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If we think that the ignorant should be able to vote from a moral respective than thinking they should be able to articulate an opinion goes with that.
If we think that the ignorant should be able to vote from a moral respective than thinking they should be able to articulate an opinion goes with that.
True. Ignorant people are allowed to vote, and of course they are protected by free speech. But willful ignorance is it's own sort of immorality, and refusing to even hear an opposing viewpoint is a form of willful ignorance. Suppose someone says "Don't drink and drive because you are putting yourself and others at risk." But you say "Oh, that's hogwash. I can drive safely when I'm drunk." Then they say: "No. Look a this research published in this respectable news article. The evidence is clear. Even if you think you have good control, you don't really have good control when you are drunk." And you refuse to read the evidence or consider the arguments any further. Then you drive drunk and hit someone. The situation would be this:
1) You sincerely believed that you were driving safely.
2) You were presented with good evidence for thinking that you could not safely drink and drive, but you ignored the evidence.
3) You drove drunk and killed someone.
I say that despite the sincerity of your belief, and your ignorance of the contrary evidence, you are still morally responsible for the damage you've done.
The analogy is flawed, of course, insofar as drunk driving is illegal whereas asserting your opinions is not. (And I am NOT trying to argue that ignorant people should be prevented from voting or prevented from exercising free speech.) You could also argue that asserting opinions is not as directly dangerous as drunk driving. But my point is that, although you have a legal right to refuse to consider good arguments against your opinion, you do not have a moral right to do so when considering issues of life/death importance. It is not ignorance itself that is necessarily immoral, it is the willful ignorance that comes from neglecting to sincerely consider alternative perspectives in an important topic and then passing along misinformation because of this neglect. You don't mean to do harm, but if your willful ignorance combined with your assertive pontificating contributes to muddying the waters of public debate on an important issue, then you are morally accountable for any damage that results from the unnecessarily muddied public debate.
The solution is fairly simple: Before voicing a strong, assertive opinion on an important issue, make a sincere effort to understand what your opponents are saying. If you don't want to take a few minutes to do this research, but you still want to speak out, then "speak softly" - i.e., don't proclaim your opinion with great confidence or try to intimidate your opponents into agreeing with you.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 01-08-2017 at 07:37 PM..
Good point, and thank you for raking me over the coals for using the word "majority" in the OP. That was probably wrong of me to do.
I do still think, however, that a majority of posts in this forum show little or no evidence of critical thinking, and in a fairly large sample size I have noticed that when I ask for evidence or source references, etc., none are given. IF someone has truly made even a small but sincere effort to comprehend their opponent's views by reading the actual words of experts who support the other side, then it should not be too difficult to give some hint of evidence that they have done this. What generally happens instead is that people turn quickly to insults and intimidation without any real intellectual content at all - or with, at most, just some vague hand-waving at some "common knowledge" that supposedly "everyone knows" (but which never comes under careful scrutiny). This is where "lazy" becomes reckless and immoral because these "viral memes" are, in many cases, perpetuated by nothing much more than fake news.
I'd also reject the statement that most people here show little to no evidence of critical thinking.
Evidence & reading technical experts is more complicated. You're right that people ideally should, but sourcing is work. Asking people to do so isn't really helpful because you're basically asking someone else to put work in. Asking for sources if you aren't legitimately curious and haven't already posted your own borders on a form of a trolling. A better approach is to be the change you want to see in others and link sources yourself. This both challenges people who you are arguing with to include citations and who knows, they may even get read. Maybe you already do and wish it was more widespread; if so that's fair but the best you can do in that case is continue to be a good example.
I'm also somewhat skeptical about the value of 'expert' opinion in non-technical fields; but that's a separate topic altogether.
edit: I understand your main concern here is the impact of echo-chambering of false beliefs and I'm kind of not addressing that; mainly because I agree on that point as a problem in the broader general concept of things.
I think you are probably right, but I would need some specific examples of what you mean. In general I think that a significant number of liberals are guilty of uncritical thinking and/or "over the top" rhetoric, so examples should not be hard to supply.
The irrational-immoral comes from both sides. Today it's more apt to be ridiculous anti trump but neither 'side' is immune.
The OP is rather long, so I can't blame anyone for being confused. If you just read the sentences highlighted in bold type, the basic idea should be clear. If not, perhaps someone who understands my point can say it more clearly, or more cleverly, than I did.
You can fool some of the people all of the time; all of the people some of the time;but not all of the people all of the time............
Years ago sitting a in VA hospital I read and a article in a magazine put out by the US Marine Corps. Can't remember which one.
The article was written by a an officer in the US Marine Corps. Long story short the article stated--blatantly--that psyops (psychological operations), which is part of Special Operations, will be receiving far more funding and taking on a larger role in the special operations sphere. The article stated that the United States will use psyops to engineer elections throughout all of planet earth, including engineering elections in the USA by programming people who to vote for.
Psyops was being used in thus recent election to engineer the election for Hillary Clinton as the victor. They failed.
But they have not given up.
So, how do you control the minds of people?
You control the narrative.
So, the US establishment is fearful of counter narratives. Best way to get rid of counter narratives if you can discredit the source is simply to ban the source. Given liberals are high on pontificating about morals to create paradise on earth they are not apt to argue that the lie that unborn children are not genetically part of the human species, human life, and arguments contra that are not scientifically tenable (personhood is a philosophical concept) and therefore cause great harm throughout society. Rather they will claim things like dismissing the establishments claims about fake news and the coming apocalypse due to global warming is immoral because it causes great harm, therefore such narratives (more accurately the voices) ought be banned.
The same people that want to protect the KKK's right to speech.
Abby Martin is interviewed and addresses the New York Times and Western Mainstream media and US Intelligence Services telling lies about her.
Abby Martin is a liberal. A Bernie Sanders kind of leftist liberal. So, she is no right-winger. And even she is saying US Intelligence Services are full of sh--.
She is also incredibly intelligent and very attractive looking. Whoever marries her will be a lucky dude.
On the flip side, we have conservative white dudes, united in alliance with black liberal dudes and white liberal dudes and feminist females of every color, that will yap on about how black women like the one in the video just need to be constantly reminded how "beautiful," and "strong," and "intelligent" they are how any black man on this planet would be LUCKY to have her. So she should not "settle."
No, Abby Martin conservative men, she is beautiful, strong, and intelligent. This black woman in the video is what we in the hood term "ratchet."
And no, President Obama, I am not responsible (nor are the black male engineers, or some black dude finally graduating college, or the black electrician) for this woman being a single mother if she has kids and her children's "babies daddy" is not providing for them. She choose that or those dudes. And no, I don't believe her momma (on the phone line with the woman's sister I think) raised her to be a little angel.
Now, if her and her sister caught some girl or dude stealing from their house they would be jumping on that girl or dude. Punching, biting, kicking the girl or dude. Yet, they think Security is not supposed to apprehend them. The Democratic Party Religion has has got these two black women thinking they can do whatever they want to anyone but no "authority" is supposed to touch them. Thinking they are gonna sue.
And this is in a city. St. Louis I believe. This woman is acting like an urban hillbilly. The white people in small Wisconsin towns and rural farm communities act and dresss with more sophistication than this black urban hillbilly woman. So, just because you're from a city does not make you all "sophisticated" and superior in moral and intelligence. Just because you are from farm land does not make you a hick, immoral, and ignorant.
So, the US establishment is fearful of counter narratives. [...]
Abby Martin is interviewed and addresses the New York Times and Western Mainstream media and US Intelligence Services telling lies about her.
Thank you for your thoughtful post. I don't agree with all of your perspectives, but I appreciate that you give examples, source references, and offer logical arguments. BTW, as I've mentioned before, the radical left has a long history of criticizing mainstream narratives and mainstream media (I've previously mentioned Noam Chompsky as a prime example of this), so I am not very surprised by Abby Martin's criticisms. In a different thread (actually, it was the thread that pushed me over the edge and prompted me to start this thread) there was heavy criticism of the New York Times and other mainstream media, but despite my repeated requests for examples and references, the posters continually made only vague, sweeping claims without ever coming to grips with any tangible examples.
I might come back and comment on some of your points in more detail later, but for the moment I just have to point out a bit of irony that I find amusing. The RT Network is, essentially, a "Russian Television" network
and has been criticized for being a "Russian propaganda" network. This does not make their perspectives wrong (or right), nor does it mean that it is useless drivel. On the contrary, this makes the RT Network extremely interesting and worthy of attention. If/when there are ever chinks in the armor of Western/American mainstream narrative, a news agency like RT will probably find the flaws and analyze them in interesting ways. The video of Abby Martin is an excellent example of this. What I find amusing is that a Conservative is drawing on RT for the purposes of a right-wing talking point. For many decades, the right-wing narrative decried liberals for being patsies for Russian propaganda. I can see how we came to this point, and it all makes a certain sort of sense, but I still find some irony in it.
In any case, I think we agree that we cannot trust the dominant narratives. Critical thinking is essential. Human lives depend on it. I think it is plausible to suggest that the welfare of the entire human species depends on it. This is why I think it is immoral to muddy the waters of public debate with loud, uncritical rhetoric that amounts to nothing more than the parroting of some vague hand-waving partisan line. Liberals and conservatives both do this. I'm trying to see if we can have a discussion in this forum that does not degenerate into empty name-calling.
The best way for you to achieve your stated aim is to start a topic, not a topic about how we need to stay on topic. Then challenge every 'immoral' post that breaks Term of Service.
This thread is a specific request for decency and morality, although I personally disagree with use of that term in this context because it opens up a TON of tangents for those semantically inclined. However it is not a platform to begin a discussion on a specific topic.
I speak plainly and bluntly. If that offends someone tough.
This^
Someone comes along and spews "falsehoods" as you call them. (I just call them Lies) then they should be called on it.
There may be a lot of lies, but even more hypocrisy. Those on the left constantly projecting their failings onto the right. I'll point that out everytime I see it. Time permitting of course.
Lies can be fought with truth, when the truth is directed at someone receptive to the truth.
And sometimes fire has to be fought with fire, if you catch the drift.
CN
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