(THREAD) Three stages of ideological growth. The last stage can be fatal.

/1
The journey starts when you find an ideology that helps you interpret your experience and give meaning to your life. Often this is provided for you by parents and the communities of which they are a part. Sometimes you discover a compelling ideology later in life.

/2
You will spend a honeymoon period learning the language, mental models, and narratives of the ideology, marveling at how the ideology has an answer for everything.

/3
You will then puzzle over the fact that not everyone accepts your ideology. This raises the question of whether you can justify your ideology to others. And you will have to choose whether to engage or withdraw from this burden of justification.

/4
If you choose to withdraw, you will avoid discussing your ideology in mixed company or restrict your interactions with non-believers.

/5
If you have children, you might restrict their interactions with non-believers. You will remain a stage-one ideologue, perhaps for the rest of your life.

/6
If you choose to accept the burden of justification, you will become a stage-two ideologue. Here you will master enough of the apologetics of your ideology to continue feeling justified after single conversations with the interlocutors you're most likely to encounter.

/7
You will master some convenient facts and arguments you find persuasive. And you will also learn how to change the subject when things get uncomfortable (while concealing the fact that you are doing this from yourself).

/8
Eventually you will realize that, while you can handle most of the encounters you are likely to face in day-to-day life, there are interlocutors who are more knowledgeable and tenacious than you are equipped to handle.

/9
At this point you will choose to engage or withdraw from this further burden of justification.

/10
If you choose to withdraw, you will come to believe unflattering stories about why these more informed people don't believe your ideology. This will allow you to dismiss their objections without dealing with them directly.

/11
You will also identify experts on your side who you think can answer all the objections you are unable to answer. If you stop here, you will remain a stage-two ideologue, perhaps for the rest of your life.

/12
If you choose to go on trying to justify your views to any and all comers, you will become a stage-three ideologue. Perhaps you will choose to go on because you value truth more than dogma.

/13
Perhaps it will be because your life path has brought you into circles that value justification from first principles (you foolishly chose to become a philosopher or scientist).

/14
Perhaps you will simply want to become one of those experts your people can rely on to stand toe-to-toe with the more knowledgeable interlocutors.

/15
If you choose this path, you will eventually realize there are gaps in your apologetics. You will try to fill in the gaps. You will succeed to some degree, but not completely. You will rinse and repeat until you start to suspect that not all the gaps can be filled.

/16
As doubt creeps in, you will also start to realize (perhaps only unconsciously) how much of your social capital is tied up in your ideological group. And the combination of doubt and investment will produce a crisis of faith.

/`17
One way or another you will have to deal with this crisis. You can retreat into faith (giving reasons as far as you can, while claiming the rest is based on faith, while asserting that everyone rests on faith at some point).

/18
You can withdraw from the battle, reverting to stage-two or stage-one. Or you can face the music, admit the gaps, and begin moderating your ideological commitments.

/19
At some point you might even consider abandoning your ideology. Though, if things get this far, you would be well-advised to make friends outside your ideological circle first. You need to build up some social capital to replace the social capital you will be losing.

/20 (end)

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More from @Evolving_Ego

Dec 26, 2021
The gentle mockery of friends is primarily about group cohesion. So is the vicious mockery of a public enemy.

Those who mock together flock together.
This is not a justification of mockery, just a first stab at explanation.

Mockery seems to be an honor-culture bonding ritual.
Or maybe better, it is a human group bonding ritual that's more compatible with honor culture than dignity culture.

Those who deeply internalize liberal individualism, tend to develop a distaste for mockery.
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Most equivocations aren't planned. They result from semantic drift when people are defending two different generalizations (which often constitute the premises of a categorical syllogism).

E.g., Democrats are socialists, socialism is bad, therefore Democrats are bad.
In order to defend "Democrats are socialists", your criteria for "socialism" tend to broaden, in order to ensnare more Democrats.
In defending "Socialism is bad", you tighten your definition and cherry-pick the very worst examples of socialism.
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Biased Thinking (1/2)

If you like a theory, you ask: "Can I believe this, given the evidence?"

If you don't like a theory, you ask: "Must I believe this, given the evidence?"
Biased Thinking (2/2)

If it's your out-group, you ask: "Can I stigmatize the whole group based on a few bad apples."

If it's your in-group, you ask: "Must the whole group be stigmatized because of these few bad apples?"
(3/2) This leads the accused in-group to call for a higher-rez analysis of the in-group ("more nuance, please!"), while the accusing out-group moves toward a lower-rez analysis ("There's no essential difference! It's all *vaguely* systemically connected!").
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Dinesh is one of the worst actors in modern politics. He fans the flames of the very polarization that is tearing us apart.

I'm not a fan of cancel culture, but I can't help wondering if the world would be a better place if we were to #CancelThePolarizers
At the very least, we should stop rewarding them with our attention (which, irony of ironies, I am doing right now).
And it's not just the polarizers on the Right. The polarizers on the Left are tearing us apart, too.
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1/ There are two main archetypes for reasoning in popular awareness. I wan't to make a case for a third.
2/ The first archetype is the Scientist. The archetypal scientist engages in argumentation in order to find more accurate models of the world.
3/ The second archetype is the Lawyer. And the archetypal lawyer engages in argumentation in order to win people over to her position.
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Aug 25, 2018
1/ Common pattern in academic arguments:

"Your surface claim has some unsavory connotations/implications that you don't need to make. All the things you want can be had without making that claim. (unless you have some ulterior motives you haven't mentioned)."
2/ @danieldennett makes this move on the free will issue.
3/ Non-cognitivists make this move in meta-ethics.
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