Tim Pool cites Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind (which I'm currently reading) to submit that moderates and conservatives generally have a better grip on reality than leftists/liberals do. You've probably already heard of the psych study in which people of differing political alignments were asked to think, for a moment, like someone on the opposite side of the aisle to predict how that opposite would react to certain hypothetical situations. Moderates and conservatives turned out to be significantly better at predicting left/liberal reactions than vice versa. That indicates something about one's groundedness in reality. Let me emphasize that this finding says something about general tendencies, but nothing about exceptions to those tendencies. As I've noted before, the left-leaning people in orbit around my blog tend not to be the irrational, unmoored-from-reality types highlighted in this study. I may have deep disagreements with some of these good folks, but we're capable of having reasonable discussions about our differences. One or two leftie commenters here are not like that—they prefer confrontational trolling–but they're very much the minority in terms of my own experience with leftists. The lefties I know are more or less like Tim Pool himself.
Anyway, enjoy Pool's take on this topic:
Sunday, May 19, 2019
who's more in touch with reality?
3 comments:
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I gotta say more republicans than democrats are creationists which puts into question, or completely destroys, any claim that "moderates and conservatives generally have a better grip on reality than leftists/liberals do."
ReplyDeleteImagining the planet to be 6,000 years old is to totally deny reality.
Oh, true enough, and creationists (I used to be one back in early high school!) are pretty ridiculous. Of course, you could expand the discussion to Christians in general, most of whom believe, to some degree or other, that a biologically dead man returned to life in at least a quasi-biological way, and aren't they silly to believe that? And what about those nutty anti-vaxxers, eh?
ReplyDeleteThe problem, though, is that irrational science denialism is on both sides of the aisle. You can't have a rational discussion about the general correlation between race and IQ (Ashkenazi Jews repeatedly come out on top, and I'm not offended) without getting shouted down by wild-eyed liberals on college campuses, nor can you have a rational discussion about, say, trans people competing in cis-sports when it's obvious they shouldn't be doing so—and that it's possibly immoral, as I've argued in the case of trans women fighting in an MMA octagon with cis-women. Even mentioning the idea that there's a discussion to be had re: global warming is enough to make people apoplectic because of "muh 97% scientists' consensus." Both sides have their silly dogmatists, and it's an open question as to which side's science denialism actually does more harm to society as a whole.
As to whether being a creationist means one totally denies reality... well, I'd be interested to hear that argument. A total reality-denier can't function in the real world at all—can't shop for groceries, can't drive a car, can't do basic math, can't have normal conversations with others, etc. I think creationists have goofy, misguided, even toxic beliefs when it comes to the origin of the world and the origin of life, but I also think they're otherwise generally, functionally sane. To be fair, I can extend the sanity umbrella to the science denialists on the left that I mentioned above. Maybe they're only nuts when it comes to race/IQ and gender.
My original point, though, was that it takes a sure grip on reality to be able to predict events and actions, and the point of the study that Haidt cited was that it's the righties who are generally better at understanding and anticipating the lefties than vice versa. The left, meanwhile, is unwilling to give the right credit in this arena, which is a function of its own blindness. Again, speaking only generally.
All of this discussion about how Christianity skewers one’s claims to be grounded in reality seems a bit thin to me in that Christianity has been very compatible, for example, with science and systems. The western (Christian) world is the dominant force in terms of achievement almost across the board...
ReplyDeleteAnd since Christianity concerns itself with the matters of the spirit and higher purpose, how do such examinations relate well at all to what we’re talking about?
A vision of the origins of the universe have very little to do with understanding how a society operates...
But the study controls for this perfectly well... because these “Christians” sure seem to know a lot about how leftists work...
But the data seem to show that leftists don’t “get” Christianity... and can’t predict how such people *actually* think/behave.
And of course that is the point.
And the two detractors in these comments wouldn’t likely know it, but they are functionally very Christian with great certainty... anyone raised in the west is. The values of Christianity permeate the social fabric... ideas about forgiveness, equal value, and being redeemable and so many others...
And when such people start entertaining simulation theory (as science is already doing)... eventually they will have to ask... who created the simulation?