That theologically conservative churches are growing and mainstream denominations shrinking is old news. The numbers quoted for a few key beliefs in the WaPo article are interesting but not shocking. The tentative guesses as to why (though I suspect the author is not tentative and is keeping it simple for his audience) are also not original.
But...
Look at the attached video and hyperlinks between paragraphs that the Post puts in. Only the UMC one is kindasorta on topic, but even at that, it is focusing on the issues a subgroup think is essential, while others would put a dozen issues higher.
Early 1979 was when we last had a TV (16", on a rolling stand), and TV was constantly running in the day area at work. The days of three identical networks. I recall following the election of two popes in 1978, with the newscasters on every station, in every update, speculating whether the new pope could be expected to change the Catholic church's position on abortion and the ordination of women. Those were the only two issues mentioned, on and on. It was as if this was all they could understand. They couldn't imagine other issues being important.
They didn't even know what they didn't know. Recall that twenty years before that, in 1958, 96% of Americans identified with a house of worship, and that only 10 years before, nearly every child was kept in religious studies until confirmation, bar mitzvah, or the denominational equivalent. Announcers on the 3 networks in 1978 had almost certainly grown up with eight years of religious training. It was onto this stage that the conservative preachers stormed in the late 70's. That they were both theologically conservative and politically conservative was not necessary, but neither was it accidental. They railed that they were misunderstood, and that great swaths of the American people were now separate from the values of television.
Hands went up in horror insisting it wasn't true, and these fools, these bigots, these south/midwest/southwesterners were deceivers, oversimplifiers and liars. It all sounds rather familiar. If you enter that discussion today evidence will be marshalled against your claim of media bias. It will be dismissed as a cliche, a mountain being made out of a molehill. Look at how many conservative outlets there are now. Ridiculous.
That same dismissiveness was on display then. Let's review some easily-researched facts about this. There were, as I noted, three networks. Fox News Channel was not up and running until eighteen years later, and was tiny at first; Drudge was about the same time; it was 1988 that Rush Limbaugh came along with his insistence that the mainstream media was biased. He didn't make that up. He didn't talk people into some new-fangled idea. The roaring preachers, and the Limbaughs, and Fox News only announced what was rather obviously true, though consistently derided. The emperor had no clothes. (And believe me, I was derided for claiming it.)
This. This is the background against which denials of media bias are attacked now. Are there conservative outlets? Sure, lots of 'em, things are better. Have the Washington Post and New York Times changed, or the major news outlets? Not a bit, from what I can see. Now their excuse is that they are a counterbalance, a responsible other side to Breitbart and Fox and Drudge. Like the Japanese having difficulty even decades later admitting they did anything wrong in slaughtering millions in China or in attacking Pearl Harbor, the mainstream outlets still have only evasive acknowledgement that they did anything wrong. Does anyone doubt the historical evidence anymore?
You are learning where my biases come from. That's fine.
Given all this as context, what did the mainstream denominations - at least in their official bodies and seminaries - do during those forty years? Easy. They had already started identifying with the culture the media told them were the righteous ones fifteen years earlier and more. They sided with the media and condemned the theologically conservative churches, for the most part. In a thousand small ways they chose who they would stand with. The didn't have to. In fact, the New Testament is repeatedly specific that we should ally with each other and not the tribe that is this world.
They don't like Trump. I agree he is something of a whirlwind. I wish they had not sown the wind. I was Congregationalist and then Lutheran in the years up to 1987, and in an only moderately conservative denomination thereafter. I count myself as an eyewitness. As a result I greet contemporary claims of evenhandedness and openmindedness with considerable suspicion. I am not naturally a nice guy or very tolerant myself, but I recognise an obligation to try and take you at your word and give you the benefit of the doubt. Again. But I grow weary, and I'm not sure I am capable of this anymore.
Prove it. If you want me to believe that you are listening, openminded, and evenhanded, show your evidence.
Or conversely, show me the evidence that it has been the mainstream denominations meeting the wild zealots of the radical right at some half-way point all along, trying to find common ground rather than insisting that your original position is the common ground and being insulting.
Assistant Village Idiot
30 Years On, I think that “Postliberal” sums it up best
Wednesday, January 04, 2017
Choice of Topics
The Washington Post notes breathlessly that this might be the biggest inauguration demonstration in 2017.
Did anyone report on what was the biggest inauguration demonstration in 2009?
That which calls itself the center is not the center.
Did anyone report on what was the biggest inauguration demonstration in 2009?
That which calls itself the center is not the center.
Song Parodies
Song parodies are such an easy form of humor that I almost think of them as cheating. Yet people continue to be impressed by the most meager efforts. The compliments seem of the "you colored within the lines!" nature to me. It may be there is a type of mind for which this just flows naturally, but not for most people.
I can do it, and do it well, but I know others who are better. I did one with a pal in 8th grade to "Ballad of the Green Beret." I bow in admiration to whatsisname, Weird Al Yankovich, who finds combinations I would not. I find it uncomfortable when people do it poorly, but even a mediocre effort can be fun. It is often only a single line that is funny, a reworking of the title or chorus, the remainder being filler. They are best when done quickly - it is too much to ask for a person to sing even a single verse impromptu (though I have heard people produce them within the song if only others will go enough verses to give them time. A rare talent.) - but dashing one off in an hour before the party is fresh enough.
We used to do them for cast parties for musicals, when I was in college. I imagine other theater companies did them as well.
I gave my beaver a four-loaf cleaver
The one he's been asking for.
I wasn't thinking, the fool that I am
He cut his tail off while building a dam.
It's no use in crying, 'cause now he's dying
And won't cleave a loaf no more.
So don't give your beaver a four-loaf cleaver
'Til you get his tail insured.
I can do it, and do it well, but I know others who are better. I did one with a pal in 8th grade to "Ballad of the Green Beret." I bow in admiration to whatsisname, Weird Al Yankovich, who finds combinations I would not. I find it uncomfortable when people do it poorly, but even a mediocre effort can be fun. It is often only a single line that is funny, a reworking of the title or chorus, the remainder being filler. They are best when done quickly - it is too much to ask for a person to sing even a single verse impromptu (though I have heard people produce them within the song if only others will go enough verses to give them time. A rare talent.) - but dashing one off in an hour before the party is fresh enough.
We used to do them for cast parties for musicals, when I was in college. I imagine other theater companies did them as well.
I gave my beaver a four-loaf cleaver
The one he's been asking for.
I wasn't thinking, the fool that I am
He cut his tail off while building a dam.
It's no use in crying, 'cause now he's dying
And won't cleave a loaf no more.
So don't give your beaver a four-loaf cleaver
'Til you get his tail insured.
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
Lena Dunham
If some on the right weren't so obsessed with her, would she even be noticed anymore? I am not claiming that, I am asking. I don't follow popular culture that much, so maybe she is a big deal that people are paying attention to. Yet the only times I read about her are on right-wing sites making critical (and sometimes vile) comments about her. I used to think that no one would notice Pat Robertson at all if it weren't for liberals tracking his comments to show that all conservatives were dangerous fools. Is the same thing happening here?
As for the vile comments, they often focus on her appearance. I suspected if she were a TV-visible person at all she couldn't look that bad, so I looked her up. Suspicions confirmed. She's not pretty by Hollywood and those unforgiving camera standards, but she certainly looks like a girl we would call cute in real life. She looks fine. The cracks about her weight are even more silly. Part of it is face-roundness, but even without that she's not enormous. She looks like a lot of other women.
Is it a personality thing that just bleeds over into appearance insults? I have no knowledge what's she's like. It strikes me that the insults are delivered not so much because they are true, but because the writer thinks they will hurt. It's low. Decent people don't say these things even if they're true, and they certainly don't go looking for people to demean for their appearance. When that appearance isn't actually so objectionable, it all seems very primitive and mean.
As for the vile comments, they often focus on her appearance. I suspected if she were a TV-visible person at all she couldn't look that bad, so I looked her up. Suspicions confirmed. She's not pretty by Hollywood and those unforgiving camera standards, but she certainly looks like a girl we would call cute in real life. She looks fine. The cracks about her weight are even more silly. Part of it is face-roundness, but even without that she's not enormous. She looks like a lot of other women.
Is it a personality thing that just bleeds over into appearance insults? I have no knowledge what's she's like. It strikes me that the insults are delivered not so much because they are true, but because the writer thinks they will hurt. It's low. Decent people don't say these things even if they're true, and they certainly don't go looking for people to demean for their appearance. When that appearance isn't actually so objectionable, it all seems very primitive and mean.
Monday, January 02, 2017
Boys and Girls, Men and Women
We do use these terms differently for males and females. No, let me be more precise right from the start, as I am hoping to make some distinctions. We use these terms in almost the same way in some situations, while using them differently in others when referring to males and females of different ages and status. This is generally to the disadvantage of females and their perceived status, but there are some reverses.
First, people of both sexes use the term for themselves for single-sex groupings that are primarily social. Going out with the boys in your 80's is not different in tone from your sister going out with the girls in her 80's. This is especially true if these are age-mates one actually has known for years. The term signals informality, but not the least hint of disrespect.
There is a slight weakening when one uses it about others. A husband who goes out with The Boys might reference that his wife is out with The Girls at the moment and vice-versa if each uses that term themselves. But if not, there might be a hint of superiority. That flows both ways about equally, I think. This is even more true of children speaking about their parents. It is possible that there is not the least amusement or condescension when talking about Mother going out with The Girls, but more likely, there's at least a touch of it. It is very likely to be present in the comment of a granddaughter talking about her grandfather going out with The Boys.
Yet even here some other factors have quietly entered in. The age-reversal of speaking of people 40-60 years older than you as boys or girls is humorous in itself. Children don't use the words that way in other contexts. They lack the abstraction and metaphor to even understand that the reference to boys is subtly humorous to a 70-year-old and is signalling affection. This collision of meanings does not go away quickly in children, even into their 20's before they are quite comfortable with it.
This is a good spot to insert that there are going to be regional and cultural complications here. In New England people are very likely to use the term "guys," and there is no good female equivalent. "Gals" is more southern and midwestern, though we do use it some, especially in combination with guys.
At the other end are the clearly sexist references, in contexts where 25 y/o males are called "men" but 45 y/o females "girls." There aren't so many of these now, but they persist. The gap has narrowed, anyway. The complication here is that age is not the only factor directing our choices. The status of the person or group of people is usually an even stronger driver of whether they get called man or boy, woman or girl. This starts to curve back upon itself. For most of history men have had the higher status jobs. Do we ascribe greater status to them in our reference because of their maleness, their age, or their status? Cart, horse. (I would very much like to digress here and discuss what preferable metaphor I should use instead of cart/horse when there are three choices. But I refrain. Though it bothers me, and it's a wrench to leave it behind.)
Racial discussions had a steady undercurrent in the 20th C of not using "boy" or "girl" for any grown African-American, hoping that language change would bring social change. This turned into a huge factor in original feminism, as there was suddenly pressure to use clumsy terms like chairperson. The consensus at the time was that such language changes are not effective when imposed by fiat, they have to evolve naturally. I don't think that has turned out to be entirely true. I think the enforced language changes have had mixed effect, but have mostly worked in the direction their advocates wanted. There has been a cost in resentment and less-graceful, less-comfortable language, but I think the changes have indirectly changed thinking. I don't hold with that ever-popular linguistic myth that changes in language create changes in thinking, but I do believe that the artificial awareness of language has reminded people of the potentially insulting nature of some traditional phrasings. Christmas carols and other hymns are made worse, and not only because we are cutting ourselves off from our own ancestors. But not as worse as was predicted, and I believe the gains elsewhere in equality have compensated.
Though again: Cart. Horse. Perhaps the changes were going to happen anyway and all the language battles have been irritating to no effect.
In between all this is a swamp of usages that depend on competing forces and contexts. One of my patients years ago was a black man my own age. He had been an honor student at a rival highschool and I knew friends of his from a summer studies program at St. Paul's. He was bipolar with some additional, but not severe alcohol problems. He would slow down pretty quickly on medications and we would have a fine time talking. He only had 3-4 admissions in a 2 year period and then I never saw him again. I liked to thank him for going out for walks with me so that I could look like I was working when I was just hanging out with a guy. But when I was talking with his mother on the phone, I completely lost the context that she did not my age or my connection, and when I said "He's a very smart boy" there was a chill on the other end of the line. My error, not hers, though I have said the same about other men my own age.
There are male-female contexts that are equally perilous. I have read a few times of women quietly shuddering the first time a young man called them "ma'am," and developed the habit decades ago of calling every woman "miss." Thank you, miss. Not every woman comments, but when they do the response has been overwhelmingly positive, usually humorous. Yet not always. A very few times I have felt instant resentment to my word-choice. I understand it. You would think the resentment would lessen as I aged, as a large percentage of females are indeed young to me now. But I think the offense is increasing. I don't know if that is a culture change, where my use of "miss" is heard as an equivalent of "girl," or some assumption that because I am an old guy I must be a benighted individual who still adheres to ancient attitudes.
First, people of both sexes use the term for themselves for single-sex groupings that are primarily social. Going out with the boys in your 80's is not different in tone from your sister going out with the girls in her 80's. This is especially true if these are age-mates one actually has known for years. The term signals informality, but not the least hint of disrespect.
There is a slight weakening when one uses it about others. A husband who goes out with The Boys might reference that his wife is out with The Girls at the moment and vice-versa if each uses that term themselves. But if not, there might be a hint of superiority. That flows both ways about equally, I think. This is even more true of children speaking about their parents. It is possible that there is not the least amusement or condescension when talking about Mother going out with The Girls, but more likely, there's at least a touch of it. It is very likely to be present in the comment of a granddaughter talking about her grandfather going out with The Boys.
Yet even here some other factors have quietly entered in. The age-reversal of speaking of people 40-60 years older than you as boys or girls is humorous in itself. Children don't use the words that way in other contexts. They lack the abstraction and metaphor to even understand that the reference to boys is subtly humorous to a 70-year-old and is signalling affection. This collision of meanings does not go away quickly in children, even into their 20's before they are quite comfortable with it.
This is a good spot to insert that there are going to be regional and cultural complications here. In New England people are very likely to use the term "guys," and there is no good female equivalent. "Gals" is more southern and midwestern, though we do use it some, especially in combination with guys.
At the other end are the clearly sexist references, in contexts where 25 y/o males are called "men" but 45 y/o females "girls." There aren't so many of these now, but they persist. The gap has narrowed, anyway. The complication here is that age is not the only factor directing our choices. The status of the person or group of people is usually an even stronger driver of whether they get called man or boy, woman or girl. This starts to curve back upon itself. For most of history men have had the higher status jobs. Do we ascribe greater status to them in our reference because of their maleness, their age, or their status? Cart, horse. (I would very much like to digress here and discuss what preferable metaphor I should use instead of cart/horse when there are three choices. But I refrain. Though it bothers me, and it's a wrench to leave it behind.)
Racial discussions had a steady undercurrent in the 20th C of not using "boy" or "girl" for any grown African-American, hoping that language change would bring social change. This turned into a huge factor in original feminism, as there was suddenly pressure to use clumsy terms like chairperson. The consensus at the time was that such language changes are not effective when imposed by fiat, they have to evolve naturally. I don't think that has turned out to be entirely true. I think the enforced language changes have had mixed effect, but have mostly worked in the direction their advocates wanted. There has been a cost in resentment and less-graceful, less-comfortable language, but I think the changes have indirectly changed thinking. I don't hold with that ever-popular linguistic myth that changes in language create changes in thinking, but I do believe that the artificial awareness of language has reminded people of the potentially insulting nature of some traditional phrasings. Christmas carols and other hymns are made worse, and not only because we are cutting ourselves off from our own ancestors. But not as worse as was predicted, and I believe the gains elsewhere in equality have compensated.
Though again: Cart. Horse. Perhaps the changes were going to happen anyway and all the language battles have been irritating to no effect.
In between all this is a swamp of usages that depend on competing forces and contexts. One of my patients years ago was a black man my own age. He had been an honor student at a rival highschool and I knew friends of his from a summer studies program at St. Paul's. He was bipolar with some additional, but not severe alcohol problems. He would slow down pretty quickly on medications and we would have a fine time talking. He only had 3-4 admissions in a 2 year period and then I never saw him again. I liked to thank him for going out for walks with me so that I could look like I was working when I was just hanging out with a guy. But when I was talking with his mother on the phone, I completely lost the context that she did not my age or my connection, and when I said "He's a very smart boy" there was a chill on the other end of the line. My error, not hers, though I have said the same about other men my own age.
There are male-female contexts that are equally perilous. I have read a few times of women quietly shuddering the first time a young man called them "ma'am," and developed the habit decades ago of calling every woman "miss." Thank you, miss. Not every woman comments, but when they do the response has been overwhelmingly positive, usually humorous. Yet not always. A very few times I have felt instant resentment to my word-choice. I understand it. You would think the resentment would lessen as I aged, as a large percentage of females are indeed young to me now. But I think the offense is increasing. I don't know if that is a culture change, where my use of "miss" is heard as an equivalent of "girl," or some assumption that because I am an old guy I must be a benighted individual who still adheres to ancient attitudes.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Rogue One and Star Wars
Not very impressed. I don't see many movies, so perhaps there are more intricate and interesting battle sequences, but it was by far the best that I have seen. However it is attached to a plot that doesn't excite me much. The moral ambiguity is played up rather intentionally. We skip from locale to locale, character to character, in the first part of the movie, and I pretty much root only for the little girl, and then again for her later when she has grown. It is cool when Inigo Montoya falls in love with her. The droid has a personality we haven't seen before, that's nice. The blind oriental Jedi and his sidekick were over-the-top but more refreshing than not.
We went to my son's afterward and his daughter Emily wanted to watch Episode IV immediately to connect the pieces. I am surprised at how little I like any of it now, given how taken I was with the originals as they came out. Perhaps the Hero's Journey had been neutered too much in the 1970's, goodness only appearing tongue-in-cheek or in antihero form, so Luke and Leia seemed more inspiring than they do now. The weak effects and fake scientism are more obvious now. The original movies may have relied more on the novelty of the effects than I realised at the time. Luke whines. Too many plot inconsistencies and inexplicable actions.
I watched IV-VI avidly. I disliked Episode I, and understand that it is eliminated altogether in the watching of the series in the Machete Order IV, V, II, III, VI. But I'll have none of it anymore.
We went to my son's afterward and his daughter Emily wanted to watch Episode IV immediately to connect the pieces. I am surprised at how little I like any of it now, given how taken I was with the originals as they came out. Perhaps the Hero's Journey had been neutered too much in the 1970's, goodness only appearing tongue-in-cheek or in antihero form, so Luke and Leia seemed more inspiring than they do now. The weak effects and fake scientism are more obvious now. The original movies may have relied more on the novelty of the effects than I realised at the time. Luke whines. Too many plot inconsistencies and inexplicable actions.
I watched IV-VI avidly. I disliked Episode I, and understand that it is eliminated altogether in the watching of the series in the Machete Order IV, V, II, III, VI. But I'll have none of it anymore.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Economic Downturn
I am not good at predictions, so take this with a grain of
salt. Yet I'll have a go at one for 2017 anyway. Despite the recent euphoria, we are still
headed for a significant economic downturn based on debt, rent-seeking, and
gaming the system to transfer risk from the decision-makers to the citizens. I
find David Stockman and Nicholas Nassim Taleb quite persuasive on this.
Partisans will blame either Obama or Trump for any problem regardless of the
data, but we credit and blame presidents far too much for our economy. We apparently prefer symbolism and reframing. 1. Congress is twice as influential as the
POTUS 2. Political solutions take almost two years
to take effect, so we are forever late in our timing of who caused what 3. World events are a greater influence - much
greater - than president and Senate and House together.
Hope I'm wrong.
Friday, December 23, 2016
Wyman Family Christmas Letter - 2016
We
are concerned that this year's letter is not up to the entertainment level of
previous efforts. This might be due to an erosion of writing skills. More
ominously, we might be becoming more boring. Hopefully, that is temporary. We might
have a definitive answer for that Christmas 2017.
Everyone
Moves But Stays Where They Are.
David and Tracy are fixing up their house of 30
years in preparation for moving…nearby.
Jonathan and Heidi are house-hunting - nearby.
Ben’s new job is in the opposite direction on I-45,
at First Methodist in downtown Houston, but he’s still living in Spring.
Kyle was going to move big-time by going active duty
in the army, but elected to simply change jobs and stay
in Goffstown instead.
Chris is tiring of Norway, and saving his money in
order to move to…well, he doesn’t know yet. For
now, still in Tromso.
JA and Jocie bought a house, so it looks like they
may be in Nome a while.
Change/No Change. Lots of rumbling, same landscapes.
About
Those Coydogs
After learning that the New England hybrid
(coyote/wolf/dog) is not that large a specimen and that our local batch doesn't
band together, I am no longer that worried about encountering them in the woods
with no one around. I still carry the
bear spray (we have one back there somewhere), but I'm thinking ticks and other
insects are more of a danger. Especially
as they have sent me to urgent care twice.
Tracy
Graduated, David Is Being Discharged
Tracy retired at the end of the school year. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth
from both teachers and students, who spoke of her kindness, her remembering
everyone's name year over year, and her memorable storytelling and lessons.
David is retiring from the hospital January 1 - we'll see if everyone there is
quite so distressed about that. Perhaps. Tracy is already volunteering at her
granddaughters' schools and tutoring the children at New Life Home For Women
And Children. David will return to the hospital part-time after taking January
off.
A
Year of Change
After bringing Jocie and her five-year-old daughter
Aurora home at Thanksgiving last year for our approval (like we were going to
say no), John-Adrian married Jocie this year in Las Vegas. Everyone but Chris,
who has a lot more distance to cover, made it to a small but beautiful wedding
with just family and a few friends from Alaska. Only 48 hours in Sin City,
which was plenty for Tracy and David, and way more than enough for Heidi. It was... interesting. Their daughter Quinn
Elena Wyman arrived in October, perhaps the first Romanian-Filipina child in
history. Tracy got to go to Nome twice
this year, once in July and then to help out with the baby. She much prefers
too much sunshine over too little. JA
and Jocie bought a house, and here's the interesting part: John-Adrian, whose experience with farming
was brutal in Romania as a boy, swore he would never grow a vegetable. He now proudly has a garden and built a
greenhouse. We gave them precious topsoil as a wedding present.
She
Considers A Truck And Buys It. Proverbs 31
Vehicle-shopping has usually been mutual, and time
consuming. But this summer, Tracy was
retired and had more time. I did a lot of the online research, but in the end,
she did the deciding, the checking, the bargaining. For a truck that she's not ever going to
drive. Not her comfort zone, but changing circumstances take all of us to new
places.
Monday, December 19, 2016
Recounts and False Electors
This theory is backed up by good scientific evidence, of course.
Notes on Jumping To Conclusions
Printed text is supposed to be a representation of speech, but that is only half-true. In no language are the written and spoken forms identical. Some formal documents, such as proclamations or contracts, the gap between the written and spoken is large. Correspondence, memos, comic book, and playscripts come closer to everyday speech, but each has its own conventions. Even so, when we read something we assign a tone to it, because that is how our brain processes language. WTF? Might be understood angrily, or might be understood humorously, but when we read it, we assign at least some spoken tone to it.
Curiously, it is hard to go back to hear a different tone in
a text once your brain has assigned one.
Once you have read the breakup letter from your now ex-girlfriend, there
will be sentences that will be difficult to reinterpret with a different
emotional valence. This occurs even over
the phone, and because of changing environments, live conversations are not
fully exempt from it. Correcting, overcorrecting, denying, and explaining are
what young lovers seem to talk about all the time, particularly when things
start going badly.
Decades ago, when memos became common, getting the tone
right was often a problem. People felt
they were being ordered around rudely or not fully answered. Some writers
picked up the proper music for the form, inserting “pls” or “?” or
informalities to lighten the tone, but there is still ample room for offense
even now, years later. This process was
repeated as voicemail, email, texting, and social media came on. Each has its own problems. Sometimes a simple re-explanation is enough
when one seeks clarification. “When I
wrote ‘now’ it wasn’t because I thought you were slow or wouldn’t do it. It’s because when I sent you there last week
it didn’t start until afternoon.” Oh, okay fine.
Yet sometimes no amount of explanation suffices. When the whole department receives an email
there is sometimes discussion about what the tone or subtext is, and even
reasonable explanations aren’t accepted.
“I don’t buy it. I think she’s
telling us we’d better shape up or heads will roll, and she has a few heads in
mind already.” Or, the fourth paragraph of that letter from Tina doesn’t seem
to admit of any other interpretation. It says what it says, you think. Tina’s
assertion that it doesn’t mean quite what you think it means seems merely
evasive.
Those are the observations, and I’ll bet many of you can
expand on them, give better examples or exceptions, or correct my
impressions. Go for it. I am still assembling the data here. This is
hardly a novel set of ideas, but I haven’t been intentional about thinking them
through until now, so I may miss wildly.
More fascinating to me now that I have the basics down on
the page are some questions which arise.
1. 1. I am critical of others for jumping to
conclusions on tone and finding it difficult to back off, but this is something
I do as well. Are these related? Are
those who jump also those who find it hardest to jump back? Are they more likely to be irritated by
others jumping?
2.
2.
How much of our jumping to conclusions is
jumping to the wrong tone? People who
expect that others generally talk down to them certainly hear that more
frequently. I wonder if that is even
broader. When we read a news story about
a riot, are we hearing the sound of rioters’ voices, of policemen’s voices, of
neighbors’ or children’s, or even people who will probably talking for the
cameras later, way in the back of our heads and drawing conclusions from those
voices before content? Is voice the
mechanism for prejudices? (Or were voices the original foundation of our
leaping, even though they have long faded?)
3. 3.
I have said that jumping to conclusions is a
common mistake of the intelligent. They
get rewarded frequently and punished seldom.
The quick of thought jump to correct conclusions about many small things
all their lives. Arbitrarily, 90%. When
they miss, they can out-argue the other few present much of the time, even when
they are wrong. Over 50% of the time anyway.
That doesn’t leave many times out of a hundred when they get have to
swallow it. That’s been my theory until now, anyway. This leaping goes wrong as questions become
more difficult and ambiguous. The smart
person may leap correctly on only 75% of harder questions, and no better than
50% on ambiguous ones. Yet they still
automatically think of themselves as one who is quickly right 97% of the time
and act accordingly. (Insert Taleb) Perhaps that is not the mechanism, or not
all of it. Perhaps there are people
who cannot reassign tone, intelligence having little to do with it.
The moral of the story is Don't try and be funny on the internet.
Cliche
Sometimes I just want to ask some people "Is there any liberal cliche that you don't believe?"
I'm sure you know conservatives out there about which the same might be said. I can think of a very few. I'm not sure that's a fair comparison however, as conservatives seem to have strong subgroups, and an unusual number of people who are locked in to a few key points. Paleocons dislike neocons; libertarians aren't always comfortable with social conservatives; not to mention all the people who have particular hobbyhorses, like tax protestors or schismatic Catholics, who are more likely to be offshoots of the right than left. Though sometimes it's admittedly hard to tell. Conservatives almost always have some area where they dissent from not only the societal Conventional Wisdom, but the conservative CW as well.
I hope that I can remind myself to avoid cliches.
I'm sure you know conservatives out there about which the same might be said. I can think of a very few. I'm not sure that's a fair comparison however, as conservatives seem to have strong subgroups, and an unusual number of people who are locked in to a few key points. Paleocons dislike neocons; libertarians aren't always comfortable with social conservatives; not to mention all the people who have particular hobbyhorses, like tax protestors or schismatic Catholics, who are more likely to be offshoots of the right than left. Though sometimes it's admittedly hard to tell. Conservatives almost always have some area where they dissent from not only the societal Conventional Wisdom, but the conservative CW as well.
I hope that I can remind myself to avoid cliches.
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