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This definition of "rational" strangely excludes values such as reliability, endurance, initiative, charm, beauty, or leadership. But when has it ever been the
by threatofrain 6y ago
This definition of "rational" strangely excludes values such as reliability, endurance, initiative, charm, beauty, or leadership. But when has it ever been the case in any society for people to simply bow down to geniuses? Hasn't intelligence often taken a backseat to charm and beauty?
Intelligence is but one value competing in an ecology of values.
- loopz 6y agoAfter someone died, it's ok to revere a person. Generally, it's unhealthy to put alive people on pedestals too.
- camehere3saydis 5y agoI'm not trying to redefine rationality. I'm referring to [Rationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism), a system of values which is fundamental to the modern Western world, and trying to point out that it is inherently flawed and essentially self-contradictory exactly because its hinges on notions like "rationality" and "intelligence" but in practice anyone is free to redefine those to whatever suits the situation. I'm not trying to put "intelligence" or "geniuses" on a pedestal, though I would argue they're already being put there by our culture's norms. If they were really so important, wouldn't people be a lot more outraged about faulty definitions and fallacious reasoning? Instead, we get sarcastic variants of the "well, ackshyually" meme any time anyone insists that correct reasoning is a prerequisite for a meaningful conversation, and indeed colloquial language doesn't really optimize for the use case of honest, unambiguous representations of reality