Presidential election, 2016

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-09-2017, 08:28 AM)Odin Wrote:

(01-09-2017, 01:27 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-08-2017, 07:32 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I like to think my own way of looking at the world is well thought out, logical, based on lessons from history, common sense and developed on reasonable teachings of my culture.  I also like to think that everybody thinks their values are such, well thought out, logical, based on lessons from history, common sense and developed on reasonable teachings of their cultures.

Your mistake is in assuming it's all about culture for everyone, just because it happens to be so for you.  In fact, most of the conservatives here are libertarian leaning, and base our reasoning not on culture but on facts and proven economic theory.  Assuming that it's a clash of cultures may be why you go wrong so much.

I find it hilarious when Libertarians think they and only they have "facts" and "proven economic theory" and think all the rest of us are just going by our feels, it reeks of projection, and Libertarians tend to be exactly the kind of technically-oriented types that have little self-awareness of their own feelings and THINK they are super-logical and rational.

Lots of humor and truth in that.  The Libertarians certainly have a well established approach to justifying their world view.  I don't know that they are that unique, though.

I remember attempting to communicate with our token Christian Fundamentalist a few years back.  Everything in the Bible was no doubt about it literally true.  I view the Bible as a historical document, written over a period of centuries, reflecting major changes in philosophy and multiple traditions that evolved over time.  The Bible, to him, presented a unified Truth rather than reflecting a diverse evolving culture.  He had a complete playbook of interpretations that justified cherry picking among the passages to confirm his particular spin on things.  This featured prioritizing Old Testament eye for an eye type passages over New Testament turn the other cheek.  Of necessity he also had pat answers ready for when science conflicted with the Bible.  If you're going to be a Fundamentalist, you have to.  He was intelligent, well if selectively read, passionate, articulate, sane in most respects, but had a well thought out set of defenses for his world view that allowed him to shrug off any challenge.

Libertarian doublethink reminds me a lot of Fundamentalist doublethink.  If one is intelligent, if one does one's homework, if one really thinks things through, one can fool one's self completely.  One can develop a complete and unbreakable immunity from reality.

But that's not unique to Libertarians or Fundamentalists.  Any extreme partisan is apt to face similar challenges to their personal realities.  Perhaps everyone has a playbook for blocking out reality.  There are enough Libertarians and Fundamentalists that one can recognize their styles.  The further one is from those world views, any world view, the more obviously off the playbooks feel.  However, be looking for for similar defense mechanisms in any extreme partisan, well thought out structures for shedding facts.