5 ms·

On Priesthoods

69 points by feross 2y ago

rob_c 2y ago
How about you get off your 17th century witch doctor house and admit you're a human following practices that broadly work which have been refined and tested by a large group of humans using a scientific like model over many years. Done... And please try to do some actual outreach with children. It helps refine what you're talking about into short simple statements vs rambling comparisons between Maoist china and the clergy. Comparing yourself to a priest in a tower turns away many and encourages anti-thesim type conversations to start which I think is what you're ironically making fun of here. (A lot of very vocal people simply don't/won't see that). And simply put, no I don't have the free time to finish reading all of that...
jerojero 2y ago
I feel like the author has fallen into the trap he describes himself. It seems to me as though the phenomenon of "wokeness" is not well characterised through out the piece and instead it is used in a "we all know what wokeness is" fashion that actually clashes with the way the concept is viewed within the circles he himself is criticising. I think within sociology and political theory there's actually a lot of discussion around the concept of "wokeness". What does it mean, how does it affect progressive views of the world when it comes to diversity and inclusion. It's definitely not a monolith and I think treating it as such is disrespectful to other people and bad for the public discourse. In the same vein there seems to be a tacit agreement that everything involving Marxism is wrong. There's comments like "in the recent years all the sociologist departments have turned Marxist" as if that by itself was a condemnation. Although personally there's a lot of ideas in Marxism I disagree with, Ive really come to appreciate the critical analysis that's done of the capitalist mode of production through the Marxist lens. Inequality in our world is definitely tearing society apart, and these concerns can be examined very thoroughly through Marxism. It's a framework of analysis that can be used. So, ultimately, although I agree with the notion of cliques (or priesthoods, as he calls them). I think a big part of the analysis comes from a very biased perspective that fails at trying to comprehend the other's perspective and that's precisely something the author points at those he is criticising.
- sdwr 2y ago
  I've been frustrated by his writing in the past few years. He asks big questions, but is surprisingly small-minded with the answers. Feels like he found a formula for churning out thinkpieces: - find an interesting topic - make a simplified model of the issue - solve the simplified model - discover reality conflicts with the model (optional) - ignore reality - declare victory
  - thefaux 2y ago
    There is a certain style of libertarian writing, and I include the author as well as the mercatus center posse as often using this syle, that I find quite off putting. It often feels like the primary purpose of most of their writing is to show how they are smarter than everyone else. This manifests in a writing style that is extremely confident and declarative which is an effective mask for the hollowness and one sidedness of their ideas. I'll cherry pick just one example from this article. The author in one sentence dismisses the entire field of psychoanalysis. Yet I can't help but notice that his entire blog sure looks like he is unconsciously carrying out his own psychoanalysis in public. You can also see it in the grievances against the medical profession where he has to use his blog to guard against feelings of inadequacy because he didn't get into a top medical school or residency. But he gets to play it both ways because the fact that he writes these outrageously long, fluff filled pieces, that draw a large following he can then use as proof that he is actually in fact smarter than the people who previously rejected him. I have some similar chips on my shoulder so I quickly recognize these patterns of behaviors in others. And perhaps I am misinterpreting him, but every single time I read one of his posts I am left with the main takeaway being that I am supposed to be impressed by his intelligence. Other red flags in this piece include the references to the stupidity of the average person (again in implicit contrast to his penetrating intellect) as well as the lazy generalizations and vacuous statements about amorphous concepts such as wokeness along with the bizarre suggestion that wokeness somehow conquered most priesthoods even though the counterexamples are far, far too long to list. I'll leave it with one though: actual priests in the US can hardly be said to be woke even though their own sacred texts are far more aligned with progressive economics than consumer capitalism.
ashoeafoot 2y ago
https://www.perlentaucher.de/essay/die-folgen-der-rushdie-affaere-fuer-die-westliche-oeffentlichkeit.html https://www.perlentaucher.de/essay/die-folgen-der-rushdie-af... At the root lies a fundamental anti democratic event that overruled a democratic society : the Fatwa.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
memhole 2y ago
I stopped reading the news a long time ago. After reading this, I haven’t really put much thought into what would make me return to having a regular habit again. Or what would even signal to me that I suddenly have something to gain from it? I there’s something to be said about keeping one foot in the public sphere while also having a degree of skepticism. The difference between Gary Numan and David Bowie.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  This article appears to be a defense of priesthoods and the traditional media: > But I still have basic trust that something in the New York Times’ non-opinion pages is 99% likely to be factually true - probably spun a bit, probably selected from the space of possible news articles because it supports the Times’ agenda, but factually true - in a way I don’t believe for random YouTubers.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
bilbo0s 2y ago
I have a theory that with the decline of religion in the West, people replaced what they got from religious ideology with political ideology. The sense of belonging and community. The sense of certainty in basic tenets. The confidence of being able to reliably recite their 'scriptures'. (Which 'scriptures' all having been laid down by their prophets.) And they are all guided by faith, not necessarily data. They have become quasi-religious organizations, and I'm sure in the future, will probably crystalize into something fairly overtly similar to what we would call religions today. I guess the point is that you can see some of the same behaviors of religious types being evoked in adherents to the various political ideologies. To the point of not really even being willing to listen to math, or data, or science. There is a very real perception among them that the scriptures allow a better understanding of nature and the universe than the systems nature and the universe provide to aid our understanding. Even more worryingly, as the article points out, they will often put forth ideologically pure 'domain experts' who can be relied on to give explanations grounded more in doctrinal alignment than scientific veracity. So we've already reached a point where explanations that are in accordance with 'scripture' have become a matter of great doctrinal import to these groups, and are being actively sought out. I guess by that I mean, the poison has leaked over from general society, into the sciences. I honestly believe that, as these groupings of political ideologues coalesce to replace religion more and more, I'd bet dollars to donuts that extremism in the future will be fueled almost exclusively by these quasi-religious political groupings.
- DanielHB 2y ago
  The only ideology that should be unquestioned is human rights. The one that really pulls my nerve are the hardcore libertarians, because they often pretend to be backed by data when there is no data or contrary data around. Although I mostly lean on libertarianism, hardcore libertarians are usually impossible to argue with.
  - AdhemarVandamme 2y ago
    There’s plenty of room for reasonable discussion and questions, even about human rights. Are all human rights individual rights, or are there collective human rights (peoples’ rights)? Are there limits to free speech, and if so, what are they? Are liberties more fundamental than rights that require taxpayer expenditure? Is paid holiday really a human right (UDHR art. 30)? Does the expansion of the concept of human rights weaken fundamental human rights?
like_any_other 2y ago
Is the author perhaps overcomplicating the explanation on how 'wokeness' captured so many priesthoods, by invoking complex memetic virality? E.g. Marxism was very effective at capturing priesthoods in China and Russia (e.g. Lysenkoism) because it was politically powerful, as well as morally - it was considered immoral, even treasonous, to not be communist. In the same way, modern Western morality is based on anti-racism, and wokeness is merely its next logical step.
- nthingtohide 2y ago
  Can we apply Ising models used to explain ferromagnetism to how opinions get formed in crowds?
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  The point was that there are too many people like you out in society in quasi-religious political groupings that adhere less to natural reason and more to ideological 'scriptures'. 'Scriptures' like woke-ness, or anti-woke-ness. You're clearly the anti-woke-ness jihadi type, but the idea is the same. You have effectively gone out immediately after reading the article and proven the article's larger point. It makes responding to you awkward, since you appear to be unaware of how your comment validates so many of the article's larger implications in a way that you clearly did not intend. So most of the people interacting with this thread are just downvoting you in the hopes that your comment will disappear. They'd just as soon not have that uncomfortable conversation with you where they point out that your anti-woke-ness is as cringe as the woke-ness you're decrying.
  - like_any_other 2y ago
    > You have effectively gone out immediately after reading the article and proven the article's larger point. You must misunderstand my position, because I don't really disagree with the article overall - it seems plausible to me. Just that it uses an over-complicated explanation for one of its points.

69 points by feross 2y ago

How about you get off your 17th century witch doctor house and admit you're a human following practices that broadly work which have been refined and tested by a large group of humans using a scientific like model over many years. Done... And please try to do some actual outreach with children. It helps refine what you're talking about into short simple statements vs rambling comparisons between Maoist china and the clergy. Comparing yourself to a priest in a tower turns away many and encourages anti-thesim type conversations to start which I think is what you're ironically making fun of here. (A lot of very vocal people simply don't/won't see that). And simply put, no I don't have the free time to finish reading all of that...

jerojero 2y ago

I feel like the author has fallen into the trap he describes himself. It seems to me as though the phenomenon of "wokeness" is not well characterised through out the piece and instead it is used in a "we all know what wokeness is" fashion that actually clashes with the way the concept is viewed within the circles he himself is criticising. I think within sociology and political theory there's actually a lot of discussion around the concept of "wokeness". What does it mean, how does it affect progressive views of the world when it comes to diversity and inclusion. It's definitely not a monolith and I think treating it as such is disrespectful to other people and bad for the public discourse. In the same vein there seems to be a tacit agreement that everything involving Marxism is wrong. There's comments like "in the recent years all the sociologist departments have turned Marxist" as if that by itself was a condemnation. Although personally there's a lot of ideas in Marxism I disagree with, Ive really come to appreciate the critical analysis that's done of the capitalist mode of production through the Marxist lens. Inequality in our world is definitely tearing society apart, and these concerns can be examined very thoroughly through Marxism. It's a framework of analysis that can be used. So, ultimately, although I agree with the notion of cliques (or priesthoods, as he calls them). I think a big part of the analysis comes from a very biased perspective that fails at trying to comprehend the other's perspective and that's precisely something the author points at those he is criticising.

sdwr 2y ago
I've been frustrated by his writing in the past few years. He asks big questions, but is surprisingly small-minded with the answers. Feels like he found a formula for churning out thinkpieces: - find an interesting topic - make a simplified model of the issue - solve the simplified model - discover reality conflicts with the model (optional) - ignore reality - declare victory
- thefaux 2y ago
  There is a certain style of libertarian writing, and I include the author as well as the mercatus center posse as often using this syle, that I find quite off putting. It often feels like the primary purpose of most of their writing is to show how they are smarter than everyone else. This manifests in a writing style that is extremely confident and declarative which is an effective mask for the hollowness and one sidedness of their ideas. I'll cherry pick just one example from this article. The author in one sentence dismisses the entire field of psychoanalysis. Yet I can't help but notice that his entire blog sure looks like he is unconsciously carrying out his own psychoanalysis in public. You can also see it in the grievances against the medical profession where he has to use his blog to guard against feelings of inadequacy because he didn't get into a top medical school or residency. But he gets to play it both ways because the fact that he writes these outrageously long, fluff filled pieces, that draw a large following he can then use as proof that he is actually in fact smarter than the people who previously rejected him. I have some similar chips on my shoulder so I quickly recognize these patterns of behaviors in others. And perhaps I am misinterpreting him, but every single time I read one of his posts I am left with the main takeaway being that I am supposed to be impressed by his intelligence. Other red flags in this piece include the references to the stupidity of the average person (again in implicit contrast to his penetrating intellect) as well as the lazy generalizations and vacuous statements about amorphous concepts such as wokeness along with the bizarre suggestion that wokeness somehow conquered most priesthoods even though the counterexamples are far, far too long to list. I'll leave it with one though: actual priests in the US can hardly be said to be woke even though their own sacred texts are far more aligned with progressive economics than consumer capitalism.

ashoeafoot 2y ago

https://www.perlentaucher.de/essay/die-folgen-der-rushdie-affaere-fuer-die-westliche-oeffentlichkeit.html https://www.perlentaucher.de/essay/die-folgen-der-rushdie-af... At the root lies a fundamental anti democratic event that overruled a democratic society : the Fatwa.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

memhole 2y ago

I stopped reading the news a long time ago. After reading this, I haven’t really put much thought into what would make me return to having a regular habit again. Or what would even signal to me that I suddenly have something to gain from it? I there’s something to be said about keeping one foot in the public sphere while also having a degree of skepticism. The difference between Gary Numan and David Bowie.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
This article appears to be a defense of priesthoods and the traditional media: > But I still have basic trust that something in the New York Times’ non-opinion pages is 99% likely to be factually true - probably spun a bit, probably selected from the space of possible news articles because it supports the Times’ agenda, but factually true - in a way I don’t believe for random YouTubers.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

bilbo0s 2y ago

I have a theory that with the decline of religion in the West, people replaced what they got from religious ideology with political ideology. The sense of belonging and community. The sense of certainty in basic tenets. The confidence of being able to reliably recite their 'scriptures'. (Which 'scriptures' all having been laid down by their prophets.) And they are all guided by faith, not necessarily data. They have become quasi-religious organizations, and I'm sure in the future, will probably crystalize into something fairly overtly similar to what we would call religions today. I guess the point is that you can see some of the same behaviors of religious types being evoked in adherents to the various political ideologies. To the point of not really even being willing to listen to math, or data, or science. There is a very real perception among them that the scriptures allow a better understanding of nature and the universe than the systems nature and the universe provide to aid our understanding. Even more worryingly, as the article points out, they will often put forth ideologically pure 'domain experts' who can be relied on to give explanations grounded more in doctrinal alignment than scientific veracity. So we've already reached a point where explanations that are in accordance with 'scripture' have become a matter of great doctrinal import to these groups, and are being actively sought out. I guess by that I mean, the poison has leaked over from general society, into the sciences. I honestly believe that, as these groupings of political ideologues coalesce to replace religion more and more, I'd bet dollars to donuts that extremism in the future will be fueled almost exclusively by these quasi-religious political groupings.

DanielHB 2y ago
The only ideology that should be unquestioned is human rights. The one that really pulls my nerve are the hardcore libertarians, because they often pretend to be backed by data when there is no data or contrary data around. Although I mostly lean on libertarianism, hardcore libertarians are usually impossible to argue with.
- AdhemarVandamme 2y ago
  There’s plenty of room for reasonable discussion and questions, even about human rights. Are all human rights individual rights, or are there collective human rights (peoples’ rights)? Are there limits to free speech, and if so, what are they? Are liberties more fundamental than rights that require taxpayer expenditure? Is paid holiday really a human right (UDHR art. 30)? Does the expansion of the concept of human rights weaken fundamental human rights?

like_any_other 2y ago

Is the author perhaps overcomplicating the explanation on how 'wokeness' captured so many priesthoods, by invoking complex memetic virality? E.g. Marxism was very effective at capturing priesthoods in China and Russia (e.g. Lysenkoism) because it was politically powerful, as well as morally - it was considered immoral, even treasonous, to not be communist. In the same way, modern Western morality is based on anti-racism, and wokeness is merely its next logical step.

nthingtohide 2y ago
Can we apply Ising models used to explain ferromagnetism to how opinions get formed in crowds?
bilbo0s 2y ago
The point was that there are too many people like you out in society in quasi-religious political groupings that adhere less to natural reason and more to ideological 'scriptures'. 'Scriptures' like woke-ness, or anti-woke-ness. You're clearly the anti-woke-ness jihadi type, but the idea is the same. You have effectively gone out immediately after reading the article and proven the article's larger point. It makes responding to you awkward, since you appear to be unaware of how your comment validates so many of the article's larger implications in a way that you clearly did not intend. So most of the people interacting with this thread are just downvoting you in the hopes that your comment will disappear. They'd just as soon not have that uncomfortable conversation with you where they point out that your anti-woke-ness is as cringe as the woke-ness you're decrying.
- like_any_other 2y ago
  > You have effectively gone out immediately after reading the article and proven the article's larger point. You must misunderstand my position, because I don't really disagree with the article overall - it seems plausible to me. Just that it uses an over-complicated explanation for one of its points.