you are, the _less_ rational you are. > Just because there is a reason to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch > mob reasonable. I think you're confounding the rationality of > explanation with the rationality of the explained. I don't know what you mean, here, which probably means you're right about my conflation. ;-) The use of "reason" to mean _cause_ seems like an abuse of the word. So, I read what you write as "Just because there is cause to be a lynch mob doesn't make a lynch mob reasonable." And, I fully agree with that rewriting. But I don't know that's what you meant. -- ⇒⇐ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
