Well, if you're really gonna make us work in this class...This is actually the first time in my life I've been challenged to do this. Hmmm.
In sum, I think we all justify our beliefs by how it feels. I don't think it's much more complicated than that. I’m currently revisiting philosophers I haven’t touched in many years on this very topic. David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Mahatma Ghandi. Not just in the sense of how we develop and communicate our reasons and evidence supporting a given belief or set of beliefs, but also important to me, that those beliefs are “just.” Rationally defensible, but also morally defensible. Do they conform to the evidence. Do they adhere to basic Aristotelean logic? Are they coherent? Are they supported by experience, not just my own, but the combined experience of our species? But of course, how various beliefs meet my test are largely determined by my prior conclusions about what is and isn’t moral. And as Hilary Clinton would admit, my notions in this regard were shaped early on by my Midwest Methodism. That's a high minded answer, but it's really much more basic than that for me.
Many people examine every proposition from a priori foundational beliefs that they have decided, often for unexamined tribal and religious reasons, are transcendent. At one point in my life, I also did this. But I have become skeptical of transcendent values in general as I have transcended many of the beliefs I once thought transcendent. Transcendent values seem to always come down to someone’s insistence, often that of the majoritarian faith, that their own opinions, traditions, preferences and values should be privileged, may not be challenged or questioned, and need be justified with nothing more than circular reasoning that amounts to “because we said so.” If any value should be universal, it’s contempt for that sort of unexamined belief structure.
I of course would like to believe that all my foundational philosophy is rationally defensible, but I know that’s not true. To a large degree my beliefs are chosen because of my experience of how things play out in the community and how they affect me personally, and this is almost entirely determined by the strength of my feelings of empathy for my fellow creatures and how I identify with and experience their pain and their pleasure.
SO you could start with this as my foundational beliefs: Pain and sorrow bad. Joy and pleasure good. I am very motivated at an instinctual level to protect others from harm and suffering and promote their happiness and joy because I cannot witness harm and suffering without being deeply disturbed and discomfited by it, and I cannot witness joy and pleasure without being elated by it. This above all is behind my life view that whatever is done should broadly benefit others, alleviate want and suffering, promote joy and happiness.
Selfishness yields results I find emotionally unsatisfying, and I look upon narcissism, predation and sociopathy with horror. It’s why my first merit badge in scouting was First Aid, and why I taught First Aid and CPR for the Red Cross for thirty years. It’s why I became a Defensive Driving Instructor. It’s why I taught self-defense classes five days a week for free for 35 years. It’s why I became a soldier. It’s why my first job out of the service was at a Battered Women’s Shelter. It’s why I went into law enforcement. It’s why I became a pastor. It’s why I’ve put other people’s children through college. It’s why I feed squirrels, ducks, geese, birds, raccoons, deer, fox in my yard and at the lake. And at base level I’ve not done these things out of altruism, but because I am happier and more comfortable when others are happier and more comfortable, and I am unhappier and uncomfortable when others are unhappy and uncomfortable. It’s just how I’m wired.
If you put every choice in life, every political policy through the filter of “does it create the broadest possible happiness and comfort”, the results are inevitably very communitarian. For me it’s that it simply feels good. I don’t know if Ghandi would say I’ve embraced his concept of “satyagraha.” I like to think I cling to what is true come what may, but I decide what is true not just by what is factual, but also by results. I at least think I’m honest about why I believe what I believe. Libertarians and Republicans of my acquaintance would insist I have it all backwards. I would say they’re miswired to only experience joy and comfort when others are miserable and in pain. And I think that sums up the two sides of the current political divide.
So yeah. That's the honest answer. It's justified if "I feel good as a result." And I think that's universal. Whether you're Ghandi or Ghenghis Khan, a saint or a serial killer. What differs is what makes us feel good.
John Mulholland covered this one. No one ever likes to admit that they've been fooled. They take it as a personal insult. It is purely about ego. They will debate facts to preserve their feelings. If the facts dispute their beliefs, they will find ways to fold them into their beliefs. This is a sad fact about humanity as a rule.
I have learned not to say the word Russians and to lead people to the conclusion from other directions.
I will hit them with, okay I understand what you're saying about that but what about this?
You can pretty much do that forever and run people in circles.
The reporter certainly could have approached this less confrontationaly. Maybe not question her with "did you know this?", but just summarize what was in the indictment and first see how she responds.
But I'll sum her response with one of my favorite Carl Sagan quotes:
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Ms. Goldfarb displays a textbook response by denying evidence that falsifies her belief that no foreign agents were influencing the group she was representing. Perhaps if the CNN reporter had started with questions about the "Being Patriotic" group and used that route to lead into discussing the group's ownership. I don't think that would have been successful as she is very defensive in her denials. I do like her use of the term "bandits" to describe Ms. Clinton's associates.
The woman's identity is under attack. The "fight or flee" part of her brain is triggered and you can see it in her body movement as she begins to pull away, before returning to the fight. The reporter is doing a cross examination but makes the mistake of believing the witness on the stand will concede - sorry Matlock, it just doesn't work like that. With the reasoning part of her brain disengaged, she recreates the reality (cognitive dissonance) to protect her identity, her "id", in an act of self-preservation.
2. No, not productive. Like the sing-song mocking from the commentator after - pitch perfect.
Could he have done this differently? Sure. One way could have been to be indirect, talking about third parties and roundabout circling the truth in a way that gives her ego some distance from the difficulty.
3. She digs in deeper into denial, becomes agitated and opposed to the threatening man.
I’m seeing some excellent empathy from the commentators after.
For 1., she may not actually feel duped. The avoidance of feeling duped is what is driving her non acceptance of what the man is telling her. So non duped, and staying that way with an effort.
There's a power dynamic between the reporter and the interviewee. Initially, he has more authority power than she has. He's diminishing her stature by demonstrating his higher educational, professional, financial, and information status. And she knows that he wants something from her and she has the power to deny him what he wants. He wants her acknowledgement that she's been had. She withholds that acknowledgement.
Too busy with voter canvassing etc to do the homework. But i have an answer. I justify my beliefs by not having any. I have opinions and hypotheses, always subject to being either reinforced or disproven by new evidence. It’s the scientific method.
Well Asha, not to make a finer point of class 36, [i] myself am a Conservative voter, but yet I've alined myself with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz ... which brings me to my point, the Structures are more important than self serving and uneducated fools that just want to belong or line their pockets with money.
What's all this unnecessary thinking for? I'll just quote a bumper sticker that's stuck in my mind for 40 years. "God said it. I believe it. And that settles it." See? No justification necessary. (Homework later.)
Q1- If the woman accepted what the reporter was telling her it would mean that she was duped by Russians…. which wasn’t the narrative she believed. I initially was surprised that she didn’t do the obvious…. demand incontrovertible evidence from the reporter. But it appears that her beliefs are so ingrained that she was unwilling even to listen. I was also surprised that the reporter didn’t offer to show her proof to at least see how she reacted. But i suspect that the women’s response convinced him that further detailed discussion would not yield a productive dialogue.
The reporter was obviously setting the situation up for just such a response. Ambushing her outside her home with a camera and microphone.
Performative theatre, not reporting.
If a Fox “reporter” shoved a microphone and camera in my face and asked me similar questions about my facebook page, I can’t say I would act differently, but I hope I would.
If you were to tell me that Harris and Walz were really backed by Russia I would think you were a deranged conspiracy theorist. But instead of being defensive or dismissive, I hope I would be inquisitive about your sources.
The point of the lesson, i assume, is for us to examine ourselves for loyalty and identity bias. Definitely a good thing to keep in mind.
People don't want to be called out and labeled as wrong and will fight uphill against reality so that everything in their head is justified and correct in their (warped) view.
Well, if you're really gonna make us work in this class...This is actually the first time in my life I've been challenged to do this. Hmmm.
In sum, I think we all justify our beliefs by how it feels. I don't think it's much more complicated than that. I’m currently revisiting philosophers I haven’t touched in many years on this very topic. David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Mahatma Ghandi. Not just in the sense of how we develop and communicate our reasons and evidence supporting a given belief or set of beliefs, but also important to me, that those beliefs are “just.” Rationally defensible, but also morally defensible. Do they conform to the evidence. Do they adhere to basic Aristotelean logic? Are they coherent? Are they supported by experience, not just my own, but the combined experience of our species? But of course, how various beliefs meet my test are largely determined by my prior conclusions about what is and isn’t moral. And as Hilary Clinton would admit, my notions in this regard were shaped early on by my Midwest Methodism. That's a high minded answer, but it's really much more basic than that for me.
Many people examine every proposition from a priori foundational beliefs that they have decided, often for unexamined tribal and religious reasons, are transcendent. At one point in my life, I also did this. But I have become skeptical of transcendent values in general as I have transcended many of the beliefs I once thought transcendent. Transcendent values seem to always come down to someone’s insistence, often that of the majoritarian faith, that their own opinions, traditions, preferences and values should be privileged, may not be challenged or questioned, and need be justified with nothing more than circular reasoning that amounts to “because we said so.” If any value should be universal, it’s contempt for that sort of unexamined belief structure.
I of course would like to believe that all my foundational philosophy is rationally defensible, but I know that’s not true. To a large degree my beliefs are chosen because of my experience of how things play out in the community and how they affect me personally, and this is almost entirely determined by the strength of my feelings of empathy for my fellow creatures and how I identify with and experience their pain and their pleasure.
SO you could start with this as my foundational beliefs: Pain and sorrow bad. Joy and pleasure good. I am very motivated at an instinctual level to protect others from harm and suffering and promote their happiness and joy because I cannot witness harm and suffering without being deeply disturbed and discomfited by it, and I cannot witness joy and pleasure without being elated by it. This above all is behind my life view that whatever is done should broadly benefit others, alleviate want and suffering, promote joy and happiness.
Selfishness yields results I find emotionally unsatisfying, and I look upon narcissism, predation and sociopathy with horror. It’s why my first merit badge in scouting was First Aid, and why I taught First Aid and CPR for the Red Cross for thirty years. It’s why I became a Defensive Driving Instructor. It’s why I taught self-defense classes five days a week for free for 35 years. It’s why I became a soldier. It’s why my first job out of the service was at a Battered Women’s Shelter. It’s why I went into law enforcement. It’s why I became a pastor. It’s why I’ve put other people’s children through college. It’s why I feed squirrels, ducks, geese, birds, raccoons, deer, fox in my yard and at the lake. And at base level I’ve not done these things out of altruism, but because I am happier and more comfortable when others are happier and more comfortable, and I am unhappier and uncomfortable when others are unhappy and uncomfortable. It’s just how I’m wired.
If you put every choice in life, every political policy through the filter of “does it create the broadest possible happiness and comfort”, the results are inevitably very communitarian. For me it’s that it simply feels good. I don’t know if Ghandi would say I’ve embraced his concept of “satyagraha.” I like to think I cling to what is true come what may, but I decide what is true not just by what is factual, but also by results. I at least think I’m honest about why I believe what I believe. Libertarians and Republicans of my acquaintance would insist I have it all backwards. I would say they’re miswired to only experience joy and comfort when others are miserable and in pain. And I think that sums up the two sides of the current political divide.
So yeah. That's the honest answer. It's justified if "I feel good as a result." And I think that's universal. Whether you're Ghandi or Ghenghis Khan, a saint or a serial killer. What differs is what makes us feel good.
John Mulholland covered this one. No one ever likes to admit that they've been fooled. They take it as a personal insult. It is purely about ego. They will debate facts to preserve their feelings. If the facts dispute their beliefs, they will find ways to fold them into their beliefs. This is a sad fact about humanity as a rule.
I have learned not to say the word Russians and to lead people to the conclusion from other directions.
I will hit them with, okay I understand what you're saying about that but what about this?
You can pretty much do that forever and run people in circles.
The reporter certainly could have approached this less confrontationaly. Maybe not question her with "did you know this?", but just summarize what was in the indictment and first see how she responds.
But I'll sum her response with one of my favorite Carl Sagan quotes:
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Ms. Goldfarb displays a textbook response by denying evidence that falsifies her belief that no foreign agents were influencing the group she was representing. Perhaps if the CNN reporter had started with questions about the "Being Patriotic" group and used that route to lead into discussing the group's ownership. I don't think that would have been successful as she is very defensive in her denials. I do like her use of the term "bandits" to describe Ms. Clinton's associates.
The woman's identity is under attack. The "fight or flee" part of her brain is triggered and you can see it in her body movement as she begins to pull away, before returning to the fight. The reporter is doing a cross examination but makes the mistake of believing the witness on the stand will concede - sorry Matlock, it just doesn't work like that. With the reasoning part of her brain disengaged, she recreates the reality (cognitive dissonance) to protect her identity, her "id", in an act of self-preservation.
1. She feels duped,
2. No, not productive. Like the sing-song mocking from the commentator after - pitch perfect.
Could he have done this differently? Sure. One way could have been to be indirect, talking about third parties and roundabout circling the truth in a way that gives her ego some distance from the difficulty.
3. She digs in deeper into denial, becomes agitated and opposed to the threatening man.
I’m seeing some excellent empathy from the commentators after.
For 1., she may not actually feel duped. The avoidance of feeling duped is what is driving her non acceptance of what the man is telling her. So non duped, and staying that way with an effort.
There's a power dynamic between the reporter and the interviewee. Initially, he has more authority power than she has. He's diminishing her stature by demonstrating his higher educational, professional, financial, and information status. And she knows that he wants something from her and she has the power to deny him what he wants. He wants her acknowledgement that she's been had. She withholds that acknowledgement.
Too busy with voter canvassing etc to do the homework. But i have an answer. I justify my beliefs by not having any. I have opinions and hypotheses, always subject to being either reinforced or disproven by new evidence. It’s the scientific method.
Well Asha, not to make a finer point of class 36, [i] myself am a Conservative voter, but yet I've alined myself with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz ... which brings me to my point, the Structures are more important than self serving and uneducated fools that just want to belong or line their pockets with money.
What's all this unnecessary thinking for? I'll just quote a bumper sticker that's stuck in my mind for 40 years. "God said it. I believe it. And that settles it." See? No justification necessary. (Homework later.)
Q1- If the woman accepted what the reporter was telling her it would mean that she was duped by Russians…. which wasn’t the narrative she believed. I initially was surprised that she didn’t do the obvious…. demand incontrovertible evidence from the reporter. But it appears that her beliefs are so ingrained that she was unwilling even to listen. I was also surprised that the reporter didn’t offer to show her proof to at least see how she reacted. But i suspect that the women’s response convinced him that further detailed discussion would not yield a productive dialogue.
The reporter was obviously setting the situation up for just such a response. Ambushing her outside her home with a camera and microphone.
Performative theatre, not reporting.
If a Fox “reporter” shoved a microphone and camera in my face and asked me similar questions about my facebook page, I can’t say I would act differently, but I hope I would.
If you were to tell me that Harris and Walz were really backed by Russia I would think you were a deranged conspiracy theorist. But instead of being defensive or dismissive, I hope I would be inquisitive about your sources.
The point of the lesson, i assume, is for us to examine ourselves for loyalty and identity bias. Definitely a good thing to keep in mind.
People don't want to be called out and labeled as wrong and will fight uphill against reality so that everything in their head is justified and correct in their (warped) view.