Cheeze_Pavilion said:
I think it is neither semantics nor personal morality to hold there is a difference worth keeping in mind between the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of a dictator using force or the threat of it to get the majority to rubber stamp his actions.
Mm. That was a good point. (...shame you sort of have to think about it for a while to understand it, I suppose, but).
I see where Stig is coming from, though. I'm not sure what actually causes it (except maybe too much focus on creating intellectuals instead of learning people to think, or something like that.. totally random thought), but very often you get long logical pieces of reasoning that essentially will presuppose a point of view, and simply use the analysis to plug it. With no regard for anything else, or any shortcuts that might've happened on the way.
So instead of reasoning up till a point, and then either saying: ..and this is why I think that.. Or: given that this is true, then... - something that would encourage discussion, and leave an opening for improvement of the analysis, or a change of opinion - people instead say: And that's why X is undisputably true, the "facts" speak for themselves, it is logical, etc..
It pains me to say it, but this is something that gives the "right"(for lack of a better term) a very valid point when they insist that successful ideology is simply a matter of arguing for what you already believe in with conviction. In the sense that the "left" will find one set of truths, and the right will find another - and to promote the point of view, the idea is simply to indoctrinate people with views agreeable to your own, and exclude poisonous trickery from the witches, evil people, and so on.
In other words the truth is purely subjective, because it only depends on conviction alone, no matter what the issue is. I think an american phil... *wave*.. thinker..*cough* called Richard Rorty had several unintended strokes of genius when explaining how he believes philosophy is an ongoing debate over what the best words are in any given situation - and that the winning candidate is simply whoever can use language to get what they want. In another circumstance he would explain such things that the method used to teach at schools is no different from the one used in a church, for example - in that the lef are indoctrinating people to become reasonably tolerant, thinking beings with particular types of beliefs and convictions. Just like the other ones.
Which of course makes sense in that context - the only purpose is to get your way, whatever it is for whatever reason, and so there is no fundamental difference between a logic and belief. They are, or so he explains, simply two systems of belief. End of discussion, as they say.
Of course, the irony here is that what he's describing is - while a very interesting philosophical question that might actually lead somewhere if he did some, any, work on it - is the actual context of a real life scenario. Where a large amount of people are convinced that logic or deliberate and open reasoning, done for the purpose of inviting debate and creating conscious choices, is simply is a sham.
But it's my "belief" that this would be less of a popular point of view if people were better educated. My belief, mind you.
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Uh... anyway. Back to playing inFamous. I'm going to get to the top of the junk- pile in the Warrens today
