Quote:
Originally Posted by LessinSF
How often has anyone here made a true scientific claim, as opposed to a political, sociological or rhetorical claim? Cite please?
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Rarely. Politic narratives (generally progressive, economically neoliberal) are baseline. Those who disagree or are skeptics offer criticisms and thus begins a series of concessions about the parts of the narrative that do not survive scrutiny. This veers from lawyerly (trying to preserve dubious claims via semantic gamesmanship) to angry to what I’d call the “come on...” position, exhibited by Not Bob yesterday (“come on, dude... how can you not be with us on this one?”).
By way of compliment, if you’ve wallowed in email exchanges with right wingers, there’s no concession of any kind. Pure unreality, and hyperbolic anger in response to facts demonstrating the falsity of narratives offered.
ETA: My pet theory is there a couple things causing this age of unreason and unreasonableness:
1. Capitalism run amuck. The current system is savage, creating enormous insecurity at many levels of society.
2. Empathy/grievance fixation. As a result of #1, empathy has emerged on the Left as the most important of virtues. And grievance has become the most urgent and important social expression. Both of these are opposed to capitalism's core ethos - that the market will through sheer self interest and lack of empathy deliver most effectively for all. Grievance fixation has emerged from years of crony capitalism. Those who do not have power have understood how those who do are working to retain it, often through a corrupted largely corporate-controlled state.
3. Lack of baselines. I won't steal Alain de Botton's thunder here, but a lot of this stems from loss of religion and community. The left and right are attempting to craft behavioral standards, values, and sacred notions. But consensus is hard to create in a world where are no more Big Three media outlets, no churches with any centralized authority, and little if any belief in our civic institutions. In the absence of official narratives from authorities, people are creating and holding their own sacred narratives, and they naturally lose their minds when others trample them. I think a lot of people want to connect to others and enjoy that warm feedback from recognizing there are lots of people who feel just like they do. You can see a perverse version of it in those Trump rallies. Those audiences strike me as lost souls looking for a common message. You can see another variant in the most rabid "resistance." People are seeking secular religions, binding narratives.
