auctionguy10,
No. I hadn’t established an argument. I was going Socratic on him. Then I decided to point out a bunch of logical fallacies.
Some people react violently as soon as you present the least challenge to their world view. As soon as they are around people who think the least bit differently, they cannot handle it and fly into a rage. Any disagreement with their “goodthink” will immediately convince them that you must be a racist, homophobic, puppy killer. It’s best to try and spot these people early and avoid them, or decide whether or not to do a preemptive strike.
And yes, I have to say from experience that liberals (modern liberals, not Milton Friedman liberals) react that way more often.
Naevius nailed it. But it doesn’t apply only to liberals.
This did not seem to post the first time. Sorry if it is a double post…
At the OP concerning ‘attack’.
I think that it is important to distinguish emotion from attack.
I do not know how to argue the point correctly but is it not true that emotion is distinctly human? We have emotion because we can reason and understand. Emotion is not UN-reasonable, it is a product OF reason; a tool. The issue is not emotion in and of itself but how it is used.
Individuals have a choice in the beneficial or destructive use of emotion. That one chooses to benefit or destroy is rational choice between aggression or non-aggression whether that choice is directed in- or outward.
Is that choice conditioned or a product of reason?
I can only argue in the simplest terms that to consider human choice as conditioned contradicts humanity. Aggression as a conditioned response is a cop out; a lame or insufficient excuse in the attempt to justify aggression.
To the OP - this is his (the aggressor’s) emotional concern, not yours. Release any energy that binds his emotional aggression to your energy as something that has passed on to the winds. Salt spray is cleasing and invigoration. Benefit from your beautiful experience with your husband on the high seas. This is the energy focus and rational course to chart towards your purpose for taking the cruise. May this be a blessing to both you and your husband.
oh god, this must have been hilarious 
only people that disagree with me suffer from various irrational behaviors that may cloud their judgement (like an inability to control their emotions). after all, this is the only way i can explain people coming to different conclusions than myself.
</more serious answer..really>
If you don’t ever believe that you can be wrong about something, you never unlearn your mistakes.
I don’t get how anyone could be emotional about keynesianism. Seems pretty sterile stuff. I can see maybe capitalism or communism or some other ism or whatever… but keynes?
Maybe they its their animal spirits getting the best of them. Or because they have some unidentified emotional thing, the animal spirits seem like real things. Who knows?
This is speculation but, it could be that people who are more emotive and caring in their nature are attracted to ideas that allow them to satisfy the needs those feelings create. So they choose ideas that allow them to actually ‘see’ or easily visualise people being helped, over ideas that are more abstract. Even if those directly satisfying ideas in the long run do more harm then good.
However both sides can play the game - Libertarians are stereotyped as ‘uncaring’. I have heard us be accused of being sociopath, unsympathetic, no empathy ect.
I always wondered why libertarians were thrown into that category- it never really made sense. To me Libertarians have the caring streak- since they value everyone as an individual, generally believe in charity, and advocate the use of violence only in the name of self defense. I tend to highlight these points in any political discussions.
People are turned off when you say things like “Well if he’s poor, thats HIS problem”- the better option would be to point out the hypocrisy of the welfare supporters, by asking them why they won’t part with their riches to help the less fortunate. Its easier to do this in a city with lots of homeless all over like in NYC- for all these supporters of welfare who “care” about the poor, barely any of them help the homeless out with little more than some change they don’t want to carry.
isn’t it ironic? We actually are libertarians (I can’t speak for all of us, but you get my point) because we care about people, it’s one of the fundamentals, so to speak. The problem with liberals and other kinds of statists, that they want this “care” shift onto other people (the masters, the gods) and themselves be left alone from caring about anything. From caring about education (state provides, hooray), from caring about roads (state provides, hooray), from caring about defense (state provides, hooray), etc. etc.
It’s an addiction. Not thinking about how to do this and that and hoping that someone else figures it out.
I was discussing the New Deal with a liberal. So every time I pointed out that what he said was good ended in failure, he would appeal that even if failed, it was worth so people could feel the goverment caring about them.
haha priceless. They always deny flaws of their systems. If you debunk it and show how it isn’t gonna to work, they will say eventually it is necessary evil or just call you a fockin freetard.
I’ve been thinking about this incident, and several others, quite a lot, and your comments have been helpful. Several of you have asked for a more complete description so hoping not to bore you, here it is.
One evening we happened to sit at dinner next to Jim and Sheila (I’ll call them) from Chicage. Jim said he had been enjoying history and named a number of biographies he’d read this year. When he finished I said I’d been reading a lot of economics the last 3 years and said after Keynes and Chicago I’d found the Austrian school and loved it. During my explanation I’d said I found Keynes math impossible, and though I later learned it was meant to only describe models, that the models themselves were completely unrealistic. (I didn’t assume at that time that he’d studied any econ at school). In response to my discussion he made no sounds at all. So after that we fell pretty silent. Then he asked if we played bridge at our club a lot. (We were a group of bridge players.) I didn’t explain that I’d been too sick recently and instead said the we’d found the worldwide 24/7 bridge site and enjoyed it. He responded that they prefered to play with real people. (Now that is not an attack but it is certainly a put-down.) We said nothing else to them directly that evening.
The following evening we selected a different table, but when Jim and Sheila arrived they came directly to the table at which we were sitting. I said nothing for half the meal. The most at the table began talking about their rear view cameras in their Lexus’ cars and how great they were. My husband joined in and said our daughter’s Ford also had a rear view camera moved to the back of her horse trailer and in addition one on the inside of the trailer to enable her to observe the horses in transit, and he agreed they were marvelous. Jim then said loudly, “Does she have a shotgun in the back window?” (Now that’s an attack.) There was dead silence for a few seconds, then my husband said, “Well we do have guns, but what you see in back windows is usually some fishing rods.” Again there was dead silence. There was little more conversation, and none from us.
I think the comments in this thread can be grouped into several groups.
Some indicate we all have the same emotions. Yes, typically, but different emotions, and emotions overall, are different strengths in different people. Further, during the maturing process, some people learn how to control them more fully than others.
Some said it’s uncomfortable to hear the truth. But I think that begs the question of what the truth is. But it’s also close to saying that it’s uncomfortable to hear opposing views.
Several said that many people, one way or another, identigy personally with their opinions, beliefs, ideology, etc. I think this is closer.
__
Before the '08 election we were at another bridge convention, eating lunch with several other out-of-state couples. I asked who they were going to vote for. One woman said Clinton. She said she prefered Obama but was going to vote for Clinton because Clinton was going to win. Again I was dumbfounded and silent for a bit. I simply could not believe that there were people whose opinion was based on the opinion of the larger group. I asked her, finally, why, if she prefered Obama, she didn’t vote for him. She replied, “Oh no, she primarily wanted to vote for the winner”.
Based on these and other experiences about being part of a larger or majority group, or an in-goup, seems to make people feel safe and secure and right, correct. Therefore those who do not agree are wrong, stupid and open to attack because they endanger the safety and security of their group. “The tyranny of the majority” in spades. Mere disagreement is also unacceptable and uncomfortable and this was my ‘sin’ with Jim. My Austrian opinions did not agree with his and he was right. Therefore it was acceptable to attack us. And their mantra about respecting others is a halucination.
Now I’m thinking, Jim and his majority are basically fearful at heart, and thefore unwilling to accept responsibility for their own thoughts and actions. They feel safe and secure only as part of a large group. There’s safely in numbers, the banana that gets away from the bunch gets pealed, etc.
At least I"m forming some explanation for such behaviour, even if it’s not thecorrect one.
Well 1/5 Americans has significant mental problems. 1/4 have pseudo-diabetes. How many people are actually healthy? If they can’t even get their own lives together, I much doubt they’ll be generating some really intellectual politics.
Yea this is strong part of it too imo.
This could help explain the whole Keynes fascination—people who subscribe to the group think way of life are ready customers of Keynes and his beliefs that the “aggregate” economy waxes and wanes according to the dictates of mass psychology.
Well 1/5 Americans has significant mental problems. 1/4 have pseudo-diabetes. How many people are actually healthy? If they can’t even get their own lives together, I much doubt they’ll be generating some really intellectual politics.
Holly sh…
Again, I’d like to point out that the root problem seems to be that people have “unlearned” their ability to think critically. I place the blame for this squarely on public schooling.
Keep in mind that, along with “unlearning” critical thinking, people are indoctrinated with certain beliefs. The indoctrinations typically stay with them because they can’t examine the beliefs with a critical eye. When others who can still think critically examine the indoctrinations in such a way, they feel like they’re being personally attacked. They see the indoctrinations as being defining elements of who they are – after all, they’ve had them since childhood!
Yes, this.
And it’s not just liberals by any means. Anyone remember the frothing rage of the American right that lasted for years following 9/11? Or how about the pants-crapping paranoia of the security statists? Emotionalism is hardly a monopolity of the American political left.