Argument
Despite the common image of being, especially on the internet, being aggressive and irrational in the way they discuss things, most people make some half decent effort to be reasonable while discussing some point (even Donald Trump!).
But certain aspects are often at fault in almost all of us:
1. Our knowledge is often very small.
2. We let our ego intrude too much.
3. We do not know much about how construct logical, reasonable points.
4. We are often to bound by traditional thinking to think in an open, expansive way.
These are major problems. It seems obvious that a major effort should be made to reduce these problems. But are such efforts being made?
Analogy this!
A rather silly and over literal tendency some people have is of accusing someone that has made an analogy in relation to some serious issues of belittling the issue by connecting it to a less serious example.
Doesn’t mean that.
For example, ‘saying Trump is not keen on Mexicans is a bit like saying Hitler was not keen on Jews’. That analogy, they say, belittles the experience of Jewish people in the world war two. That’s not the point of the analogy, and it’s silly distortion and evasion of the actual point to focus on that.
Ask and explain
Quite often when you question someone about some view they quickly get annoyed and say with a defensive snarl on their faces:
‘That's my outlook, ok? That's just what I think... I cant explain it more'.
They then think that is the end of it. But all they have done is evade.
So, two things:
1. We should be allowed to calmly ASK other people about their views, to ask them to explain, in order to try to understand them. There is no need to see that as an attack, as hassling someone.
2. We should also be able to, and willing to, calmly EXPLAIN our own views to others.
Positive Arrogance
If you say some movie or book or music is crap, cliched, unintelligent there is often someone who accuses you of being arrogant or ‘high and mighty’. To defend crap stuff on those grounds of rather shallow liberalism it’s a bad idea. It’s like equating democracy with stupidity. It’s like saying to your kids as they go off to school in the morning:
“Now, remember: don’t learn too much today, don’t think a lot, hold yourself back. Whatever the majority of kids do in your class, just follow that, even if its stupid. Laugh at any jokes the most popular kids make, even if they are rubbish. Oh, and never try to better yourself. Love you!”
Crap, cliched, unintelligent stuff should be called crap and cliched and unintelligent. Otherwise, we are holding ourselves back.
Arrogant, pretentious... and right.
To criticise something only on the grounds that it’s pretentious or arrogant is almost always a silly waste of time. For a start it’s possible to be arrogant and to be making a very good point, to be saying something interesting and intelligent. So it’s a bit like saying X person's point is invalid because they’re wearing a hat. You may not like the hat but it’s irrelevant to the point.
And generally what people call pretentious is actually just a complicated thing that annoys them and they don’t like. They want to knock it down but can't think of any logical arguments against it. So they call it pretentious as a way of throwing mud at it.
Why not try to understand it instead?
A related quotes
"They try to be sane in a mad world, when i was a young girl we tried to be mad in a sane world."
- Alec Guinness in Last holiday, 1950
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. " —Aristotle
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Stop Kicking That Mackerel!" - Alice in Wonderland film, 1951
"You told the secret but not the truth." - Altered Images song 'Another lost look'
"I laughed so much i wanted to read Nietzsche." - Andy
"Nothing will work unless you do." - Maya Angelou
"Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth...
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices...
Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength. "- Adorno
Despite the common image of being, especially on the internet, being aggressive and irrational in the way they discuss things, most people make some half decent effort to be reasonable while discussing some point (even Donald Trump!).
But certain aspects are often at fault in almost all of us:
1. Our knowledge is often very small.
2. We let our ego intrude too much.
3. We do not know much about how construct logical, reasonable points.
4. We are often to bound by traditional thinking to think in an open, expansive way.
These are major problems. It seems obvious that a major effort should be made to reduce these problems. But are such efforts being made?
Analogy this!
A rather silly and over literal tendency some people have is of accusing someone that has made an analogy in relation to some serious issues of belittling the issue by connecting it to a less serious example.
Doesn’t mean that.
For example, ‘saying Trump is not keen on Mexicans is a bit like saying Hitler was not keen on Jews’. That analogy, they say, belittles the experience of Jewish people in the world war two. That’s not the point of the analogy, and it’s silly distortion and evasion of the actual point to focus on that.
Ask and explain
Quite often when you question someone about some view they quickly get annoyed and say with a defensive snarl on their faces:
‘That's my outlook, ok? That's just what I think... I cant explain it more'.
They then think that is the end of it. But all they have done is evade.
So, two things:
1. We should be allowed to calmly ASK other people about their views, to ask them to explain, in order to try to understand them. There is no need to see that as an attack, as hassling someone.
2. We should also be able to, and willing to, calmly EXPLAIN our own views to others.
Positive Arrogance
If you say some movie or book or music is crap, cliched, unintelligent there is often someone who accuses you of being arrogant or ‘high and mighty’. To defend crap stuff on those grounds of rather shallow liberalism it’s a bad idea. It’s like equating democracy with stupidity. It’s like saying to your kids as they go off to school in the morning:
“Now, remember: don’t learn too much today, don’t think a lot, hold yourself back. Whatever the majority of kids do in your class, just follow that, even if its stupid. Laugh at any jokes the most popular kids make, even if they are rubbish. Oh, and never try to better yourself. Love you!”
Crap, cliched, unintelligent stuff should be called crap and cliched and unintelligent. Otherwise, we are holding ourselves back.
Arrogant, pretentious... and right.
To criticise something only on the grounds that it’s pretentious or arrogant is almost always a silly waste of time. For a start it’s possible to be arrogant and to be making a very good point, to be saying something interesting and intelligent. So it’s a bit like saying X person's point is invalid because they’re wearing a hat. You may not like the hat but it’s irrelevant to the point.
And generally what people call pretentious is actually just a complicated thing that annoys them and they don’t like. They want to knock it down but can't think of any logical arguments against it. So they call it pretentious as a way of throwing mud at it.
Why not try to understand it instead?
A related quotes
"They try to be sane in a mad world, when i was a young girl we tried to be mad in a sane world."
- Alec Guinness in Last holiday, 1950
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. " —Aristotle
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Stop Kicking That Mackerel!" - Alice in Wonderland film, 1951
"You told the secret but not the truth." - Altered Images song 'Another lost look'
"I laughed so much i wanted to read Nietzsche." - Andy
"Nothing will work unless you do." - Maya Angelou
"Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth...
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices...
Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength. "- Adorno