There are two things reading Altemeyer would clear up. 1) He calls them Right Wing Authoritarians not because they're necessarily right wingers politically, but because they're invested in maintaining the status quo in their world. He believes the rank and file Stalinists were probably as authoritarian as the rank and file National Socialists. It's one of the many ways that Altemeyer undermines his own claims with carelessness.
2) When he says "their reasoning is sloppy", he means: they will accept fallacious logical arguments if they like the conclusion; they will reject sound logical arguments if they dislike the conclusion; they will invent empirical evidence if their arguments require it; and they will deny empirical evidence that contradicts their beliefs, even if it happens right in front of their noses. And when I say that this kind of behavior is irrational, I mean that it defies all standards of rationality. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a rational basis -- if your beliefs are more important than behaving rationally, then it is rational to be as irrational as is necessary to destroy the opposition. If your beliefs are more important than objective reality, then denying objective reality is a rational thing for you to do. But don't expect me to describe your irrationality as rationality, just because you have a reason to behave batshit crazy doesn't make batshit crazy any less crazy. -- rec -- On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 11:46 AM, glen <g...@ropella.name> wrote: > On 01/07/2014 09:34 AM, John Kennison wrote: > > > > I think one example might be "I oppose gay marriage because it would > undermine my own (straight) marriage". > > One could interpret the reason given as a false premise (you could > always do that whenever someone gives a reason for a belief) but here it > looks more like a rationalization. > > I think that's a great example. Even _if_ we reformulate it to > something like this: > > Making it _easier_ to marry (unrelated to gay marriage, e.g. prenups) > undermines the value of current marriages. > > If we reformulate it to that, then it's fairly easy to argue for the > truth of the premise. (More of any given thing devalues the prior > instances of that thing.) But the problem with the argument comes from > leaving out externally imposing factors, for example, population > increase or decrease. If you _fail_ to make marriage easier, yet the > population increases, then you are artificially increasing the value of > extant marriages. And, while doing that may increase the value of your > own marriage, it will make it more difficult to spread your perspective > (memetically). E.g. your children will have a more difficult time > getting married. Your married friends will die or get divorced and you > will see your clique dwindle over time. > > So, while the premise could be true, the reasoning is still flawed > because it's closed reasoning. > > -- > =><= 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 >
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