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The Righteousness Fix

orionmagazine.org

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Re: The Righteousness Fix

#71

Post by tppiotrowski »

photochemsyn wrote: post #50

The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend, but it's worth remembering what actual physical addiction to a substance is: a biochemical response to the introduction of a foreign substance into the body, that results in withdrawal symptoms when said foreign substance is removed. If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved. What the autho…

Also: Consider delaying discussing, liking or re-sharing an article until you've read it.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#72

Post by ajmurmann »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #59
ajmurmann wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt makes this nicely clear. He claims that liberals mostly value fairness and harm avoidance. More conservatives in addition also value authority, ingroup and purity. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind ). To me this rings intuitively true and strongly validates your point. To me ingroup, authority and purity are at best suspect if not actively negative, so there see…

ALL people value fairness and harm avoidance. They just define 'what' or 'to what level' is fair or harmful, differently than you. It shows the bubble one lives in to think otherwise. It's very telling that you apply more favorable labels to one group and labels associated with negative outcomes to another.

Sorry, I didn't apply the labels. This is taken from the book. The book also claims that everyone values fairness and harm avoidance. The difference is that conservatives have additional things they value.

I don't think this model reflects my personal values in their entirety either, but that's not the point. The point is that there are inherent differences in what different people value and that always will be a source of conflict.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#73

Post by cousin_it »

eightysixfour wrote: post #21
cousin_it wrote: post #11

Quoted post unavailable.

> It goes hand in hand with wars for religious conversion, which also weren't a thing before Christ. This isn’t close to true. Look at the timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war > The moment memes switched over from religion to politics as primary content seems to have been the French Revolution, I can't think of a time before that when people killed each other over political ideals. Uh. What?

That timeline lists very few "religious wars" before Christ, and I think none of them were fought for religious conversion. Mostly just for territory.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#74

Post by leetcrew »

photochemsyn wrote: post #50

The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend, but it's worth remembering what actual physical addiction to a substance is: a biochemical response to the introduction of a foreign substance into the body, that results in withdrawal symptoms when said foreign substance is removed. If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved. What the autho…

> The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend, but it's worth remembering what actual physical addiction to a substance is: a biochemical response to the introduction of a foreign substance into the body, that results in withdrawal symptoms when said foreign substance is removed. If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved.

"addiction" is not equivalent to "dependence", nor does one imply the other. pain management patients are typically dependent on opioids; they would have severe withdrawal if they abruptly stopped their regimen. but they don't necessarily have the compulsive/obsessive behavior of addicts. there are also drugs people get addicted to that don't have much or any associated withdrawal symptoms. people don't get withdrawal from gambling, but they can surely be as addicted as opioid users.

I've seen several comments like this recently. addiction seems an odd thing to gatekeep. the only "requirements" for addiction are impairment of control related to particular behaviors/substances, preoccupation with said behavior/substance, and continued use/behavior despite consequences.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#75

Post by ajmurmann »

ff317 wrote: post #55
ajmurmann wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt makes this nicely clear. He claims that liberals mostly value fairness and harm avoidance. More conservatives in addition also value authority, ingroup and purity. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind ). To me this rings intuitively true and strongly validates your point. To me ingroup, authority and purity are at best suspect if not actively negative, so there see…

The labels applied to liberals here are ones with positive connotations, and the labels applied to conservatives have negative ones. One could choose other labels that make for a different obvious outcome. Most political debates are more about straw-person demonization of the other side rather than understanding each others' underlying rationales, issues, or values. Understanding might not always lead to some great c…

That's true, but besides the point I was trying to emphasize. We all have inherently different values, what they are and how we label then isn't as important. My point might have been clearer if I hadn't used myself as an example.

It's important though to be aware of your own values, as they might lead to biased thinking and problems you so we'll illustrated. While O myself have a tendency to just want to do a "major rewrite" of everything, I ineluctably know that that rarely works and that I want it due to my values but that that won't get me where I want.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#76

Post by PragmaticPulp »

photochemsyn wrote: post #50

The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend, but it's worth remembering what actual physical addiction to a substance is: a biochemical response to the introduction of a foreign substance into the body, that results in withdrawal symptoms when said foreign substance is removed. If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved. What the autho…

> The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend

It’s a subset of a common, but dishonest, technique of using false equivalence to downplay or exaggerate one thing.

In this case, the author points out similarities between drug addiction and some behaviors which are very much not in the same league as drug addiction. They may have a point that both are bad, but that does a disservice to readers who don’t really grasp just how much worse drug addiction is than, say, a pseudo-addiction to arguing with people on the internet.

> If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved.

It depends how you define withdrawal symptoms. Some people really do become anxious or angry or moody if they are deprived from their vices, whether drugs or habits. However, the addiction to drugs definitely runs deeper, given that they literally poke at the parts of your brain that inform it that you want more of something.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#77

Post by patcon »

watwut wrote: post #56
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually both sides of arguments both have truth to them and the way to objective truth exists via trying to understand why both sides believe what they do. Athiesm seems like the objective rational truth. But why do billions of people believe in an invisible man in the sky? What is the objective truth that we can learn from that?

I think that this is fundamentally untrue. Middle between truth and lie is a lie. When you are trying to find truth purely by searching middle of what people say, you are enabling bad actors and punishing honest people.

> Middle between truth and lie is a lie.

It sounds like you're perhaps assuming the "middle" is a point in rational space. But maybe "middle" is best conceived as a point in possibility space -- it's the position over which someone must travel to ever get beside you in the future.

So allowing the middle to exist as valid (even if it isn't "truth") is perhaps important if the goal is for two groups to align more. Denying the middle position as "non-truth" is only helpful if one's goals have less to do with depolarization.

Anyhow, these are just some loosely held ideas. Maybe they're wrong :)

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#78

Post by JackFr »

Funny - as I read, I wanted to disagree with the author (and I guess I do to some extent) but I can’t find fault with his conclusion.

I think the world could be a better place if we all could adopt a small sense of humility and assume the good intentions of others.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#79

Post by glial »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #60
ff317 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The labels applied to liberals here are ones with positive connotations, and the labels applied to conservatives have negative ones. One could choose other labels that make for a different obvious outcome. Most political debates are more about straw-person demonization of the other side rather than understanding each others' underlying rationales, issues, or values. Understanding might not always lead to some great c…

> The labels applied to liberals here are ones with positive connotations, and the labels applied to conservatives have negative ones. One could choose other labels that make for a different obvious outcome. I thought the exact same thing. I don't think people even realize when they're being rightous.

Connotations aren't universal. I think "pure" or even "authority" could be argued to have positive connotations in certain contexts and to certain people.

Re: The Righteousness Fix

#80

Post by JackFr »

ultramegachurch wrote: post #19
automatic6131 wrote: post #5

>But in the case of righteousness, such a belief is almost always mistaken. Most of us, whether we be timid or bold, liberal, conservative, or (especially) some version of radical, are prone to imbibing heady infusions of the stuff. Viewing ourselves as “good,” in fact we become grievously toxic, literally intoxicated. In this poisonous state of mind we are able to write off others — often literally billions of other…

I had the same reaction. I’m an endlessly skeptical and often cynical person. Whenever I see someone confidently believe they are “right”, I instinctively trust them less. This article made me realize this is just my own flavor of righteousness. That’s not to say righteousness is inherently bad. The only reason people make decisions is because they believe they’re right. I enjoyed this article but perhaps it’s overly…

My take away is that all we can hope to do is our best, and recognize that we’re all trying to do our best.

No one is the villain of their own narrative.

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