4 ms·

Perhaps the real answer is closer to "it's easy to be tolerant and broad-minded if you don't feel threatened". You're answer boils down to "because liberals ar

Perhaps the real answer is closer to "it's easy to be tolerant and broad-minded if you don't feel threatened". You're answer boils down to "because liberals are right and the others are wrong". But there isn't really such a thing as a wrong political opinion. People's political choices are based on their experience of the world. The whole premise of democracy is that if you take the mean of everybody's personal experience you will arrive -- more or less, and with some difficulty -- at the right answer.

petewailes 10y ago
Pretty much. And you're generally not threatened of things you understand. Most things in the world aren't actually scary. That's not to say there's nothing to be scared of out there - obviously there is. But there's a difference between knowing something is worth worrying about, and being badly informed or not informed at all, and thus being scared of it. * Thing not to be scared of: vaccinations for your kids * Thing to be scared of: long term effects of climate change I'd take higher levels of education to mean that you're more exposed to being wrong about things, thus more accepting of the idea that you might be wrong, and more likely to change your view on finding out you are. The more educational levels you pass through, the more you have it beaten in to you that you don't know as much as you think you do, and you're wrong to greater or lesser degrees a lot of time, about a lot of things.
- _yosefk 10y ago
  Erm... I wouldn't say that the average liberal feels that there's much they don't know, and that they might be wrong about a lot of things. (I wouldn't say that the average conservative is like that, either.) I believe that academia is the perfect place for the formation of cliques which over time exclude non-believers. Right now there's a powerful liberal clique in academia - but over time it could be replaced by anything, really. At some point eugenics were all the rage, today it's taboo, etc. And since educated people pass through the academia, and receive a lot of information filtered through the leading clique, they're likely to share the clique's views. (Whether, on top of that, educated people also simply exhibit less critical thinking and original opinions based on their own experience than the average person I don't know; I wouldn't be surprised by it being either true or false, I can certainly construct a believable narrative explaining both possibilities.) Speaking of eugenics and such... how do I put this, in hindsight people reevaluate their ideas wrt what's scary, and the British Labor and Liberal parties' insistence that Nazi Germany wasn't particularly scary seems to me to be a pretty good example. I think this shows that "you're generally not threatened of things you understand" sometimes is less accurate than "you're not threatened of things that you completely misunderstand, while those who do understand them are right to be scared shitless about them." And sometimes, like in this case, "you" are more liberal than "them", and sometimes it's the reverse.
flashman 10y ago
> You're answer boils down to "because liberals are right and the others are wrong" I disagree. I read the OP's answer as, "The more education you have, the more you're prepared to accept the possibility that you're wrong." This leads to a greater acceptance of viewpoints (or at least the right to hold them) which you don't necessarily agree with, which is basically liberalism in a nutshell.
- Sir_Substance 10y ago
  >"The more education you have, the more you're prepared to accept the possibility that you're wrong." I've never met or seen anyone who self-identifies with a specific political label who was willing to accept they might be wrong. That includes liberals. To be honest, the inability to consider alternative viewpoints is an attribute I associate strongly with liberals in particular.
  - aaronhoffman 10y ago
    "Libertarianism is wedded to an epistemological humility...we know we don’t know as much as we think we know."
- vlehto 10y ago
  There are lots of people who support "liberalist" policies but don't accept opposing views. For example animal rights activists.
justinsaccount 10y ago
> But there isn't really such a thing as a wrong political opinion. True, but there is such a thing as being on the wrong side of history. https://i2.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg/800px-Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg https://i2.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thu... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/National_Association_Against_Woman_Suffrage.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/National...
- pigpaws 10y ago
  ...and history is always written by the more dominant force - not necessarily the morally correct one. everyone from person to country tries to justify their actions to be morally acceptable - depending on what 'morally acceptable' passes for at the moment in time.

petewailes 10y ago

Pretty much. And you're generally not threatened of things you understand. Most things in the world aren't actually scary. That's not to say there's nothing to be scared of out there - obviously there is. But there's a difference between knowing something is worth worrying about, and being badly informed or not informed at all, and thus being scared of it. * Thing not to be scared of: vaccinations for your kids * Thing to be scared of: long term effects of climate change I'd take higher levels of education to mean that you're more exposed to being wrong about things, thus more accepting of the idea that you might be wrong, and more likely to change your view on finding out you are. The more educational levels you pass through, the more you have it beaten in to you that you don't know as much as you think you do, and you're wrong to greater or lesser degrees a lot of time, about a lot of things.

_yosefk 10y ago
Erm... I wouldn't say that the average liberal feels that there's much they don't know, and that they might be wrong about a lot of things. (I wouldn't say that the average conservative is like that, either.) I believe that academia is the perfect place for the formation of cliques which over time exclude non-believers. Right now there's a powerful liberal clique in academia - but over time it could be replaced by anything, really. At some point eugenics were all the rage, today it's taboo, etc. And since educated people pass through the academia, and receive a lot of information filtered through the leading clique, they're likely to share the clique's views. (Whether, on top of that, educated people also simply exhibit less critical thinking and original opinions based on their own experience than the average person I don't know; I wouldn't be surprised by it being either true or false, I can certainly construct a believable narrative explaining both possibilities.) Speaking of eugenics and such... how do I put this, in hindsight people reevaluate their ideas wrt what's scary, and the British Labor and Liberal parties' insistence that Nazi Germany wasn't particularly scary seems to me to be a pretty good example. I think this shows that "you're generally not threatened of things you understand" sometimes is less accurate than "you're not threatened of things that you completely misunderstand, while those who do understand them are right to be scared shitless about them." And sometimes, like in this case, "you" are more liberal than "them", and sometimes it's the reverse.

flashman 10y ago

> You're answer boils down to "because liberals are right and the others are wrong" I disagree. I read the OP's answer as, "The more education you have, the more you're prepared to accept the possibility that you're wrong." This leads to a greater acceptance of viewpoints (or at least the right to hold them) which you don't necessarily agree with, which is basically liberalism in a nutshell.

Sir_Substance 10y ago
>"The more education you have, the more you're prepared to accept the possibility that you're wrong." I've never met or seen anyone who self-identifies with a specific political label who was willing to accept they might be wrong. That includes liberals. To be honest, the inability to consider alternative viewpoints is an attribute I associate strongly with liberals in particular.
- aaronhoffman 10y ago
  "Libertarianism is wedded to an epistemological humility...we know we don’t know as much as we think we know."
vlehto 10y ago
There are lots of people who support "liberalist" policies but don't accept opposing views. For example animal rights activists.

justinsaccount 10y ago

> But there isn't really such a thing as a wrong political opinion. True, but there is such a thing as being on the wrong side of history. https://i2.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg/800px-Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg https://i2.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thu... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/National_Association_Against_Woman_Suffrage.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/National...

pigpaws 10y ago
...and history is always written by the more dominant force - not necessarily the morally correct one. everyone from person to country tries to justify their actions to be morally acceptable - depending on what 'morally acceptable' passes for at the moment in time.