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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the No-Way! dept.

What was it that one learned through a great books curriculum? Certainly not "conservatism" in any contemporary American sense of the term. We were not taught to become American patriots, or religious pietists, or to worship what Rudyard Kipling called "the Gods of the Market Place." We were not instructed in the evils of Marxism, or the glories of capitalism, or even the superiority of Western civilization.

As I think about it, I'm not sure we were taught anything at all. What we did was read books that raised serious questions about the human condition, and which invited us to attempt to ask serious questions of our own. Education, in this sense, wasn't a "teaching" with any fixed lesson. It was an exercise in interrogation.

To listen and understand; to question and disagree; to treat no proposition as sacred and no objection as impious; to be willing to entertain unpopular ideas and cultivate the habits of an open mind — this is what I was encouraged to do by my teachers at the University of Chicago.

It's what used to be called a liberal education.

The University of Chicago showed us something else: that every great idea is really just a spectacular disagreement with some other great idea.

Bret Stephens's speech warrants a full read. It makes valuable points that we all need to hear, even on SN.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:11PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:11PM (#573751)

    In other words, to disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen carefully, watch closely. You need to grant your adversary moral respect; give him the intellectual benefit of doubt; have sympathy for his motives and participate empathically with his line of reasoning. And you need to allow for the possibility that you might yet be persuaded of what he has to say.

    This is one of the main problems. When it is Us vs. Them, any compromise is giving ground to the enemy and respecting or empathizing with their points makes you a traitor.

    If you want to make a winning argument for same-sex marriage, particularly against conservative opponents, make it on a conservative foundation: As a matter of individual freedom, and as an avenue toward moral responsibility and social respectability.

    Moral foundations theory has been shown to be more effective at convincing those with opposing political views, but it is funny how repulsive people find it when they try to make moral arguments that they don't find very persuasive. I have a link below with some examples, but imagine a liberal making a moral argument of "respect for authority" or "preserving the sanctity of an institution" and a conservative making a moral argument of "being sensitive to the feelings of others".

    I'm not sure that this is a war that can be won. Human psychology seems to work against us when it comes to genuine, intellectual debate and the methods used by those seeking to disrupt such debate are much more effective ("teach the controversy", false balance, FUD, trolling, etc.). It is easier to destroy than it is to create and it is easier to react emotionally than it is to think.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory [wikipedia.org]
    https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=18153&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&threshold=0&highlightthresh=-1&page=1&cid=470892#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:56PM (6 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:56PM (#573768)

    make it on a conservative foundation: As a matter of individual freedom, and as an avenue toward moral responsibility and social respectability.

    I don't really disagree with anything in your post but I would revise and extend some remarks on the above.

    The quote above is a "know your enemy". I don't want to debate the gay marriage thing here, because forest for the trees and all that. But the modern-young-genx-gen-zyklon-alt right has differing outlook from ancient-neocon-religious-boomer-legacy right. You may have noticed that someone like Trump doesn't get along terribly well with congressman Paul Ryan. Its just classic sales technique, pitch your product to match the demographics of the recipient. Or if we must discuss this tree instead of the forest or forestry science in general, I'm just saying you can't sell gay marriage the same way to both boomers and older vs genx and younger, it just doesn't work because of modern viewpoints.

    • (Score: 3, Disagree) by c0lo on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:41PM (3 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:41PM (#573788) Journal

      The quote above is a "know your enemy"

      We certainly know the enemy, we've met them... and they are us.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 3, Disagree) by choose another one on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:16PM (2 children)

        by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:16PM (#573858)

        We certainly know the enemy, we've met them... and they are us.

        NO they are not, they are them, they are nothing like us, they are wrong, totalitarian, immoral, warmongers, evil, in fact everything we are not.

        • (Score: 3, Disagree) by c0lo on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:27PM (1 child)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:27PM (#573863) Journal

          You like trespassing into Poe's jurisdiction or what?

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:56PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:56PM (#574081)

            Poets have no jurisdiction, and story tellers are weak liberal arts failures!

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:35PM (1 child)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:35PM (#573814) Journal

      "ancient-neocon-religious-boomer-legacy"

      I have to ask why you would associate neocon with any of the other words in that tangled mess? Neoconservatism was never "widely accepted" by even the Republican party. It was an aberrant thing, that was ushered in with GWB and Dick Cheney, and pretty much packed up and sent to Texas when GWB left the White House. I personally found everything about neoconservatism to be repugnant. I really dislike Obama, and I really dislike Bill Clinton - but there was a lot more reason to dislike Bush's neoconservatism than either of those liberal fools.

      Neoconservatism has nothing to do with religion, unless you happen to worship the Almighty Dollar. Nothing to do with boomers. It's not ancient, or legacy. It's just an aberration.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:32AM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:32AM (#574150)

        Neoconservatism has nothing to do with religion

        uuhh may want to check out the coincidences there... from the point of view of the average gen-x gen-y kid the neocons are all "old times".

        I would agree the neocons sucked horribly. But I wouldn't say there was no peculiar religious commonality...

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:29PM (3 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:29PM (#573812) Journal

    "I'm not sure that this is a war that can be won."

    It CANNOT be "won". Like many other wars, there is no way to "win". "the only winning move is not to play" - but good luck with not playing the game of life!! Let me see - there's the generation gap. Except, the younger generation always wins, because the older generation dies off - and suddenly the youngsters are the oldsters. Yes, one day you millenials will also be old fools who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. Just ask ANYONE born after - ooooooh - 2025.

    The battle of the sexes? Women know they are smarter than men, and men know they are smarter than women, but dammit - BOTH sides fraternize with the enemy!! There's no winning that one.

    You can't win the war, that's why people invented this thing called "compromise".

    Alas - we Americans have forgotten what compromise is. Everything is either left or right, white or black, low or high, and NOTHING IN THE MIDDLE can be considered - ever.

    A lot of husbands and wives eventually learn that to get a little, they have to give a little. But, precious few of us ever learn that the same lesson might apply outside the home.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:38PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:38PM (#573977)

      You anger me in that you enjoy being stupidly antagonistic with your right wing rhetoric, and yet you write things like this.

      I suspect what you say and what you do may be different things; what is it you really want? because compromise usually isn't something you suggest.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:29AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:29AM (#574148) Journal

        "stupidly antagonistic"

        That is an opinion, of course. Maybe you're to close to the problem. Try stepping back, and looking at life. Stupid antagonism comes at me daily - I should give up my guns, I should never defend myself, Black lives matter (and white lives matter less, if at all), straight white males are all bigots and fascists - on and on it goes. When I rebrand the same shit and hand it back, I'm the one who is stupidly antagonistic? Think about it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:01PM (#574085)

      There are plenty of people, I would say the majority, that are willing to compromise. You are basically highlighting the what the propaganda is trying to sell us. It is not reality, it is a manufactured controversy which keeps everyone in their own buckets. Anyone who isn't stuck in a bucket usually gives up after 5-20 years and settles into their more comfortable backyard pool.

  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:01PM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:01PM (#573922) Journal

    One problem with attempting to make moral arguments on the hardcore conservative/religious foundation is that most of those people subscribe to what is known as Divine Command Theory. A little philosophical investigation will show that DCT is empty, i.e., it reduces to moral nihilism, but *most people who think DCT grounds morals aren't even capable of doing the logical legwork to get to this point. (For the record, the reason DCT is empty is that is reduces morality to "whatever God says" or, in some of the slightly more sophisticated versions, "whatever is consistent with God's nature," which does not help *at all...*).

    It's impossible to find common moral ground with people who (think they) have marching orders, and think these are the same thing as actual morals. Add that to the fact that most of them don't even really know their own God's supposed commands, and add to THAT the fact that the one source they have for their God's commands contradicts itself constantly, and we have a recipe for disaster. There is no common ground with DCT believers, and there never will be.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:09PM (#574087)

    imagine a liberal making a moral argument of "respect for authority" or "preserving the sanctity of an institution" and a conservative making a moral argument of "being sensitive to the feelings of others".

    I completely disagree. I'm as liberal as it gets - centrist by all definitions. And I stand behind preserving of sanctity of an institution, like the UN, like the EU, like the European Court of Justice. Seems that likes of American Conservatives are against this these days?? So your point is invalid? Or maybe Trump and like him are no conservative, but a nationalists that believes capitalism should be for the state ... there is a word for that ... oh yeah, fascists.

    Respect for authority -- authority comes from the people, and people then respect authority that respects them. When you have police forces that respect human rights, then you have population that respects them in return. But if all you have is fear, then fear is not respect. Anyway, every society requires and needs order. Order is more important than almost anything else, because without order, you have chaos. You need to get order by any means necessary, then worry about respect.

    As for "being sensitive to the feelings of others", I frankly could care less. Feeling of individuals are not important if some decision makes society more *fair*. You see, liberal views have less to do with "feelings". They have much more to do with *fairness*. A liberal society is where every member has as equal ability to succeed in their life as any other, as much as possible.

    So I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make here. Maybe a backward one? Like imaging a conservative that actually cares to CONSERVE things? Sustainability should have been what "conservatives" should be standing for, instead of radicalism. You know, sustainable environments, budgets, society. Image conservatives standing up to these fake conservatives -- right...