When I have a deep aversion to something but I don't know or can't say why, I interpret it as a sign that I need to think about my philosophies until I can articulate the reason for my emotional reaction. Sometimes, I find the emotion was based on a false belief from ancient indoctrination, and I have to change my mind.
So, could you articulate what makes you so opposed to the idea?
It's cognitive dissonance. People have always sought out ideas and philosophies to justify actions that they knew were wrong and were uncomfortable with. The scary part is sometimes they're not even aware of it or the harm they're causing.
This revulsion only makes sense if you firmly believe that rationalism is the highest good, and that the only right way to engage with the world is through rationality, ie, dividing the world into "false" and "true" ideas.
There are good reasons that so many people realize for themselves that non-dual perspectives hold more value than dualistic ones.
And they have a negative reaction because they have cognitive dissonance with what is presented to them. They're forced to either reject the alternate moral judgement and be hostile to it (in some sense, not directly), or accept it and change their behavior.
Even subjective "preferences" such as "I like soft-drinks" have logical consequences, or implicit decisions associated with them. I.e. "I am fine with hurting my long-term health because I enjoy the immediate rush of soft-drinks." Not every can live their lives in a completely evidence-based, logically-optimized way.
I've noticed this situation often. To me, the issue usually appears to stem from the fact that someone (possibly myself) typically has a deep emotional bias that they're unwilling/unable to recognize or acknowledge. Something profoundly scares or disturbs them in such a fundamental way that it's easier to imagine a reality where that problem doesn't exist than to accept an extremely uncomfortable truth.
There are many rational reasons for a person to see these questions differently to you and plenty of explanations of those reasons around. You may disagree with them, but to claim that differing views must spring from phobias or other irrational mental states rather from a different assessment of the evidence is baseless ad-hominem. I would strongly recommend avoiding statements of that form in general as they achieve nothing good.
I could make a similarly disrepectful and unsupported claim about the mental state of people who believe most human creative activity is simply recycling learned ideas, and we could spend some time flinging insults at each other, but why?
I can't fathom how they come to exist. The linked
post may be correct; I think some people simply
have the innate urge to reject everything they've
been told and to look for a countercultural answer
Others take a look at the status quo of our society, and perhaps reasonably, decide that it sucks. Our society has a lot of shortcomings, and has let a lot of people down. So they reject the institutions they view as being responsible for what they consider this poor state of affairs. In other words they are not blindly opposed to the concept of authority; but they have come to the conclusion that the current set of authorities that govern us kind of suck.
I don't think their opinion of society and the institutions that shape it is necessarily wrong, though I most certainly believe that rejecting our accumulated scientific knowledge is most definitely mistake. A true "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" situation.
Also, aside from issues with authority, it's just kind of cool to feel like you have some sort of special and secret knowledge that (most) others lack. A very seductive prospect. Especially if you are lacking in intelligence and/or education and don't get a lot of opportunities to feel that way. After all, we tend to place such people on a pedestal -- folks who figured things out before others and were eventually proven correct. Adopting a fringe theory like Flat Earthism lets people feel they're part of the special/chosen few.
Then what kind of mind not only refuses to entertain novel thoughts, but will condemn anything that even contains a whiff of what seems to be different thinking? It's easy to see the answer in history.
It's kind of natural response when you encounter something that doesn't match what you already know. When I approach new subject I almost always go through that stage. "This is just silly." "This is crap." "I hate this." "Not for me." But that dissonance between the fact that I see something as stupid and the fact I also see people doing this makes me want very hard to understand why people are doing this. Often it leads me to better understanding of the subject, sometimes to better understanding of the people.
The way I see it, say if someone smokes cigarettes... And one day they are confronted with irrefutable evidence that what they are doing is bad/wrong/dangerous - their mind is then uncomfortably split between two conflicting ideas:
1. "I'm an OK person, I'm not particularly bad, I try and do the right thing"
2. "How can #1 be true if there is strong evidence to the contrary?"
I think you're right, hackit2, this is usually not verbally articulated, but FELT as discomfort.
This internal discomfort can be resolved either by:
1. Facing up to the facts around cigarettes - This is hard, this sucks. If you're smart you have to face up to all sorts of uncomfortable stuff, from governmental benefits of addiction to your own mistakes.
2. NOT facing up to what is real. But siding with a group/ideology/thinking mode which is working on the front of modifying reality. Investing time in trying to change reality through narrative or rhetoric or disproving.
I think this framework happens to us all on some fronts... I think the catholic church might have hit up against some of this stuff when the earth ceased being the centre of the universe. I think they may have chosen path #2, cause they had a lot to lose.
Let me clarify: I'm saying that the "well, your objections are just psychological" aspect is the weakness. Sure, to have a psychological theory is fine, but too often it drifts into essentially "objections to our theory are merely based in the same psychological malformation that is produced by the current system - therefore when we get rid of the system, the objections will go away too". This is a weakness, I think.
>I got thinking about this as I tend to find that as I get older I tend to gravitate towards ideas and beliefs that reinforce what I already know to be true rather than challenge me
Interesting - I seem to be experiencing the opposite. When I was younger, I was afraid of ideas that challenged my worldview. As I get older, I'm more willing to admit uncertainty about how the world works, which has the effect of making me more open to ideas that challenge my assumptions.
I think part of the problem is that most people are conditioned into many beliefs from a young age
I know a guy who hates foo (using a place holder). In fact he's downright foophobic. He is pretty convinced he has a natural unbiased hate of foo and is being rational when he expresses it.
To me as an outsider it is pretty obvious that his hate of foo is the result of cultural conditioning. To him it is perfectly rational to hate foo and to me it is totally irrational, especially since he can't give any concrete reason for it.
So, could you articulate what makes you so opposed to the idea?
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