Down On The Farm
Oct. 19th, 2011 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotContinuing a thought from the last entry's comment thread, my opinions on political issues, on macroeconomics, on global warming, on a whole bunch of stuff, aren't based on much knowledge but rather based on whom I've decided to believe; in effect I've farmed out the ideas to others, owing to lack of time. And the result is that my opinions are the ones that Someone Like Me would have — I vote my hairstyle — and often the people who disagree with me on these issues are the ones who make me the most wary; and so these issues, the ones that I don't understand, are where my own views are most resistant to change. That's because the views are based on my social identity not on my knowledge, and people opposing them represent a potential threat of deep social conflict: conflict between types of people. Someone not believing in global warming somehow represents to me the possibility of my being killed in a civil war or a genocide, even if the particular person I'm disagreeing with happens to be sweet and kind, and even though I hardly know the science or the evidence for global warming.*
Not to say that the ideas I do think my way to and through have nothing to do with my social identity or that people's reflected-upon and well-worked ideas don't nonetheless cluster by social type, since they usually do. But at least I've got a sense of the uncertainties as well as the certainties, and of where potential counterarguments and counterevidence might be coming from.
*Of course, if I did know the science, the person who disbelieved in global warming might nonetheless represent the exact same threat. Whereas if we both knew the science, while this is no guarantee we wouldn't feel the social threat, we might not be arguing from the depths of our insecure social selves. [And yeah, I know that People Who Are Like Me don't think it's possible for someone to both know the science and disbelieve in man-made global warming; but as I said, I don't know the science, so I don't know this.]
Not to say that the ideas I do think my way to and through have nothing to do with my social identity or that people's reflected-upon and well-worked ideas don't nonetheless cluster by social type, since they usually do. But at least I've got a sense of the uncertainties as well as the certainties, and of where potential counterarguments and counterevidence might be coming from.
*Of course, if I did know the science, the person who disbelieved in global warming might nonetheless represent the exact same threat. Whereas if we both knew the science, while this is no guarantee we wouldn't feel the social threat, we might not be arguing from the depths of our insecure social selves. [And yeah, I know that People Who Are Like Me don't think it's possible for someone to both know the science and disbelieve in man-made global warming; but as I said, I don't know the science, so I don't know this.]
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 11:16 pm (UTC)days. I still hang around LJ a bit; feel free
to add me on here (although I doubt I'll write
much). Oddly enough, I was thinking about THIS
VERY SONG this morning. I forget exactly what
caused my mind to bring it up... perhaps, as
Sally Mann said, just for fun.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 05:33 pm (UTC)scott woods
Date: 2011-10-24 02:32 pm (UTC)Re: scott woods
Date: 2011-10-24 03:21 pm (UTC)Re: scott woods
Date: 2011-10-24 03:22 pm (UTC)scott woods
Date: 2011-10-24 03:36 pm (UTC)a) was definitely Radio On
b) pretty sure in some post-song comments (maybe a roundup of other songs?)
c) you were referencing Cook and Buck
d) reason it provoked genuine yuks from yours truly is that you later, in the same roundup, wrote "one can never tell ones bitches apart" (in reference, I'm guessing, to two then-current hip-hop songs)
Re: scott woods
Date: 2011-10-24 03:43 pm (UTC)