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Politics and Virtue Signalling
Aug. 27th, 2020 06:56 pmI think there is purpose in signalling one's beliefs for its own sake, but I also think that the extent to which this permeates a lot of online conversations really is a waste. There's just only so much value in communicating 'I believe X' in and of itself. It's helpful because it can help you find like-minded people and it can be reassuring to people, but I think it's important not to convince oneself that it's a purely good thing. It's good to the extent that the people you associate with don't have such glaring disagreements with you that you end up feeling like you just can't connect with them on the important matters of life, or collaborate with them on any useful endeavor. It's good to the extent that you can avoid pointless and draining debates.
But a lot of stuff is just--well, it's just people kind of smugly patting themselves and their friends on the back for having the right beliefs and I just don't think that's a mindset that's very conducive to worthwhile progress in any area at all. Because we need to discover flaws in our beliefs and gaps in our understanding of the world if we want to make the highest impact positive change on that world that we possibly can. To me the ideal is being able to discuss things with friends in ways that allow both parties to increase each other's understanding of the world and be more effective at whatever it is we are trying to do. And so to do that, it has to be possible to discuss disagreements, even over important things, without it being a friend-ending experience. In practice--this is usually impossible, or so seemingly perilous and fraught that a person might simply feel unable to deal with the possible repurcussions. You can't just go out to the store and buy new friends, after all. Well, most of us can't anyway.
I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that a lot of 'political discussion' actually just seems like worthless feel-good fluff, sometimes even so insistent on lockstep agreement that it becomes cultlike, whether or not there's any kind of commonly recognized 'religion' behind it. And before anyone starts thinking of that kind of problem exclusively in groups whose politics they oppose, I want to say that I think this can happen with any belief-set, even with whatever philosophy or beliefs are ultimately 'good' in this world (good in quotes here because what does it all mean, anyway, haha). What I'm saying is, I don't think that we should necessarily assume that a.) a person who has 'good' beliefs about some things will have 'good' beliefs about others, and b.) a person having 'good' beliefs is necessarily doing anything valuable with that 'goodness' or that it's not possible for them to even work against their own priorities.
But a lot of stuff is just--well, it's just people kind of smugly patting themselves and their friends on the back for having the right beliefs and I just don't think that's a mindset that's very conducive to worthwhile progress in any area at all. Because we need to discover flaws in our beliefs and gaps in our understanding of the world if we want to make the highest impact positive change on that world that we possibly can. To me the ideal is being able to discuss things with friends in ways that allow both parties to increase each other's understanding of the world and be more effective at whatever it is we are trying to do. And so to do that, it has to be possible to discuss disagreements, even over important things, without it being a friend-ending experience. In practice--this is usually impossible, or so seemingly perilous and fraught that a person might simply feel unable to deal with the possible repurcussions. You can't just go out to the store and buy new friends, after all. Well, most of us can't anyway.
I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that a lot of 'political discussion' actually just seems like worthless feel-good fluff, sometimes even so insistent on lockstep agreement that it becomes cultlike, whether or not there's any kind of commonly recognized 'religion' behind it. And before anyone starts thinking of that kind of problem exclusively in groups whose politics they oppose, I want to say that I think this can happen with any belief-set, even with whatever philosophy or beliefs are ultimately 'good' in this world (good in quotes here because what does it all mean, anyway, haha). What I'm saying is, I don't think that we should necessarily assume that a.) a person who has 'good' beliefs about some things will have 'good' beliefs about others, and b.) a person having 'good' beliefs is necessarily doing anything valuable with that 'goodness' or that it's not possible for them to even work against their own priorities.