I am occasionally frustrated with they way people treat others that disagree with them. As pet peeves go this one is one I’m bad at as well: critiquing your opponent as “idiots” and “nuts” instead of facing the disagreement. To some extent this is just a human reaction designed to relieve stress. Having to hold to a position that others disagree with is not something humans were designed to endure, so we lash out to relieve that stress. However, when you go beyond calling someone an idiot to relieve stress to believing they’re an idiot, you’ve crossed a line.
If you are a liberal, libertarian, conservative, communist, socialist, anarchist, or pacifist, you may be smart or you may be dumb. All of these points of view can be held in a way that is both intelligent and rational (or idiotic and illogical, but I’m ignoring that for the moment). If I only went that far, I could agree with relativists and say they are all correct. However, I believe relativists are idiots…er…sorry, are wrong. There’s more to holding a valid position than just applying a subjective point of view rationally. That is, the difference between these points of view is their particular subjective point of view. This point of view has two facets: (1) the objectivity of your perception and (2) the emphasis you place on that perception.
On some level, everyone believes in some amount of objective truth. There are of course people at the fringes who will disagree, but nearly everyone will agree that the sky is normally blue, clouds are normally white, and that walking in the rain will cause you to get wet. When we start moving into the abstract the details aren’t quite so easy to see anymore and we start to disagree on what is reality.
As an example, I overheard a former professor of mine (of a Women’s Studies course I took in college) discussing a dissertation or book or something with a colleague (and/or graduate student) at a coffee shop. In this conversation, she said something to the effect of (or at least I heard this paraphrase), “I just don’t understand why these Republicans and their little wives have such a thing against government interference with the family. They have to know it would be to their benefit. I am trying to figure out where their hatred of government comes from.” If she’d have turned around and asked me, I might have been able to answer the question, but that’s beside the point.
Here’s the point, do I think that she’s dumb just because she doesn’t know or possibly accept the answer I at 3 feet distance could have given her? No. She’s very smart and well educated. However, she does not understand my perception of reality because my perception in the abstract is incompatible with hers. I believe that humans are basically evil and will seek to take power for themselves for the purpose of subjecting and abusing others, eventually reaching the extreme of declaring themselves God on Earth that all others must bow down to worship. There’s some amount of evidence for holding to this belief.
I cannot claim to speak for her, but I believe I understand something of the perceptions of many who think like her (since I’ve known many of these people). These folks don’t think so much in terms of basic depravity or even the basic goodness of people. They think in terms of the social orders. People who are less fortunate deserve aid. Those who are more fortunate should render that aid. The purpose of government is to make sure that people who have the means to support aid give it to those who need it. This comes in the form of taxes and welfare (in general terms since both taxes and welfare programs come under many names and guises). Therefore, people who are in government seeking to expand these programs are good intentioned and are doing what is good for others (or at least trying). And also, people who are in government trying to shrink or eliminate these programs are seeking harm for their own personal gain. This is not on unintelligent or uneducated position to hold (certainly not the latter since it or something like it has held the majority opinion of many in education for decades).
Through this illustration we see both forms of perception difference. First, we both believe in basically different forms of reality. One sees humans as basically evil and the first need of evil is to make sure to stack the deck so that evil will hold evil in check. The other sees humans as either seeking to help each other render aid or seeking to deny that aid. These are very different ways of thinking about humans and it’s not even convenient to translate one kind of thinking to the other.
Second, we see that the emphasis is different. One emphasizes the examples of human selfishness throughout history and the other emphasizes the examples of human sacrifice. As an illustration, people from both of these sides may love the story of Robin Hood. One because Robin Hood chose to steal from the undeserving rich to give to the needy poor. The other because Robin Hood stands against a corrupt dictator who has implemented taxes that are too harsh on all. Or the more recent example of Wall-E. One likes the fact that a corrupt corporation seduced humanity into destroying themselves and the planet through rampant consumerism. The other because the solution is to get rid of a corrupt monopolistic government and return to traditional family values in order to return to and save that planet.
So before you think I’m an idiot conservative or that someone else is an idiot libertarian or socialist or whatever, pause. Don’t cheat yourself out of understanding your adversary and being fair with your own perceptions. You are not the only person on earth and your view is not the one correct view forever. You might be right and I might be wrong, but you won’t convince me and I won’t convince you if we each spend our time thinking the other is an idiot and working out from there.
Cheers.
