On Fanaticism and Fear
This post was originally going to be a question about children--at what age is it OK to expose children to dissenting viewpoints?--and you can ask me about some things I've done recently that in one case did and in one case did not expose children to dissent, and how both choices caused me pain because of the reactions of adults. (I have no idea what effect I had on any of the children involved.)
But then I started thinking about the fact that I'm a fanatic along some axes. Why? What makes a person fanatical and why do I have such a hard time making up non-fanatic characters? Am I fanatic about atheism? Where am I a non-fanatic?
So here's the thing: there is a discourse in Christianity that says that people do not speak up because they're afraid, and that speaking up is the moral choice and will have one or both of these effects: someone will listen; someone will mock or cause harm to the speaker. But what actually happens (in my experience) when you voice an unpopular opinion is that some people explain to you why you're wrong, and some people find you annoying/rude/criminal for speaking.
Fanaticism is refusing to listen to the people who tell you you're wrong AND the people who find you annoying. I have a hard time building non-fanatic characters because characters are defined by their characteristics; there is a way they "are" in my head, where actual people are far, FAR more circumstantial.
There is probably some magic way to modulate your speech to your audience so that they're unaware they're being persuaded; let's call that way "being politic" for the moment. I'm terrible at politics.
But if the response to voicing an unpopular opinion is ALWAYS that people tell you you're wrong, how do you discover which unpopular opinions are actually correct? Or, in a more general way, if whether your audience agrees with you depends on which audience you've picked and/or the politic formulation of your ideas, not their contents, how do you tell what's right? How do you become a person of principle?
I want a religion that deals with these questions. One of the results of this week's crisis of faith has been a much stronger urge than usual to check out the UUs, and possibly try to form a revolutionary humanist congregation. Maybe Less Wrong? But I don't feel like Less Wrong tends to sing at their gatherings.
Oh, also, I was going to say, that if you're only pretty sure which side to take on an issue, or don't have the necessary expertise to intervene, then it's reasonable not to act, and these are the cases where I'm a non-fanatic. Nor is the solution here to develop expertise on everything. There isn't time. However, because we're not sociopaths, voicing ineffectual support is a reasonable course of action--either prayer or facebook memes, whatever--as a way to mark that there are horrible things in the world that we're not going to change.
Sometimes you intervene and you're wrong and everything gets worse. Religion seems to me to be a way to deal with that.
But then I started thinking about the fact that I'm a fanatic along some axes. Why? What makes a person fanatical and why do I have such a hard time making up non-fanatic characters? Am I fanatic about atheism? Where am I a non-fanatic?
So here's the thing: there is a discourse in Christianity that says that people do not speak up because they're afraid, and that speaking up is the moral choice and will have one or both of these effects: someone will listen; someone will mock or cause harm to the speaker. But what actually happens (in my experience) when you voice an unpopular opinion is that some people explain to you why you're wrong, and some people find you annoying/rude/criminal for speaking.
Fanaticism is refusing to listen to the people who tell you you're wrong AND the people who find you annoying. I have a hard time building non-fanatic characters because characters are defined by their characteristics; there is a way they "are" in my head, where actual people are far, FAR more circumstantial.
There is probably some magic way to modulate your speech to your audience so that they're unaware they're being persuaded; let's call that way "being politic" for the moment. I'm terrible at politics.
But if the response to voicing an unpopular opinion is ALWAYS that people tell you you're wrong, how do you discover which unpopular opinions are actually correct? Or, in a more general way, if whether your audience agrees with you depends on which audience you've picked and/or the politic formulation of your ideas, not their contents, how do you tell what's right? How do you become a person of principle?
I want a religion that deals with these questions. One of the results of this week's crisis of faith has been a much stronger urge than usual to check out the UUs, and possibly try to form a revolutionary humanist congregation. Maybe Less Wrong? But I don't feel like Less Wrong tends to sing at their gatherings.
Oh, also, I was going to say, that if you're only pretty sure which side to take on an issue, or don't have the necessary expertise to intervene, then it's reasonable not to act, and these are the cases where I'm a non-fanatic. Nor is the solution here to develop expertise on everything. There isn't time. However, because we're not sociopaths, voicing ineffectual support is a reasonable course of action--either prayer or facebook memes, whatever--as a way to mark that there are horrible things in the world that we're not going to change.
Sometimes you intervene and you're wrong and everything gets worse. Religion seems to me to be a way to deal with that.