Beware the idealogue.

[ilmarinen]

This is, I think, much of a self-correcting observation. I tend towards idealism, and belief in truths

Comments

[far_niente]

It seems that people take an idea and try to run way too far with it. I have come to think of 'natural child-rearing' as literally doing what I *want* to do for my child. The idea there is that I would naturally want what is best for her, and trusting myself enough to know the difference between good and bad. I guess some people might not want to do nice things, but really there was nothing I wanted more than to have her close to me at night (co sleep), to breastfeed her, to hold her as often as possible, to sooth her quickly when she cried, to protect her from the super nasty diseases that used to kill people (vaccinate), and to feed her organic food (cause someone told me it was better!)

I agree with you that people get a little too worked up when they stop really thinking about the choices they are making and why. I don't think there is ever any one right answer...heck, there may be as many right answers as their are people.

[ilmarinen]

Well, everyone has to make there own choices. However, we need to be willing to accept and deal with objective reality.

-B.

[randomdreams]

The vaccination thing makes sense, though, if you look at it through their eyes. There is a risk, usually about 1:100,000, that a child will be injured because of vaccination. If the herd is vaccinated, *your* child stands a risk of 1:100,000 of being injured against a risk of roughly 1:infinity of getting the disease.
If the herd *isn't* vaccinated, then suddenly your child's risk ratio jumps up to more like 1:5000 (again, rough average) but they're betting on everyone else risking their kids, so they think they don't have to.
If the premises are correct, it's a logical conclusion.

[ilmarinen]

Yeah, which is part of what pisses me off so much about it...vaccination-by-proxy. It's a massive breach of the social contract I think. (OK, there is a counter argument, but that gets messy.) Point is, I've seen numbers, and part of the problem is it is rich white folks who *opt-out* of vaccines, therefore increasing the risk of outbreaks, and then poor kids who are *under-vaccinated* for a variety of reasons, or those who are too young to have received vaccines, or those for home the vaccine didn't "take" etc, who are exposed to the outbreak also.

[randomdreams]

Oh, it's precisely that. But so are clowns. And SmartCars -- they say, right in the literature, that they're relying on other cars' crumple zones.
's crummy behavior. But life is a balance between selfishness: trying to advance yourself as much as possible; and communality: trying to help other people so your whole community does well. Everyone makes a tradeoff between those two poles.
It just sucks when people make that tradeoff for someone else, and it's the other person who pays the bill.

Finally! an appropriate occasion for this icon!

[boggit]

I think one thing that happens is it's very easy and comforting to accept a closed system/ideology. It answers all the questions for you and makes it so you need to make fewer decisions, because the rules of the ideology tell you what to do. It's like a decision tree flow-chart thing, (example: my bees are sick. Do I give them medicine? Is the medicine organic? Then no. --no actual consideration or weighing of pros and cons)

While it wouldn't be a Socratic self-examined or critical thinking life, it definitely has a certain allure. There's a reason many ideologies slide smoothly and almost imperceptibly into cults.

This was a very thoughtful post for a Wednesday night!

Re: Finally! an appropriate occasion for this icon!

[ilmarinen]

Yeah, and I *do* that. I take mental shortcuts based on philosophy because we can't optimize each and every decision. However, we have to not fool ourselves when it comes to big issues.

-B.

Re: Finally! an appropriate occasion for this icon!

[ilmarinen]

This is like how I dress much of the time in hippy granola clothing, etc. Often it's not *better* for any objective reason, but it identifies with an aesthetic I have for the world. Does that make sense?

It's when we make *bad* choices over good ones for ideology reasons that we need to re-examine our thinking.

-B.

Re: Finally! an appropriate occasion for this icon!

[randomdreams]

I'm not sure that there are bad or good choices when it comes to ideology-based decision-making.

[morinon]

That said, those who would rather change the world to fit their ideas actually tend to cause progress.

However, that assumes that your ideas have merit to begin with when taken to logical extremes.

[ilmarinen]

Before one changes something, one should understand it first.

[callmem]

This is what I love about the scientific method; you construct an explanatory narrative and then you actively try to gather evidence that disproves it. If you carry that method into your everyday life, you'll encounter situations where you had a real emotional stake in reality being one way and it will turn out to be the opposite. It's a humbling and productive exercise. Unfortunately, we seem to be wired to do the reverse of the scientific method; construct an explanatory narrative then ignore, rationalize or dismiss anything inconsistent with it (confirmation bias etc). It's understandable, since the emotional cost of changing your mind about something ideological is so high, but it sucks. Hm. The social cost of changing your mind can be high, too, now that I think about it.

Short version: I like your post.

[ilmarinen]

If only I was actually good at doing it myself! :|

Although it is unclear that folks who are good at doing so are any happier than those who aren't. hrm. There's a hypothesis for study . . .

But thanks, it was something rattling in my head to get out on text.

-B.