Something that kind of bugs me is that people on every side of an issue tend to gravitate away from the truth in any argument. People come up with an idea (or they were brought up the idea or acquired it in some other means) and try to support it by any means necessary. This is in opposition to a person that actually seeks the truth–a person who carefully examines the evidence and then makes a decision; a person who is able to admit when their theory has been disproved; a person that can decide on their own without relying on popular opinion and what is accepted by others (or rather, one who takes the opinions and testimonies of others for what they’re worth).
Could you imagine if politicians (in America, at least) actually had an interest in solving our nation’s problems as opposed to being right? I think the same goes for those of us with strong political opinions. People buy into political ideas simply because they’re represented by their political party and not because they’ve done the research on both sides of the issue and then reached a conclusion. However, that’s not to say that such a person hasn’t done the research on important issues–just that they come up with a conclusion, and then do research so they can argue about it. So they can be right. Ultimately, so they can exercise superiority over other people.
It is my experience that these people argue a lot more ruthlessly and with more bias (because they’re only interested in feeling superior). However, mature people tend to argue with understanding and consideration of the opposition (both of their viewpoints and their feelings). Because they’re interested in helping their cause by getting more people to believe them. They’re not worried about being right or wrong–in fact, they are less likely to be wrong, because they did honest research. Interestingly, because these people are right more often (and because they’re usually honest) they’re found to be more credible by the general population.
Unfortunately, those people are few and far between–a sign that our bass-ackwards society is going down the crapper. This is reinforced in the increase in divisions in party-politics. This is because people are more interested in being perceived as correct by others than actually being correct. That’s why hardcore conservatives perceive liberals as being a bunch of baby-killing well-fare dependents. That’s why hardcore liberals perceive conservatives as being gun-toting money whores.
Did you know that Catholics predominately vote Democrat? And of course, if you’ve been awake for the last century, you’ll know that evangelistic Christians vote primarily Republican. Did you know that the evangelistic Christian doctrine is a LOT less contradictory than the Catholic doctrine (I’m Catholic so I can say that and be somewhat politically correct)? Yet evangelistic Christians are more harshly criticized (in pretty much every way, but I’m specifically talking about doctrinally) by liberal media than Catholics? In fact, (keep in mind that I try to tune out all kinds of biased media–both liberal and conservative) I don’t think I’ve ever heard liberal media attack Catholicism unless it was some angry blogger in his basement ranting about how ALL Christianity is terrorism (actually it’s not just bloggers, there are books on the topic as well). And I’m sure there are plenty of examples of conservative ignorance as well, but I’ll let Luke tell you all about those in a different post.
I’m honestly not trying to say that political parties are bad or piss off anyone that happens to be strongly affiliated with either party (especially since ignorance isn’t exclusive to politics–it’s also especially prominent in religions and atheism/agnosticism–I just think politics is a pretty good example). I believe that political parties are acceptable if their member-base honestly believes half the crap that they say they do. Unfortunately, most people’s political passion comes from a desire to piss off the opposing party and not an urge to find solutions.
Finally, to reinforce my position, this is one of my favorite examples (it’s actually a callout of an example) of how ignorance changes a search for a solution into petty fighting (this quote seems to “shame” atheists but I’m sure there are at least a few religious people who think similarly):
In fairness to Stein, his opponents have hardly covered themselves in glory. Evolutionary biologists and social commentators have lately taken to answering the claims of intelligent-design boosters not with clear-eyed scientific empiricism but with sneering, finger-in-the-eye atheism. Biologist P.Z. Myers, for example, tells Stein that religion ought to be seen as little more than a soothing pastime, a bit like knitting. Books such as Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion often read like pure taunting, as when Hitchens pettily and pointedly types God as lowercase god. Tautology as typography is not the stuff of deep thought.
(The above was a quote from Time Magazine that I found on this article at UncommonDescent.com)
Bottom-line: agenda-pushing is almost always a kind of ignorance. The opposite of ignorance is maturity and enlightenment (unfortunately, enlightenment is often hijacked when people claim that their position is the enlightened position, and then we get nowhere). Anyways, it’s a sad day when I’m lecturing on maturity.
Discuss.
