In practice, the tactic of creating doubt tends to be more about creating fear, and decreasing the resolve of the opponent, than it is about increasing the prevalence of skeptical thinking. I think flip-flopping is not that hard of a skill to master, it's whether one wants to devote the needed attention to segue between today's lie and tomorrow's in a sufficiently smooth way. At some level, any competence can be self-reinforcing and even enjoyable.
Marcus -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of glen Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 1:10 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Good climate change skeptics On 09/23/2015 11:38 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: > As long as they can be held in solitary confinement, and prevented from > organizing, they can have all of the "moderation" they want! But if as they > have organized, then those who have seen the consequences of that > organization and don't much like it, must also organize. Such is the way of > power and politics. Several groups are organizing in response: the moderation management groups (http://www.moderation.org/), an apparent minority of addiction researchers working to overturn the "disease model", Sam Harris and fans clustering around the horrible concept of spirituality without religion, methodological ritualists (e.g. yoga or meditation), etc. And as much as I agree with your dialectical position of opposite organizing, I maintain that the deeper problem is the inherent commitment involved. Power and politics are not really about organizing opposites. It's about steadily punching (small) holes in the convictions of the arlready organized. We see this practically in someone like Bernie Sanders, a career politician if there ever was such a thing. But he can self-consistently deny that he's a "career politician" by citing his anti-authoritarian hole-punching. Another example might be the hidden powerful in the beltway... the people who would rule us completely if we installed term limits on all elected offices. Those people don't organize, at least not dialectically, so much as they navigate whatever constellation of agents and objects exist at any given time ... the skill is to flip-flop (abandon commitments) when the landscape suggests it's right to flip-flop. (thank Ct hulhu). -- ⇔ 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 ============================================================ 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
