promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun May 01, 2022 7:44 pm
Okay but what if somebody does the best they can do and is as critically skeptical as one can be... and still they end up believing something that happens to be false. Would their state of mistaken-ness be their fault, something they 'chose' to be?
It's not either or. For example, they could be choosing to ignore nagging feelings that there is something wrong with what they believe (because to acknowledge their own doubt might ((they fear)) lead to a split with friends or family, or might mean one has done things one now considers wrong, or because one simply refuses to admit mistakes. So, these can be poor choices.
We would call them brainwashed because they believed x,
I think using the term brainwashed for any kind of process of spreading beliefs is problematic. Even in communities where one can challenge certain ideas AND where one notices others do this, some people conform. They haven't been brainwashed, but they go for the more popular beliefs while others who are also not brainwashed, but have grown up in a culture with tendencies or a majority position, did something else.
but they believe x because to them, it seems rational. So unless you want to argue that people 'choose' to be wrong - and I doubt you'd do that - then this is an insensitive pseudo-problem.
I think people can to varying degrees choose to not notice anomalies, contradictions in the ideas they have been handed, good points by people with other views and so on. There is a spectrum, not 'they chose or did not choose'.
Dumb people aren't dumb by choice, and what constitutes a 'rational, reasonable belief' for one might be utterly absurd to another smarter fella. The point is that the dumb fella is doing the best he can do as a critical thinker, and he certainly doesn't ever 'choose' to be brainwashed (if he ends up being so).
I think people often do precisely less well than they could and also punish socially at least people who have differing views rather than feel their own doubts.
What you wanna argue is that there are smart people and dumb people, and that the situation the dumb people are in is exclusively their fault. Namely, by 'choosing' to believe something that is false, they are no longer deserving of any sympathy.
I'm with you hear, I think the intelligence issue is not the center of this.
But who would do that? Purposely believe something you knew was false. Give one's own brain up for washing, as it were.
Someone who is afraid to notice that dad, or school, or the priest or the corporation or the government or the bought research even MIGHT have problems. Or someone who on some level wants to suck up to power. See, I would never question you, and get a leg up on siblings, fellow citizens, even fellow victims. Sure, they are unlikely to sit there and think That is false but I will believe it. Though I think many come very close to that. In general, they don't really want to know what they are doing, but there are warning signals, and problems with the belief that they, at least sometimes intentionally ignore. And sometimes these people will violently demand that others do the same. For example. Not all people who believe wrong things to the last. But it's not either or.
And it's not just fear that drives people to do these things (to varying degrees) it can be greed, yearnings to get dominance via powers out there, hatred of people who dare to question and all sorts of motives and emotions.