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Heresy

paulgraham.com

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Re: Heresy

#361

Post by trash99 »

malnourish wrote: post #256
lowkey_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are getting called out for denying the existence of people who aren't like them. I see this a lot and it makes no sense to me. What does it mean to deny the existence of someone? To pretend they do not exist? People who make that comment usually seem to be falling into a trap of viewing a disagreement or difference in opinion as something much more extreme.

Take this statement: "all trans people are misgendering themselves and _should_ conform to the gender assigned to them based on the sexual organs they had at birth". This effectively denies the existence of people who believe or desire to be their non-assigned gender. The statement tells trans people that in the eyes of the speaker, their personal identity is a fabrication.

No post body was provided.

Re: Heresy

#362

Post by woodruffw »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #243

Great essay as always, however the deliberate withholding of examples is irritating me. I'm not looking for witches to burn, but names or examples of "grumpy, censorious people in a group — the ones who are always first to complain when something violates the current rules of propriety." would be helpful to identify the described mentality.

Vaguely gesticulating at your stated enemy instead of identifying them is a time-honored rhetorical technique: it allows the reader to insert their individual grievances into the shape of the argument rather than reflecting on whether their grievances are actually well-founded.

Edit: And to be absolutely clear: it's a lame technique. It works because it's emotive, not because it reveals any particular amount of truth.

Re: Heresy

#363

Post by noelsusman »

>There are aggressively conventional-minded people on both the right and the left. The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left is simply because the new unifying ideology happened to come from the left. The next one might come from the right. Imagine what that would be like.

The implication here is there is currently no significant wave of intolerance coming from the right, which is baffling to say the least.

I see this a lot in modern free speech advocates. They seem to almost exclusively focus on censored speech that goes against liberal dogma and completely ignore similar behavior from the right. Is it just because liberals have more cultural power than conservatives?

Re: Heresy

#364

Post by lekevicius »

tptacek wrote: post #332

I've deliberately avoided mentioning any specific heresies here No, you didn't.

Can you quote any he mentioned? I can't find any specific. Or, do you mean just general existence of "anti-vaxx" is a specific example?

Re: Heresy

#365

Post by tlogan »

skellington wrote: post #327
tlogan wrote: post #271

Can somebody list “heresies” which we are not allowed to say but they are ok? I cannot find a single one. But maybe I’m missing something.

You must be pretty asleep to not be aware of the hot button topics now. How about statements like: - people should have body autonomy when it comes to vaccines - the US does not owe entry to illegal immigrants - there are two biological genders - the US is not structurally racist - cops don't kill blacks at higher rates than whites - young children shouldn't be taught controversial topics (sex, etc.) - math is not ra…

- people should have body autonomy when it comes to vaccines

Not heresy.

- the US does not owe entry to illegal immigrants

Not heresy.

- there are two biological genders

Bad - this sentence is telling part of population should just kill themself since they don’t exist.

- the US is not structurally racist

No heresy. This sentence needs to be context.

- cops don't kill blacks at higher rates than whites

Not sure. The sentence needs be in context.

- young children shouldn't be taught controversial topics (sex, etc.)

Bad. This sentence is implicitly claiming than being gay is not ok (being gay makes you “ controversial “ human - better not exist).

- math is not racist

Bad. This sentence implicitly claims that girls are stupid. (Mistake I read this is as “math is not sexist”)

As you can see in you cannot say that certan type of people are less of a human. But I that think WW2 kinda solved this.

Re: Heresy

#366

Post by nonrandomstring »

Beltalowda wrote: post #155

I think this is an important part: "Fortunately in western countries the suppression of heresies is nothing like as bad as it used to be. Though the window of opinions you can express publicly has narrowed in the last decade, it's still much wider than it was a few hundred years ago. The problem is the derivative. Up till about 1985 the window had been growing ever wider. Anyone looking into the future in 1985 would…

The speed with which society is moving is also a factor.

Tacitus or Voltaire are variously credited with the notion that in any epoch, to know who is in power, ask who you may not criticise.

I think Graham is slightly missing the point about our period. It's not that heresy is on the up, so much as it's on the move. Outrage is a homeless beast. We're in an Orwellian age where it changes with the seasons, so what is heresy in one place and time is a tepid platitude only next door the following week.

Also it is no longer power that metes out punishment, but the fanboi acolytes or loyal minor apparatchik. It would have once been "dangerous" (at least in a fairly pedestrian job) to say that Google is a crappy old search engine, Facebook is a threat to democracy and Microsoft are corrupt criminals. Today it's practically de rigueur to cock a snook at jaded icons. It's practically a credential.

Re: Heresy

#367

Post by trash99 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #243

Great essay as always, however the deliberate withholding of examples is irritating me. I'm not looking for witches to burn, but names or examples of "grumpy, censorious people in a group — the ones who are always first to complain when something violates the current rules of propriety." would be helpful to identify the described mentality.

No post body was provided.

Re: Heresy

#368

Post by noelsusman »

leephillips wrote: post #341
tlogan wrote: post #271

Can somebody list “heresies” which we are not allowed to say but they are ok? I cannot find a single one. But maybe I’m missing something.

(1) The concept of an inherent “gender” makes no biological nor logical sense. You can’t have been born in the “wrong body.” (2) Socrates was mostly right about democracy. (3) Seriously violent criminals, once convicted, should never bet let out of prison. (4) The US (and all nations) should have essentially open borders. (5) The US should make health insurance illegal and provide health care as a function of governm…

The only one of these that could fit Graham's definition of a heresy is the first one, and even then it would depend on what exactly you mean.

Re: Heresy

#369

Post by sanderjd »

> The reason the current wave of intolerance comes from the left is simply because the new unifying ideology happened to come from the left.

This is an (aggressively?) conventional idea that I have an (I guess) heretical opinion about. I'm somewhat persuaded that there is a recent outbreak of intolerance for differing ideas and ideals (though I suspect every generation expresses a version of this opinion as they get older and become out of step with cultural evolution), but I don't think it has any particular political valence. I have to watch my tongue just as much around "aggressive conventionalists" on either side, they just have different conventions. It's just as disqualifying as the x-isms from the left, if you care about staying in the good graces of convention on the right, to express opinions like "immigrants are good", "the 2020 US presidential election ran smoothly and had a clear victor who was duly inaugurated", "gender is a social construct", "people who are attracted to others of the same sex are normal and should have the same rights as anyone else", etc. etc.

Honestly I think this whole thing is as simple as, people just have different views and lots of people of all stripes don't want to agree to disagree with the people they spend most of their time with.

Re: Heresy

#370

Post by throwoutway »

anonu wrote: post #43

The missing component not mentioned in PGs essay is the acceleration and amplification of cancel culture via the Internet. Even a decade ago, tribes were geographically local. Today, your tribe is literally global. It knows no borders. Thus social media amplifies the effect of cancel culture and "same think".

> Today, your tribe is literally global.

What's worse is tribes also have strongarms inside corporations. If the Internet mob wants to get someone fired for saying something, they just reach out to the local chapter of strongarms and make demands/walkouts against the company until they get their way.

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