eigenstate
Posts: 78 Joined: Nov. 2011
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Quote (Febble @ May 23 2013,06:18) | I think KF is a classic example of what happens when you become so convinced that there is a conspiracy against your own views that you cut yourself off from any possibility of being persuaded by a counter-view.
Once you consider that all counter-views are, a priori, not to be trusted, then you have painted yourself into a corner.
It's not unique to religious people, or to the right. I saw it happen on the left over the idea that Kerry had really won more votes than Bush, but that those votes had been stolen electronically. Anybody proposing a counter-view was a priori considered a shill for Bush, and any counter-fact a fabrication.
Once you distrust all sources that tend to infirm your own conclusion you are stuck with it, whether it's right or wrong. That's fundamentally why free speech and freedom of information are so important. Not because they are prime "human rights" (freedom from hunger and poverty are more important IMO) but because when they are undermined, knowledge becomes impossible. And knowledge is good.
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I think the problem is more severe than you've cast it here; not only are KF's views a prophylactic against being *persuaded* by alternative/opposing views, they confound attempts to even engage and understand them, persuasion notwithstanding. As a member of an extended family "clan" with a good number of fundamentalist Christians in it, I get to see the not-persuaded-no-matter-what-you-say thing up close and personally, regularly. In many of those cases, though, these relatives are quite able to understand and engage on the subject.
KF is not able to actually engage on the merits. It's a "farther gone" case than just putting oneself beyond liability to persuasion or at risk of doubting one's worldview, etc.
Sorry your site's down, I really enjoy reading TSZ, hope to find time to participate some this summer. As a web geek, I feel like I should be volunteering to help. I know there's many others here with mad skillz if you need, but if I can help you with the humdrum stuff of blog hosting/admin/maintenance, I'd be happy to help out.
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