Sound Reasoning but Incorrect Information

[Debater Slayer]

We often encounter discussions about whether we should apply today's knowledge and standards of morality to past eras. However, I would like to explore a murkier scenario in this thread: applying today's reasoning to past eras using the knowledge of past eras.

Suppose you live in the '50s or '60s, or perhaps even a decade or so later. You then apply a cornerstone of reasoning that we encounter today: expert consensus is the best tool to inform ourselves of facts or evodence about various aspects of nature, medicine, and technology.

You look around you and realize that expert consensus at the time is that homosexuality is a mental disorder or some harmful condition. If you go back a number of decades, you may even find that many experts argued against miscegenation. Scientific authorities, religious figures, society, and even your family are telling you that homosexuality and miscegenation are harmful and unscientific. Your empathetic intuition tells you otherwise, but another cornerstone of logical reasoning is that intuition and feelings alone don't dictate facts or scientific findings.

Could you judge your hypothetical self from the '50s, '60s, or prior eras to have been immoral for believing scientific experts, religious scholars, and society in general? Were you an immoral person back then, or did you do the right thing by genuinely following sound principles of reasoning and listening to experts rather than your intuition that—no matter how overwhelmed by the larger social, scientific, and religious trends—was indeed correct in finding racial and sexual discrimination repulsive?

 

[sun rise]

Having lived back in the 50's/60's, I have a living memory of the changes and what I thought back then.

In my early years women were supposed to be "happy little housewives", Boys would "sow their wild oats" but women were supposed to stay virgins until marriage (still somewhat true today). Blacks were inferior and were totally not welcome in our neighborhood and we knew that Christians discriminated against Jews (we could join their country clubs, for example).

Was I immoral or ignorant?

As far as intuition versus expert opinion goes, true intuition is ahead of scientific consensus. Distinguishing between intuition and regular feelings is often tricky. People often mistake fears and hopes as intuition and do crazy things like fear vaccination preferring the illness to prevention. So for me when to rely on intuition is part of a learning process.

 

[vulcanlogician]

expert consensus is the best tool to inform ourselves of facts or evodence about various aspects of nature, medicine, and technology.

There's nothing wrong with saying "expert consensus is the best tool..." because that statement makes no assumption that the expert consensus is the correct idea. Science takes time to get things right, and this is doubly true of psychological sciences. The human brain/mind is terribly complex, and even today, psychologists struggle to form even basic conclusions about how events impact us emotionally.

I still think that psychological science is the "best tool" we have to understand the human mind, but at the same time, it's error prone. Classifying homosexuality as a disorder was one such error. But the difference between now and then aren't that "attitudes have changed" (although public attitudes play more of a role than they ought)... the difference is that psychology was wrong in the first place.

Science takes time to draw firm conclusions. Given time, it will give us an incredibly accurate picture of the world. But when science has to determine things overnight, mistakes are often made, because we are working with educated guesses than years of scrutinized and confirmed data. This explains the few mishaps in scientific conclusions during the covid lockdown era. We asked the scientific community to resolve certain issues overnight, when months, if not years of study and research would be needed to generate firm conclusions on those matters.

edit: I forgot to say, "no." I wouldn't call people immoral for accepting faulty "expert" conclusions of their day, but I would fault their appeal to authority were they to stop thinking critically about those issues.

 

[Augustus]

Could you judge your hypothetical self from the '50s, '60s, or prior eras to have been immoral for believing scientific experts, religious scholars, and society in general? Were you an immoral person back then, or did you do the right thing by genuinely following sound principles of reasoning and listening to experts rather than your intuition that—no matter how overwhelmed by the larger social, scientific, and religious trends—was indeed correct in finding racial and sexual discrimination repulsive?

I'm a fairly average person in my demographic today, I'd probably have been a fairly average person in the past in whatever society and demographic I was born into. This would include whatever false/prejudiced beliefs that involved. There's no reason, other than conceit, to think I'd have been the special one.

Any decision can only be judged on the information that was available at the time the decision was made.

Judging decisions with hindsight, the fallacy of the Monday morning quarterback, is a harmful as it denies reality in favour of self-congratulation and conceit.

People should be judged by the standards of their society, although we can express preferences for modern values over those of the past. Congratulating ourselves for the tremendous moral achievement of being born later in a more progressive era is pretty vapid though.

Regarding "bad decisions for the right reasons" anyone who puts a lot of trust in human rationality, expert opinions and the latest science will display a significant degree of fadishness.

If we had a cohort of immortal Richard Dawkins' who had lived throughout the ages they would have believed all kinds of nonsense: eugenics, scientific racialism, humorism, geocentrism, that the eyes shoot out beams of light, that we should destroy lovely historical building and city centres to build massive roads etc. Some would have been imperialists, some would probably have ended up Leninists based on rational reasoning, etc.

Any new belief has a high chance of being wrong and/or harmful, which we will not find out until it undergoes the test of time.

Many people see tradition/conservatism as 'backward' as it places it puts more trust in that which has existed over time rather than the novel and innovative, but it is really a bulwark against fadishness and human hubris.

Successful societies really rely on there being the right balance between tradition (i.e. what worked in the past) and change.

The heuristic of Chesterton's Fence gives one example:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Or the limitations of rationalism as explained by Michael Oakeshott:


The general character and disposition of the Rationalist are, I think, not difficult to identify. At bottom he stands (he always stands) for independence of mind on all occasions, for thought free from obligation to any authority save the authority of 'reason'. His circumstances in the modern world have made him contentious: he is the enemy of authority, of prejudice, of the merely traditional, customary or habitual. His mental attitude is at once sceptical and optimistic: sceptical, because there is no opinion, no habit, no belief, nothing so firmly rooted or so widely held that he hesitates to question it and to judge it by what he calls his 'reason'; optimistic, because the Rationalist never doubts the power of his 'reason' (when properly applied) to determine the worth of a thing, the truth of an opinion or the propriety of an action. Moreover, he is fortified by a belief in a 'reason' common to all mankind, a common power of rational consideration, which is the ground and inspiration of argument: set up on his door is the precept of Parmenides - judge by rational argument. But besides this, which gives the Rationalist a touch of intellectual equalitarianism, he is something also of an individualist, finding it difficult to believe that anyone who can think honestly and clearly will think differently from himself...

The deeper motivations which encouraged and developed this intellectual fashion are, not unnaturally, obscure; they are hidden in the recesses of European society. But among its other connections, it is certainly closely allied with a decline in the belief in Providence: a beneficient and infallible technique replaced a beneficient and infallible God; and where Providence was not available to correct the mistakes of men it was all the more necessary to prevent such mistakes. Certainly, also, its provenance is a society or a generation which thinks what it has discovered for itself is more important than what it has inherited, an age over-impressed with its own accomplishment and liable to those illusions of intellectual grandeur which are the characteristic lunacy of post-Renaissance Europe.

• Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We often encounter discussions about whether we should apply today's knowledge and standards of morality to past eras. However, I would like to explore a murkier scenario in this thread: applying today's reasoning to past eras using the knowledge of past eras.

Suppose you live in the '50s or '60s, or perhaps even a decade or so later. You then apply a cornerstone of reasoning that we encounter today: expert consensus is the best tool to inform ourselves of facts or evodence about various aspects of nature, medicine, and technology.

You look around you and realize that expert consensus at the time is that homosexuality is a mental disorder or some harmful condition. If you go back a number of decades, you may even find that many experts argued against miscegenation. Scientific authorities, religious figures, society, and even your family are telling you that homosexuality and miscegenation are harmful and unscientific. Your empathetic intuition tells you otherwise, but another cornerstone of logical reasoning is that intuition and feelings alone don't dictate facts or scientific findings.

Could you judge your hypothetical self from the '50s, '60s, or prior eras to have been immoral for believing scientific experts, religious scholars, and society in general? Were you an immoral person back then, or did you do the right thing by genuinely following sound principles of reasoning and listening to experts rather than your intuition that—no matter how overwhelmed by the larger social, scientific, and religious trends—was indeed correct in finding racial and sexual discrimination repulsive?

Considering I learned to start hating myself and others even after the "decades of intolerance," as we seem to stereotype the 50s amd 60s (particularly the 50s), amd how my mom did pick up those things common for the 50s, it's hard saying. I'd probably start out no different than I did in my life. Would I eventually still change and accept myself and learn the errors of my ways? I don't know. I'd like to say maybe, possibly, as though my mom echos many sentiments of the past her actions don't necessarily reflect those words, but it's hard to say.
It would still be wrong, however, and hopefully I'd find it as shameful and embarrassing as I find how I was when I was younger.

 

[Stevicus]

We often encounter discussions about whether we should apply today's knowledge and standards of morality to past eras. However, I would like to explore a murkier scenario in this thread: applying today's reasoning to past eras using the knowledge of past eras.

Suppose you live in the '50s or '60s, or perhaps even a decade or so later. You then apply a cornerstone of reasoning that we encounter today: expert consensus is the best tool to inform ourselves of facts or evodence about various aspects of nature, medicine, and technology.

You look around you and realize that expert consensus at the time is that homosexuality is a mental disorder or some harmful condition. If you go back a number of decades, you may even find that many experts argued against miscegenation. Scientific authorities, religious figures, society, and even your family are telling you that homosexuality and miscegenation are harmful and unscientific. Your empathetic intuition tells you otherwise, but another cornerstone of logical reasoning is that intuition and feelings alone don't dictate facts or scientific findings.

Could you judge your hypothetical self from the '50s, '60s, or prior eras to have been immoral for believing scientific experts, religious scholars, and society in general? Were you an immoral person back then, or did you do the right thing by genuinely following sound principles of reasoning and listening to experts rather than your intuition that—no matter how overwhelmed by the larger social, scientific, and religious trends—was indeed correct in finding racial and sexual discrimination repulsive?

I was born in the 1960s, so I grew up while many changes were taking place, kind of the cusp between the older era and the newer era we were moving into. I also became aware of influences from different viewpoints and political persuasions. I also spent a lot of time with my grandparents and people of their generation and talked about how they saw things.

My grandparents all came from farm families, devoutly Christian, so if anyone asked them about miscegenation or homosexuality, I doubt they would have approved. My parents were a bit more educated and liberal, so they wouldn't necessarily oppose it, but they also probably wouldn't want to make waves or attract hostile attention by supporting it. Although my mother was kind of fiery and outspoken (which is probably where I get it from), and she was a big supporter of civil rights, gender equality, gay rights. My father was a bit more conservative, although he didn't seem to care much about things like miscegenation or homosexuality. He was an engineer, so he was very much rooted in a scientific-oriented viewpoint.

Another thing to consider during that time is that a large part of the public's attention was distracted and sidetracked with the Cold War and anti-communism, which were not directly related to the issues of sexual and racial discrimination. However, that didn't stop some people from propagating the idea that civil rights and anti-war movements were communist plots. Rock and roll was considered to be a communist plot by some.

I think WW2 was a major turning point, at least inasmuch as the immense slaughter and loss of life in the face of industrialized warfare and mass murder. It gives one pause, and in the aftermath, a lot of people simply realized that we have to do a lot better than we have been doing. I don't think it's so much a matter of what people knew or didn't know, but more a matter of values and their worldview.

 

[rational experiences]

A human born in the sixties. We live supported yet poor. We were happy we knew we saw we lived.

My brother the eldest I adored. I adored all my older siblings. We looked after each other. My parents struggled emotionally.

I learnt. It's not their fault. I didn't blame them for childhood abuses.

I look I see I experience.

My brother got into a position where rich humans were. He became homosexual. It made no difference in my life. He's family. He's my brother.

However we were taught sexual morality. Sex was in the bedroom it wasn't a display. I agree.

I however did spiritual research about changed consciousness. Knew it related to human life's recordings exact. Behaviours pre recorded yet human biology heavens recorded exact.

Behaviours aren't biology. Biology records in heavens is exact.

Behaviour however isn't biology it's expressed... its involved with relationships... it's Involved with civilisation status also.

Why it's confusing to humans who don't research family as mutual equal first. As science was never mutual equal first in humans life.

 

[Nakosis]

We often encounter discussions about whether we should apply today's knowledge and standards of morality to past eras. However, I would like to explore a murkier scenario in this thread: applying today's reasoning to past eras using the knowledge of past eras.

Suppose you live in the '50s or '60s, or perhaps even a decade or so later. You then apply a cornerstone of reasoning that we encounter today: expert consensus is the best tool to inform ourselves of facts or evodence about various aspects of nature, medicine, and technology.

You look around you and realize that expert consensus at the time is that homosexuality is a mental disorder or some harmful condition. If you go back a number of decades, you may even find that many experts argued against miscegenation. Scientific authorities, religious figures, society, and even your family are telling you that homosexuality and miscegenation are harmful and unscientific. Your empathetic intuition tells you otherwise, but another cornerstone of logical reasoning is that intuition and feelings alone don't dictate facts or scientific findings.

Could you judge your hypothetical self from the '50s, '60s, or prior eras to have been immoral for believing scientific experts, religious scholars, and society in general? Were you an immoral person back then, or did you do the right thing by genuinely following sound principles of reasoning and listening to experts rather than your intuition that—no matter how overwhelmed by the larger social, scientific, and religious trends—was indeed correct in finding racial and sexual discrimination repulsive?

IMO, morality is mostly programmed into you as a youth by contemporary culture. We are not morally superior, our morals are a product of our time.
It is less about what experts say and more about what you've been taught as right and right by society. Some of it intentional, some of it unintentional.
Likely we'd have had the same moral ideology as the people then. We'd probably judge our future selves as deviants.

 

[Augustus]

Likely we'd have had the same moral ideology as the people then. We'd probably judge our future selves as deviants.

I did a poll a while back about a hypothetical future where meat is grown in a lab and the idea of killing and eating an animal is viewed as nearly as bad as we would judge killing and eating a human to be.

I asked how future people should judge us for eating meat, should we be seen as bad people. Most people said we should be judged as a product of our time, a few said we should be judged as morally suspect but not 'cancelled', no one said we should be judged as fundamentally bad people.

I'm pretty sure if someone ran a poll about how we should judge those involved in the slave trade, the results would be far more negative than that, and far fewer people would say it shouldn't count against them as it was widely deemed ok at the time.

We are often happy to judge others as 'bad people' with hindsight, but are far more sensitive to the idea that we could be judged in a similar manner when we see ourselves as pretty decent people.

 

[Heyo]

We often encounter discussions about whether we should apply today's knowledge and standards of morality to past eras. However, I would like to explore a murkier scenario in this thread: applying today's reasoning to past eras using the knowledge of past eras.

Suppose you live in the '50s or '60s, or perhaps even a decade or so later. You then apply a cornerstone of reasoning that we encounter today: expert consensus is the best tool to inform ourselves of facts or evodence about various aspects of nature, medicine, and technology.

You look around you and realize that expert consensus at the time is that homosexuality is a mental disorder or some harmful condition. If you go back a number of decades, you may even find that many experts argued against miscegenation. Scientific authorities, religious figures, society, and even your family are telling you that homosexuality and miscegenation are harmful and unscientific. Your empathetic intuition tells you otherwise, but another cornerstone of logical reasoning is that intuition and feelings alone don't dictate facts or scientific findings.

Could you judge your hypothetical self from the '50s, '60s, or prior eras to have been immoral for believing scientific experts, religious scholars, and society in general? Were you an immoral person back then, or did you do the right thing by genuinely following sound principles of reasoning and listening to experts rather than your intuition that—no matter how overwhelmed by the larger social, scientific, and religious trends—was indeed correct in finding racial and sexual discrimination repulsive?

<nitpick>
An argument is valid if the conclusion follows logically from the premises.
It is sound when the premises are true.
</nitpick>

I don't think that moral judgements are or should be dependent primarily on scientific opinion or even fact. Morality depends primarily on the moral primitives one holds. If you adopt the principles of the enlightenment, shortened into meme form by the French Revolution to Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, you'd be for the rights of homosexuals even if they are seen as mentally ill.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I probably only have one example to contribute, although my attitude probably came from being more questioning in general. There was quite a lot of racism in London during the 1950s/60s, but my main experience of this (not happening) was in secondary school where our friendship group encompassed a very dark-skinned boy who was born on an island north of Venezuela. There was no discrimination towards him and he was very popular. Given there were very few non-whites in the school and only in the final year (taking GCEs) did several become part of our class for some lessons. But these did tend to keep themselves to themselves.

At home, my father and an older brother might use the 'n' word - still very common then as were several others - but I would never have used such, and perhaps this did put some distance between myself and my father - given my friendship with this boy. My mother, perhaps the more thinking of my parents, would never use such language and I probably got my morals through her. So, apart from this boy, my experiences with non-whites was rather limited - just by circumstances. Also, I never had any homosexual friends, but I don't think I was particular judgmental towards any - just not having any experiences to make any judgments. Apart from an early sexual assault on me by an older boy that is. And homosexuality was illegal until 1967 in the UK so obviously they were less visible.

Perhaps I was just less judgmental at the time or just knew instinctively that racism was wrong, but I don't think I have much to remonstrate myself over for any behaviour during these times.

 

[wellwisher]

We often encounter discussions about whether we should apply today's knowledge and standards of morality to past eras. However, I would like to explore a murkier scenario in this thread: applying today's reasoning to past eras using the knowledge of past eras.

Suppose you live in the '50s or '60s, or perhaps even a decade or so later. You then apply a cornerstone of reasoning that we encounter today: expert consensus is the best tool to inform ourselves of facts or evodence about various aspects of nature, medicine, and technology.

You look around you and realize that expert consensus at the time is that homosexuality is a mental disorder or some harmful condition. If you go back a number of decades, you may even find that many experts argued against miscegenation. Scientific authorities, religious figures, society, and even your family are telling you that homosexuality and miscegenation are harmful and unscientific. Your empathetic intuition tells you otherwise, but another cornerstone of logical reasoning is that intuition and feelings alone don't dictate facts or scientific findings.

Could you judge your hypothetical self from the '50s, '60s, or prior eras to have been immoral for believing scientific experts, religious scholars, and society in general? Were you an immoral person back then, or did you do the right thing by genuinely following sound principles of reasoning and listening to experts rather than your intuition that—no matter how overwhelmed by the larger social, scientific, and religious trends—was indeed correct in finding racial and sexual discrimination repulsive?

Evolution and Natural Selection, as taught in the 1950's and 1960's was the same, as it is taught today. So why did the conclusions change in terms of homosexuality; pathology to normal, even though the theory did not change? It has to do with politics leading science. If science had changed the theory, due to the conflict that homosexuality creates with existing theory, science leading would make more sense.

Science does not have it own resources. Science is beholden to others for support, with Big Government one of its major benefactors. A major part of the purse strings of science are controlled by Politicians. Politicians can bribe science to look the other way. This social acceptance is not consistent with evolutionary theory, not changing. It is more consistent with science too afraid to speak, since it is beholden.

Evolution and natural selection is based on nature creating potentials, which then narrow down selection to the most adaptive to those potentials. The cold Arctic has the potentials of cold and long dark winters. Those most fit in that hostile environment; flora and fauna, will be selected and will evolve.

The second aspect of evolution is connected to sexual reproduction; mating, needed to create the next generation of selected DNA, that reflects the genes chosen by natural selection. The problem is that homosexual face is their choices are not conducive to breeding; needs male/female. Male/male and female/female will not work. This tells me this behavior could pass the first part but it is not consistent with part 2 of evolutionary theory.

The practical problem is; even if Gays and Lesbians were the most adaptive humans and were naturally selected; part 1, since they cannot or will not breed, by their own choice of lifestyle, their genetic strengths will be lost to the genetic timeline; part 2 stops. These strengths, good looks, caring personalities, and creative natures, are not passed forward, by genetics, to the next generation. It ends with them. Evolution only works 50%, at best, unless there is procreation. The gun is loaded but the trigger is not pulled.

One interesting consideration, in terms of modern evolutionary theory, was how the Church forced homosexuals to go underground and/or participate in heterosexual life or meet consequences. This forced procreation, in terms of the closet homosexuals, who needed to look legitimate in culture or face consequences. So generic transfer did happen, for part 2 of evolution, even before the theory was developed; ahead of its time.

In modern times, since there is no social push to forced procreation among homosexuals, these Church induced genes, should be getting more and more diluted over time. However, we see this behavior growing in the population. Something else is at work, that is not part B evolutionary.

This logic tells me homosexual behavior, today, needs to be created anew, within each generation. They cannot be a 100% part of evolution, due to male-female mating needed for reproduction not part of the choice. Rather it would need to be more connected to learned behavior; will and choice, such as through education and mentors. The classic Greek men and boys could cause this, with the boy becoming an adult, mentor. Priest and Boys may have been another path.

In the trades, you have the master carpenter and his student apprentice. The student learns the trade over many years, until the trade becomes second nature. Then he is now a master and can become a mentor. This does not need evolution, since it is done from the outside-in and not the inside-out, like natural selection, evolution and acquired DNA.

My guess, based on watching the entire metamorphosis from the 1960's on, the Political left, which I agreed with in the 1960-70's, became a surrogate mentor and expanded this path though education, will and choice. Educational test scores, under Liberal educational leadership, have shown a steady decline compared to the 1950-60's. The downgrade in teaching and the indoctrination, may have something to do with this change. Nobody in sciences claiming to seeing any problems in terms of Evolutionary theory.

I can accept such free will and choices, but I am more of a stickler when it comes to anyone claiming natural when it is man made. If we say this is manmade, fine. But the sales pitch deviates from this and claims natural.

Why didn't generic theory change and say male/female mating and offspring not needed for natural evolution? That would allow science to back up the political claims. Science dropped the ball out of fear of losing benefactors, or being black balled. Such truth is a phobia according to the Left. The Phobia label was part of this scam and others scams, as though this diagnosis by politicians, and paid science, counts the same as the common sense application of a simple theory. I alway looked for a second opinion, due to bad folk medicine.

 

[pearl]

the Church forced homosexuals to go underground and/or participate in heterosexual life or meet consequences.

What is your source for this statement?

 

[Debater Slayer]

Having lived back in the 50's/60's, I have a living memory of the changes and what I thought back then.

In my early years women were supposed to be "happy little housewives", Boys would "sow their wild oats" but women were supposed to stay virgins until marriage (still somewhat true today). Blacks were inferior and were totally not welcome in our neighborhood and we knew that Christians discriminated against Jews (we could join their country clubs, for example).

Was I immoral or ignorant?

As far as intuition versus expert opinion goes, true intuition is ahead of scientific consensus. Distinguishing between intuition and regular feelings is often tricky. People often mistake fears and hopes as intuition and do crazy things like fear vaccination preferring the illness to prevention. So for me when to rely on intuition is part of a learning process.

I find intuition immensely useful in a lot of situations, but as you said, knowing when to rely on it is crucial. I rely on my intuition when talking to people for the first time, for example, but I can't rely on intuition to tell me how many asteroids are near Earth. The latter is something that requires measurement and observation.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I'm a fairly average person in my demographic today, I'd probably have been a fairly average person in the past in whatever society and demographic I was born into. This would include whatever false/prejudiced beliefs that involved. There's no reason, other than conceit, to think I'd have been the special one.

Any decision can only be judged on the information that was available at the time the decision was made.

Judging decisions with hindsight, the fallacy of the Monday morning quarterback, is a harmful as it denies reality in favour of self-congratulation and conceit.

People should be judged by the standards of their society, although we can express preferences for modern values over those of the past. Congratulating ourselves for the tremendous moral achievement of being born later in a more progressive era is pretty vapid though.

While I generally agree with this, I think it's quite possible that some people who say they wouldn't have accepted social norms back then would have lived up to that if they had been born then. We already see people on this forum who have significantly broken away from the prevalent norms in their respective societies and cultures, including some for whom doing so carries a major safety risk.

Extrapolating this capacity for dissent to past eras doesn't necessarily seem too far-fetched to me (although it is for a lot of the "dissenters" who are safe and sound in liberal, mostly irreligious democracies and religiously diverse societies but think they're special martyrs anyway).

Regarding "bad decisions for the right reasons" anyone who puts a lot of trust in human rationality, expert opinions and the latest science will display a significant degree of fadishness.

If we had a cohort of immortal Richard Dawkins' who had lived throughout the ages they would have believed all kinds of nonsense: eugenics, scientific racialism, humorism, geocentrism, that the eyes shoot out beams of light, that we should destroy lovely historical building and city centres to build massive roads etc. Some would have been imperialists, some would probably have ended up Leninists based on rational reasoning, etc.

Any new belief has a high chance of being wrong and/or harmful, which we will not find out until it undergoes the test of time.

What do you think is an unwarranted level of trust in expert opinions and latest science? Generally, it seems to me that putting trust in those is a far safer and more reasonable bet than rejecting or strongly challenging them without being qualified to do so. Take evolution as an example: is it faddish or unreasonable to trust the overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is a fact? Or, if we look at a medical example instead, is it giving the consensus of experts too much weight to trust them on the benefits of vaccines or toxicity of lead (which used to be far more accepted as a supposedly harmless substance)?

There are blurrier examples, of course, and it's crucial to remain open to new information and evidence. However, as a rule of thumb, I find that many people who tend to question or reject expert consensus on a subject are more often than not adopting an unreasonable and potentially harmful position (e.g., anti-vaxxers). Then we also have people who reject scholarly consensus in fields besides science, such as history, and you probably know how painful that is.

Many people see tradition/conservatism as 'backward' as it places it puts more trust in that which has existed over time rather than the novel and innovative, but it is really a bulwark against fadishness and human hubris.

Successful societies really rely on there being the right balance between tradition (i.e. what worked in the past) and change.

The heuristic of Chesterton's Fence gives one example:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

I see the utility (or lack thereof) of conservatism—in the sense of conserving the status quo, not in a culture-specific context like "American conservatism," "British conservatism," etc.—as a function of the society in which it exists. The same goes for change, or progressivism. For instance, in societies that still criminalize homosexuality, ban religious pluralism, and legally discriminate against women, it seems to me that conservatism is far less of a bulwark against faddishness and more of a hindrance to necessary change as well as a force enabling abuse.

It also seems to me that conservatism sometimes enshrines human hubris and even ascribes it to a divine source. The current Iranian regime is a textbook example of this: they kill in the name of their god, think they're divinely ordained, and brand those who want change as "traitors," "infidels," and a myriad of other demonizing designations. This is human hubris writ large: it is based in an intransigent sense of confidence in tradition and the status quo, to the point of elevating them to the rank of "God's law."

On the other hand, I don't support change just for the sake of it, which is something some Marxists-Leninists might do. We can see how deleterious that line of thinking can be when examining Lenin's "the end justifies the means" approach and how he was willing to sacrifice millions of lives just for the sake of what he perceived as a perfect goal. Change isn't always necessary, and it could sometimes be similar to blowing air at a neatly arranged house of cards just because one believes there should always be a breeze.

Or the limitations of rationalism as explained by Michael Oakeshott:


The general character and disposition of the Rationalist are, I think, not difficult to identify. At bottom he stands (he always stands) for independence of mind on all occasions, for thought free from obligation to any authority save the authority of 'reason'. His circumstances in the modern world have made him contentious: he is the enemy of authority, of prejudice, of the merely traditional, customary or habitual. His mental attitude is at once sceptical and optimistic: sceptical, because there is no opinion, no habit, no belief, nothing so firmly rooted or so widely held that he hesitates to question it and to judge it by what he calls his 'reason'; optimistic, because the Rationalist never doubts the power of his 'reason' (when properly applied) to determine the worth of a thing, the truth of an opinion or the propriety of an action. Moreover, he is fortified by a belief in a 'reason' common to all mankind, a common power of rational consideration, which is the ground and inspiration of argument: set up on his door is the precept of Parmenides - judge by rational argument. But besides this, which gives the Rationalist a touch of intellectual equalitarianism, he is something also of an individualist, finding it difficult to believe that anyone who can think honestly and clearly will think differently from himself...

The deeper motivations which encouraged and developed this intellectual fashion are, not unnaturally, obscure; they are hidden in the recesses of European society. But among its other connections, it is certainly closely allied with a decline in the belief in Providence: a beneficient and infallible technique replaced a beneficient and infallible God; and where Providence was not available to correct the mistakes of men it was all the more necessary to prevent such mistakes. Certainly, also, its provenance is a society or a generation which thinks what it has discovered for itself is more important than what it has inherited, an age over-impressed with its own accomplishment and liable to those illusions of intellectual grandeur which are the characteristic lunacy of post-Renaissance Europe.

• Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics

I highlighted the part I found most striking, because I think it profoundly hits the nail on the head. After the Enlightenment, European colonialism displayed some of its most brutal, arrogant, and forceful manifestations, much of which contained overtones of spreading "civilization" to other parts of the world. I would argue that Manifest Destiny perhaps also had some of its roots in this culturally supremacist mentality.

British colonialism introduced anti-homosexuality laws in multiple countries, but now that Britain and most of Europe have moved on from those laws, many politicians in the region point the finger at other countries that still hold on to those laws without acknowledging Europe's historical role in buttressing them. Not that those laws don't warrant condemnation, but the self-centered discrepancy does paint a picture of being "over-impressed with [their] own accomplishment"—and sometimes being culturally supremacist—on the part of of the people who display this lack of self-awareness.

People like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris who fixate on perceived faults of religion, extol the supposed virtues of the Enlightenment in contrast to supposedly benighted past eras, and overlook historical nuance like the above play into the hands of culturally supremacist rhetoric whether they realize it or not, and they're far from unintelligent. I think they realize what they're doing but justify it on the grounds that they're fighting for "reason and science."

 

[Debater Slayer]

<nitpick>
An argument is valid if the conclusion follows logically from the premises.
It is sound when the premises are true.
</nitpick>

I don't think that moral judgements are or should be dependent primarily on scientific opinion or even fact. Morality depends primarily on the moral primitives one holds. If you adopt the principles of the enlightenment, shortened into meme form by the French Revolution to Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, you'd be for the rights of homosexuals even if they are seen as mentally ill.

Seeing homosexuals as mentally ill can significantly change perceptions of what their rights are, though. Gay conversion therapy was commonly practiced precisely because of the idea that homosexuality could be "cured." Someone who lived decades ago when that was still the case would have found their pro-LGBT stance pitted against prevalent medical, social, and religious viewpoints.

Moral judgments aren't necessarily dependent primarily on scientific opinions or facts, but both of these can heavily inform moral judgments. They did so in the past (e.g., with eugenics and anti-homosexual attitudes), and they continue to do so today (e.g., with respect to transgender issues and gender equality).

 

[Augustus]

While I generally agree with this, I think it's quite possible that some people who say they wouldn't have accepted social norms back then would have lived up to that if they had been born then. We already see people on this forum who have significantly broken away from the prevalent norms in their respective societies and cultures, including some for whom doing so carries a major safety risk.

Extrapolating this capacity for dissent to past eras doesn't necessarily seem too far-fetched to me (although it is for a lot of the "dissenters" who are safe and sound in liberal, mostly irreligious democracies and religiously diverse societies but think they're special martyrs anyway).



What do you think is an unwarranted level of trust in expert opinions and latest science? Generally, it seems to me that putting trust in those is a far safer and more reasonable bet than rejecting or strongly challenging them without being qualified to do so. Take evolution as an example: is it faddish or unreasonable to trust the overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is a fact? Or, if we look at a medical example instead, is it giving the consensus of experts too much weight to trust them on the benefits of vaccines or toxicity of lead (which used to be far more accepted as a supposedly harmless substance)?

There are blurrier examples, of course, and it's crucial to remain open to new information and evidence. However, as a rule of thumb, I find that many people who tend to question or reject expert consensus on a subject are more often than not adopting an unreasonable and potentially harmful position (e.g., anti-vaxxers). Then we also have people who reject scholarly consensus in fields besides science, such as history, and you probably know how painful that is.



I see the utility (or lack thereof) of conservatism—in the sense of conserving the status quo, not in a culture-specific context like "American conservatism," "British conservatism," etc.—as a function of the society in which it exists. The same goes for change, or progressivism. For instance, in societies that still criminalize homosexuality, ban religious pluralism, and legally discriminate against women, it seems to me that conservatism is far less of a bulwark against faddishness and more of a hindrance to necessary change as well as a force enabling abuse.

It also seems to me that conservatism sometimes enshrines human hubris and even ascribes it to a divine source. The current Iranian regime is a textbook example of this: they kill in the name of their god, think they're divinely ordained, and brand those who want change as "traitors," "infidels," and a myriad of other demonizing designations. This is human hubris writ large: it is based in an intransigent sense of confidence in tradition and the status quo, to the point of elevating them to the rank of "God's law."

On the other hand, I don't support change just for the sake of it, which is something some Marxists-Leninists might do. We can see how deleterious that line of thinking can be when examining Lenin's "the end justifies the means" approach and how he was willing to sacrifice millions of lives just for the sake of what he perceived as a perfect goal. Change isn't always necessary, and it could sometimes be similar to blowing air at a neatly arranged house of cards just because one believes there should always be a breeze.



I highlighted the part I found most striking, because I think it profoundly hits the nail on the head. After the Enlightenment, European colonialism displayed some of its most brutal, arrogant, and forceful manifestations, much of which contained overtones of spreading "civilization" to other parts of the world. I would argue that Manifest Destiny perhaps also had some of its roots in this culturally supremacist mentality.

British colonialism introduced anti-homosexuality laws in multiple countries, but now that Britain and most of Europe have moved on from those laws, many politicians in the region point the finger at other countries that still hold on to those laws without acknowledging Europe's historical role in buttressing them. Not that those laws don't warrant condemnation, but the self-centered discrepancy does paint a picture of being "over-impressed with [their] own accomplishment"—and sometimes being culturally supremacist—on the part of of the people who display this lack of self-awareness.

People like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris who fixate on perceived faults of religion, extol the supposed virtues of the Enlightenment in contrast to supposedly benighted past eras, and overlook historical nuance like the above play into the hands of culturally supremacist rhetoric whether they realize it or not, and they're far from unintelligent. I think they realize what they're doing but justify it on the grounds that they're fighting for "reason and science."

Your post deserves a proper reply, but might not be until Monday as won’t be on my computer much this weekend

 

[Debater Slayer]

Your post deserves a proper reply, but might not be until Monday as won’t be on my computer much this weekend

No worries. Have a nice weekend!

 

[Heyo]

Seeing homosexuals as mentally ill can significantly change perceptions of what their rights are, though. Gay conversion therapy was commonly practiced precisely because of the idea that homosexuality could be "cured." Someone who lived decades ago when that was still the case would have found their pro-LGBT stance pitted against prevalent medical, social, and religious viewpoints.

Moral judgments aren't necessarily dependent primarily on scientific opinions or facts, but both of these can heavily inform moral judgments. They did so in the past (e.g., with eugenics and anti-homosexual attitudes), and they continue to do so today (e.g., with respect to transgender issues and gender equality).

And in the past as well as today, science gets misused as a bludgeoning tool by both sides. Science is amoral, to make it into a moral argument one has to twist the message.
We'd have to go back to a time before science and critical thinking when dogma declared the truth™ about things (or to modern societies where this is still true and science is widely ignored). Here we would have better examples of false information leading to screwed moral judgement

 

[wellwisher]

What is your source for this statement?

It was an observation over many years. The Modern Liberal Church; Democrat party, uses these same pressure tactics. For example, when Left wing morally decided gender bending was the way of the future, school children were taught to go along and even participate. If anyone did not go along, there was peer pressure applied to conform; modern public schools. This pressure tactic does not break the will of all the children. Some children will pretend to go along, to get along, rather than be a constant target of propaganda bullies. This is not new. It is Old school tactics, reborn. Freedom of speech makes it harder to accomplish forced compliance, which is why Left wing Social Media became a censor and whip; Twitter files.

In modern Russia for example, the state does not accept homosexuality. There are harsh penalties. Logically, it is not smart for any homosexual to flaunt their preferences, in public in Russia, like you can in the USA. In the USA, the Left leaning media tries to condition the public for mass acceptance; repetition. In Russia, to get along, the smart thing to do, is to stay below the radar, while secretly pursuing what you choose, but in the underground. What people do not know, usually, does not bother them.

There is another layer of people, with dual alliance. They are loyal to the overall cause; Russian way, will try to act mainstream, to not only get along, but to also help them move up the company ladder. They need to look like the perfect minion, since any bad rumors can end a budding career. The homosexual in this case, would learn to stay below then radar.

For example, if a Lefty in their upper management, was to come out against homosexuals, how long will they keep their job? Such people all know the answer and know they will have to pretend until retirement. Look around and watch how the Left works and you can observe what I observed.

Left wing tactics to force conformity is not new or just invented yesterday. This is based on classic ways. It is easy to observe. There is also ways to work around this. I have a friend, whose late grandfather owned a stored many decades ago. He would sell bacon to his Jewish clients, in discreet brown paper bags. Nobody, even many Jews, can resist the flavor of his bacon. The clients had to stay on the low, since pork is not Kosher, and being too open about deviation, could cause problems at Temple. So they knew enough to stay below the radar to avoid all the trouble that could occur. This is not new, but human nature trying to get along with the community, while being true to oneself.

The Democrats party has this tactic of creating division and then taking a side to split the vote. They convince people to flaunt what they know will cause push back. Anyone with half a brain should have known open homosexuality would cause a push back.

The DNC is like the gossip monger spreading rumors to couple, against each other, and then acting like they are a friend of one. It like those Jewish men being told polls say he can carry bacon proudly in public, wi the the gossip knowing this will cause a push back. In Russia, people who are discreet are not just rounded up based on rumors. Rather those who disturb the peace become a target.