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"It's what you do that defines you."
It's a frightening thing to realize that someone you're talking to doesn't disagree with you because they're coming from a vastly different set of values, but because they've never actually thought very hard about how to apply values the two of you allegedly share. The moment you realize this is the moment you realize that you are fighting a losing battle, and it's an appropriate time to walk away (or run screaming from the unspeakable Cthulhoid horror that is their critical thinking ability).
Of course, there are other options. I could sit and explain things in terms they perhaps have not heard before. I could have a long discussion in which I dig down into people's self-images and alleged values to force them to look at their own decisions as closely as I'm looking at them.
I could get them to think about themselves, instead of being blindly reactionary. I've done it before, so I know it's possible. But lately my immediate reaction to someone who says, "I think all Americans should be equal under the law," but also says that legally "redefining marriage" to include everybody is wrong... is to write them off.
How about another example? A missionary telling me that they respect the beliefs of people they're evangelizing to--even if they still think those people would be better off abandoning them.
How about another, you ask? Someone who claims that children shouldn't be raised by two men because they need the judgment and influence only a mother can offer, but that that same mother isn't morally mature enough to be allowed to decide for herself whether to bear a child in the first place.
There are more. Someone who knows they should seem informed to be taken seriously, but who replies to all offered evidential proof with, "we could all link statistics all day and it wouldn't mean anything."
Maybe those people who know it's bad to say black people are inherently inferior to white people, but still don't want their daughters dating them, or voting for them.
I'm anthropology-girl. It's my job to pay attention to people and try to make sense of them. But is it really worth the trouble to do this with people who aren't even paying attention to themselves? I just want to send one last message and then ignore them forever. "I don't have time to teach you the critical thinking skills necessary to compare and contrast the contradictory things you claim to believe."
I think the problem here is a disconnect between how people want to be seen and how they are. It's "politically correct" to avoid expressing overtly homophobic, jingoistic, misogynist, anti-intellectual or racist sentiments, and doing so will cause you social disruptions. The problem is that people have internalized these growing cultural expectations without actually thinking about why. This means that they don't understand why it's bad to be homophobic or racist. Just why it's bad to get caught.
If you don't want people to think that you're scared of what'll happen if homosexuals are equal under the law, maybe you should really ask yourself why people with those fears are reviled as ignorant or bigoted.
If you don't want people to think that you're an arrogant fanatic, maybe you should ask yourself why people treat missionaries like they're arrogant fanatics.
If you think a woman cannot be trusted with a choice (but can be trusted with a child), maybe you should ask yourself why people seem to think you're cornering women into a single social role.
If you don't think research can prove anything, why do you think people treat you like this is a bad thing that makes you uninformed?
If you don't want to be seen as racist, ask yourself what it is that makes people think racism is destructive.
Ask yourself questions. Figure yourself out. Don't make me do it for you, because I just might show you a person you've been taught to dislike. I just might show you the person I've seen all along: someone who will claim to hold whatever values make them look like a good person, but who works against those values whenever they think they won't get caught.
In my current frustration, I can't help but think that these people are either completely comfortable with hypocrisy, or they're just too damned dull for the sustained critical thinking necessary to detect hypocrisy in the first place. This isn't to say that all people who disagree with me must be either evil or stupid. But people who disagree with me and claim to be upholding the very values they are eroding... they're a different story.
The shortest way to say this? "Be what you would seem to be." If you wouldn't uncritically accept someone else's beliefs without comparing them to their actions... why should anyone accept yours?
Of course, there are other options. I could sit and explain things in terms they perhaps have not heard before. I could have a long discussion in which I dig down into people's self-images and alleged values to force them to look at their own decisions as closely as I'm looking at them.
I could get them to think about themselves, instead of being blindly reactionary. I've done it before, so I know it's possible. But lately my immediate reaction to someone who says, "I think all Americans should be equal under the law," but also says that legally "redefining marriage" to include everybody is wrong... is to write them off.
How about another example? A missionary telling me that they respect the beliefs of people they're evangelizing to--even if they still think those people would be better off abandoning them.
How about another, you ask? Someone who claims that children shouldn't be raised by two men because they need the judgment and influence only a mother can offer, but that that same mother isn't morally mature enough to be allowed to decide for herself whether to bear a child in the first place.
There are more. Someone who knows they should seem informed to be taken seriously, but who replies to all offered evidential proof with, "we could all link statistics all day and it wouldn't mean anything."
Maybe those people who know it's bad to say black people are inherently inferior to white people, but still don't want their daughters dating them, or voting for them.
I'm anthropology-girl. It's my job to pay attention to people and try to make sense of them. But is it really worth the trouble to do this with people who aren't even paying attention to themselves? I just want to send one last message and then ignore them forever. "I don't have time to teach you the critical thinking skills necessary to compare and contrast the contradictory things you claim to believe."
I think the problem here is a disconnect between how people want to be seen and how they are. It's "politically correct" to avoid expressing overtly homophobic, jingoistic, misogynist, anti-intellectual or racist sentiments, and doing so will cause you social disruptions. The problem is that people have internalized these growing cultural expectations without actually thinking about why. This means that they don't understand why it's bad to be homophobic or racist. Just why it's bad to get caught.
If you don't want people to think that you're scared of what'll happen if homosexuals are equal under the law, maybe you should really ask yourself why people with those fears are reviled as ignorant or bigoted.
If you don't want people to think that you're an arrogant fanatic, maybe you should ask yourself why people treat missionaries like they're arrogant fanatics.
If you think a woman cannot be trusted with a choice (but can be trusted with a child), maybe you should ask yourself why people seem to think you're cornering women into a single social role.
If you don't think research can prove anything, why do you think people treat you like this is a bad thing that makes you uninformed?
If you don't want to be seen as racist, ask yourself what it is that makes people think racism is destructive.
Ask yourself questions. Figure yourself out. Don't make me do it for you, because I just might show you a person you've been taught to dislike. I just might show you the person I've seen all along: someone who will claim to hold whatever values make them look like a good person, but who works against those values whenever they think they won't get caught.
In my current frustration, I can't help but think that these people are either completely comfortable with hypocrisy, or they're just too damned dull for the sustained critical thinking necessary to detect hypocrisy in the first place. This isn't to say that all people who disagree with me must be either evil or stupid. But people who disagree with me and claim to be upholding the very values they are eroding... they're a different story.
The shortest way to say this? "Be what you would seem to be." If you wouldn't uncritically accept someone else's beliefs without comparing them to their actions... why should anyone accept yours?
no subject
After grad school, I do put epistemology on the table but find that most people don't. Maybe your interlocutors are presuming that you share the same notion and valuation of reason, and maybe you're now finding that you don't. (Or maybe they're hypocrites, and maybe hypocrisy is a species-wide pandemic).
no subject
Basically, they claim all the same things I claim to value because their gut impulse is to not say racist/homophobic things. But there is evidently no reflexive recoiling from believing or supporting things that are--when you get down to brass tacks--purely racist or homophobic. This is what leads me to believe that not only is this person not terribly inclined toward self-examination, but they see no reason why they should do more than make a surface effort not to seem bigoted.
This is someone who "has gay friends," but when I imply that the T in LGBT rightfully includes transgendered folk in the struggle, they protest that they know someone who's trans but "heterosexual and wonderful" (and I shouldn't have to explain why this is a stupidly homophobic distinction to make).
That is the comment of someone who knows they can't say homophobic things, but secretly believes them anyway. I don't know whether they just haven't examined their beliefs in light of their opinion that prejudice is bad, or whether they have examined them and explicitly made an allowance for homophobia. The person's either being sloppy and negligent, or really doesn't think there's anything wrong with homophobia--even if society pressures them to look down on it publicly.
Neither interpretation does much for their esteem in my eyes. I'm not sure which I'm even hoping is true, but I'm betting it's one of those.
no subject
no subject
Several million points out of ten!!!!
reason vs experience and waiting for the right moment
(Anonymous) 2008-11-14 02:53 am (UTC)(link)Fortunately the appeal to reason still exists in American culture as part of our culture's tradition. American was founded during the Age of Reason, and our culture still values it, however it is quickly rejected when reason is relied on soley and in exclusion of other forms of epistomology.
So, I don't expect most people to leap into a discussion that is purely intellectual.
I'll give you an example. A close friend of mine made the statement "You can't legislate morality". Now I know the illogic in that axiom. We legistlate morality all the time, as our laws enforce moral imperatives against murder, theft, purjury, etc. But I know the person was probably referring to private morality, rather than public morality. So I didn't argue with them, though I was tempted to.
Now if I sensed a "teachable moment", I might have taken a step toward that conversation with the Socratic method of questions. "So, what are some examples of morality that can't be legislated? What about..." and so on.
That seems to work for me. But then, I'm not a missionary nor a warrior.
bright blessings,
Cern