3 ms·

A sentiment of a bygone era. In the new middle ages we are in now, its all about "feel". And it its feels right it is right.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I think it may be selective memory. I suspect that the past had plenty of cocksure blowhards who were "often wrong but never uncertain". But a good fraction of the great minds had intellectual humility. And it may be the same now. Hundreds of years from now, those who think "if it feels right it is right" will be forgotten, and humanity will remember a higher fraction of those who valued truth more than their own opinion or feeling.
- mulle_nat 8y ago
  Sure but they weren't dictating the intellectual climate as they are now and as they were then.
  - oblib 8y ago
    I think it's pretty easy to find historical examples of that.
    - mulle_nat 8y ago
      Yes around 1200 AD its no problem.
  - jordanchan 8y ago
    Have we already forgotten of the ilk that harassed and harangued Galileo and Copernicus? Even Socrates?
RickJWagner 8y ago
I hope (but am not confident of it) that the article will encourage people to be more humble in their assertions. The world will be a better place.
fzeroracer 8y ago
People always want to act like somehow this is a relatively new 'thing'. It's not, the difference now is that people recognize that thinking you're right doesn't justify making someone upset or being indignant. It's about being able to understand how other people feel. In the household I grew up in, I wasn't allowed to question my step-father. Doing so was considered, essentially, insubordination. This was in spite of him being objectively wrong about some of the things he said, including how to repair a car, about women and how they drive and more. Why? Because he was right, and I was wrong. His gut feeling overrode anything else I was allowed to say. He was The Man Of The Household and his word was law.
- jordanchan 8y ago
  Of course it isn't new. Very little is truly new. It is the same old stuff repeating in different contexts, leading us to comfortably believe "yeah, but this is different".

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

I think it may be selective memory. I suspect that the past had plenty of cocksure blowhards who were "often wrong but never uncertain". But a good fraction of the great minds had intellectual humility. And it may be the same now. Hundreds of years from now, those who think "if it feels right it is right" will be forgotten, and humanity will remember a higher fraction of those who valued truth more than their own opinion or feeling.

mulle_nat 8y ago
Sure but they weren't dictating the intellectual climate as they are now and as they were then.
- oblib 8y ago
  I think it's pretty easy to find historical examples of that.
  - mulle_nat 8y ago
    Yes around 1200 AD its no problem.
- jordanchan 8y ago
  Have we already forgotten of the ilk that harassed and harangued Galileo and Copernicus? Even Socrates?

RickJWagner 8y ago

I hope (but am not confident of it) that the article will encourage people to be more humble in their assertions. The world will be a better place.

fzeroracer 8y ago

People always want to act like somehow this is a relatively new 'thing'. It's not, the difference now is that people recognize that thinking you're right doesn't justify making someone upset or being indignant. It's about being able to understand how other people feel. In the household I grew up in, I wasn't allowed to question my step-father. Doing so was considered, essentially, insubordination. This was in spite of him being objectively wrong about some of the things he said, including how to repair a car, about women and how they drive and more. Why? Because he was right, and I was wrong. His gut feeling overrode anything else I was allowed to say. He was The Man Of The Household and his word was law.

jordanchan 8y ago
Of course it isn't new. Very little is truly new. It is the same old stuff repeating in different contexts, leading us to comfortably believe "yeah, but this is different".