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The attitude that culture cannot change the mind and can only be adapted to it is unjustified. Conventional wisdom really does sway in huge, slow shifts from o

by dkarl 16y ago

The attitude that culture cannot change the mind and can only be adapted to it is unjustified. Conventional wisdom really does sway in huge, slow shifts from one gross oversimplification to another and is now completing a swing from the tabula rasa back to a belief in a single, unchangeable human nature. We repeatedly fail to sustain a more complicated viewpoint regardless of the evidence. How long until we swing back to tabula rasa and laugh at this current trend without realizing we are laughing at ourselves?

epochwolf 16y ago
> The attitude that culture cannot change the mind and can only be adapted to it is unjustified. ADD is a perfect example of this. I was diagnosed with it and I was medicated through most of school because I really couldn't focus on boring material. Eventually I learned to focus on things I'm not interested in and I don't need medication.
- enjo 16y ago
  It sounds like a mis-diagnosis, which unfortunately with ADD has been far too common. Too often we mistake kids who simply don't want to do things as having ADD. I've had fairly severe ADD my entire life. I wasn't diagnosed until my mid-20's. I haven't had much luck with medication (I can certainly concentrate 100% better, but the side effects have been pretty bad in general). I have learned to at least manage it better in my adult life. I work on a 10-on/10-off cycle. I still manage to be really productive, even if bosses that I've had in the past couldn't handle my distraction issues. It's precisely why I work for myself now.
  - epochwolf 16y ago
    > It sounds like a mis-diagnosis It's possible I still deal with the same issues I did as a kid but I've learned to manage them most days. I'm certainly not a severe case.
hga 16y ago
This "swing" as you call it is, at least in the US, probably just a shift the political landscape (particularly the publicly expressed part of it). When you get down to it, the fundamental difference between the "conservative" and "liberal", now "progressive" again world views is on human nature: Is it relatively fixed, or as one of my history professors observed, "Original Sin is an empirical observation!" Or is human nature is plastic; e.g. change or perfect the environment and you change the human in the direction of perfection. Conservatives say that much of the human wreckage of communism, socialism and collectivism is due to the stubbornness of human nature: when the environment was changed, and e.g. the New Soviet Man didn't emerge, well, things got ugly after that. E.g. in this case, better hang/shoot/throw into the Gulag those counter-revolutionaries, kulaks, whatever.
- dkarl 16y ago
  I think there's no consistent difference between conservatives and progressives on this point. Conservatives, for example, are much more prone to think that human sexuality can be shaped and controlled by society, whereas progressives take the attitude that every variety and quirk of human sexuality must be dealt with as it is. It's the same thing with the desire to be productive and contribute to society: progressives tend to see it as an innate drive that can simply be harnessed for any purpose, while conservatives see it as a fragile thing that withers unless it is cultivated under the right conditions (i.e., low taxation and strong protection of private property.) Note that it is both conservatives and progressives who worry about media warping the minds of children: conservatives worrying about sex, irreverance, and irresponsibility, and progressives worrying about racism, sexism, and violence.
  - hga 16y ago
    Ah, but you have to look at the means by which each approach them. Conservatives assume that "human sexuality can be shaped and controlled by society" through law, religion, custom, etc., and while we're at it, although not directly related for them for this but very important to some progressives (see below), to a certain end, that of families and properly raising the next generation. That's entirely consistent with the attitude that man is born evil and must be prodded in the right directions. The modern progressive attitude is as you say, "let it all hang out". Historically it that wasn't entirely the case, e.g. progressives were heavily into eugenics until the Nazis gave that a bad name (e.g. check out Margret Sanger, even Wikipedia doesn't dare to entirely airbrush away that aspect of her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics_and_euthanasia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics_and_eu...). You also need to factor in this bit of wit from I think William F. Buckely, although I wasn't able to find the quote as I remember it on the web: "The only thing liberals want to be liberated from is their marriage vows." I.e. there is an aspect of self-interest in all this. You also need to factor in that the more radical of the progressives want to destroy the family in pursuit of their particular idea of utopia, since the family is the foundational unit of existing societies (the Bolsheviks are one well known early example). A lot of feminism also goes along similar lines (e.g. the fish and bicycle slogan). So supporting "every variety and quirk of human sexuality" are means to those ends.

by dkarl 16y ago

epochwolf 16y ago

> The attitude that culture cannot change the mind and can only be adapted to it is unjustified. ADD is a perfect example of this. I was diagnosed with it and I was medicated through most of school because I really couldn't focus on boring material. Eventually I learned to focus on things I'm not interested in and I don't need medication.

enjo 16y ago
It sounds like a mis-diagnosis, which unfortunately with ADD has been far too common. Too often we mistake kids who simply don't want to do things as having ADD. I've had fairly severe ADD my entire life. I wasn't diagnosed until my mid-20's. I haven't had much luck with medication (I can certainly concentrate 100% better, but the side effects have been pretty bad in general). I have learned to at least manage it better in my adult life. I work on a 10-on/10-off cycle. I still manage to be really productive, even if bosses that I've had in the past couldn't handle my distraction issues. It's precisely why I work for myself now.
- epochwolf 16y ago
  > It sounds like a mis-diagnosis It's possible I still deal with the same issues I did as a kid but I've learned to manage them most days. I'm certainly not a severe case.

hga 16y ago

This "swing" as you call it is, at least in the US, probably just a shift the political landscape (particularly the publicly expressed part of it). When you get down to it, the fundamental difference between the "conservative" and "liberal", now "progressive" again world views is on human nature: Is it relatively fixed, or as one of my history professors observed, "Original Sin is an empirical observation!" Or is human nature is plastic; e.g. change or perfect the environment and you change the human in the direction of perfection. Conservatives say that much of the human wreckage of communism, socialism and collectivism is due to the stubbornness of human nature: when the environment was changed, and e.g. the New Soviet Man didn't emerge, well, things got ugly after that. E.g. in this case, better hang/shoot/throw into the Gulag those counter-revolutionaries, kulaks, whatever.

dkarl 16y ago
I think there's no consistent difference between conservatives and progressives on this point. Conservatives, for example, are much more prone to think that human sexuality can be shaped and controlled by society, whereas progressives take the attitude that every variety and quirk of human sexuality must be dealt with as it is. It's the same thing with the desire to be productive and contribute to society: progressives tend to see it as an innate drive that can simply be harnessed for any purpose, while conservatives see it as a fragile thing that withers unless it is cultivated under the right conditions (i.e., low taxation and strong protection of private property.) Note that it is both conservatives and progressives who worry about media warping the minds of children: conservatives worrying about sex, irreverance, and irresponsibility, and progressives worrying about racism, sexism, and violence.
- hga 16y ago
  Ah, but you have to look at the means by which each approach them. Conservatives assume that "human sexuality can be shaped and controlled by society" through law, religion, custom, etc., and while we're at it, although not directly related for them for this but very important to some progressives (see below), to a certain end, that of families and properly raising the next generation. That's entirely consistent with the attitude that man is born evil and must be prodded in the right directions. The modern progressive attitude is as you say, "let it all hang out". Historically it that wasn't entirely the case, e.g. progressives were heavily into eugenics until the Nazis gave that a bad name (e.g. check out Margret Sanger, even Wikipedia doesn't dare to entirely airbrush away that aspect of her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics_and_euthanasia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics_and_eu...). You also need to factor in this bit of wit from I think William F. Buckely, although I wasn't able to find the quote as I remember it on the web: "The only thing liberals want to be liberated from is their marriage vows." I.e. there is an aspect of self-interest in all this. You also need to factor in that the more radical of the progressives want to destroy the family in pursuit of their particular idea of utopia, since the family is the foundational unit of existing societies (the Bolsheviks are one well known early example). A lot of feminism also goes along similar lines (e.g. the fish and bicycle slogan). So supporting "every variety and quirk of human sexuality" are means to those ends.