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I've certainly noticed a devolution into overly-simplified caricatures of common arguments in modern discourse. However, some blame for this rests on those who
by ajcarpy2005 13y ago
I've certainly noticed a devolution into overly-simplified caricatures of common arguments in modern discourse. However, some blame for this rests on those who use simplified arguments, not just the respondent. But also much of this simplification happens when debates, blog wars, or just general cultural divisions are summarized.
When people communicate with others who hold very similar worldviews, there's a lot of mutual tacit knowledge that needn't be explicitly referenced because it can be easily and reliably inferred. But so often when we discuss or debate something with someone or an audience which we know holds views radically opposing our own, we don't realize that it's the tacit knowledge or perspective which is likely more important than the summarization of the common or official arguments & tenets.
I like to think of this tacit or 'unseen' rationalization structure as the matrix of graphite that supports the fine point at the end of a pencil.
- entropy_ 13y agoI couldn't agree more. There's nothing more painful than watching Dawkins vs <some random theologian> and thinking the whole time that they are both talking completely past each other. I don't remember which debate it was, but Dawkins at some point went(and this is from memory but I think accurate) "I could believe in God if you'd told me he was evolved from something else, I just can't believe in complexity that arises without evolution". I stopped watching at that point because it was clear that they weren't even talking about the same thing when they said "God" and neither of them seemed to notice that! At least on matters of (a)theism, by far the only (famous) atheist I've seen who actually knows how debate without using tacit knowledge and can actually understand the opponents views and debate them on that level was Christopher Hitchens.
- omegant 13y agoAlso about Dawkins, while I agree with all that he says, I don´t think he is behaving in a scientific way with religious people. I mean that if he wants to make people see how the scientific method is vastly superior to religion, I don´t see that pushing them and calling them "dumb" (not literally, but you can feel that´s what he is thinking) is not having just the opposite result, and is making creationists more active in their positions.
- kansface 13y agoWhile you write that you want to avoid alienation, your language is inflammatory. Beyond that, the scientific method is not vastly superior (morally?) to religion. The one is a system for examining that which is discoverable while the other attempts to relate to that which is not. In other words, they are orthogonal.
- ehartsuyker 13y agoI think your point that everything is oversimplified because of summaries could in part be mitigated by having high schoolers take one philosophy course. I took a couple in college, and I quickly learned there's a reason that simply stated argument have enormous treatises written on them to avoid ambiguity through simplification.
- ajcarpy2005 13y agoYou make a great point. Additionally, it would be great if more people were well-read.
- SilasX 13y agoSo people fall for this stuff people they haven't learned about Plato's law of forms, that contradictions suck, and that words can have multiple meanings.
- narrator 13y agoThe problem with political debates is people just repeat things they've heard from authority figures and don't do original research to inform themselves because that takes time and effort. Even if you do the research and come up with a brilliant argument it's only going to work on people who can be convinced by arguments and then just one at a time if in person.