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Keep Your Identity Small

paulgraham.com

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191–200 of 267 posts

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#191

Post by astine »

pg wrote: post #177
astine wrote: post #78

PGs thesis seems to boil down to this: If you believe in something strongly enough, it will cause you to want to defend it and you may compromise your rationality and civility as a result. For which reason we should believe in as little as possible and be as non-committal in our beliefs. I'm not sure that this is an ethically tenable position: shallowness extolled as a virtue. It's true, people who don't believe in a…

No, that wasn't what I was saying. There is a difference between having strong opinions and considering something part of your identity. You can discard an opinion if you get sufficient evidence to the contrary. It's harder to discard your identity. Moreover, identifying as something doesn't necessarily take the form of having any specific opinions. E.g. identifying as southern (in the US) may cause you to have certa…

I believe that if you hold certain opinions, strongly enough, they change who you are. If you truly believe in the value of altruism (for example) you can't help but become more altruistic. If you don't let your opinions change who you are, it's a fair question to ask, whether you even hold those opinions.

Granted, I understand that you are more concerned with making sure people keep a certain emotional distance from their opinions, so that they can maintain a level of objectivity, but I'm not sure that that is always feasible, without adopting a certain kind of passivity or relativism.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#192

Post by jacoblyles »

brianto2010 wrote: post #46

I think that the point of the article is not to "Keep Your Identity Small", but to not be a jerk about it. "Which topics engage people's identity depends on the people, not the topic." People's actions are not the result of their beliefs, but themselves. The topic of conflict, religion (one of your examples), is only the medium. To rephrase, people decide when to fight, the people's beliefs are only a push. With enou…

>I think that the point of the article is not to "Keep Your Identity Small", but to not be a jerk about it

Good point. The topics that can be discussed by a group are a function of the civility of its members. Some of the most interesting conversations I've ever had were about religion and politics with civil and mature people.

That's a high standard to ask of a group of strangers on the internet, though.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#193

Post by jacoblyles »

DaniFong wrote: post #72
silentbicycle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhists aren't immune to squabbling about ideological differences, either, of course. (But meditation helps.)

Buddhist practitioners are human too, of course, but a central practice in Buddhism is to dissolve and refute concrete belief in a persistent self and consciousness.

A central practice of Buddhists in 13th century Japan was to stab other people with swords.

Humans have wonderfully malleable minds.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#195

Post by jacoblyles »

wensing wrote: post #63
parenthesis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can argue against (a) religion with logic and facts. With logic: one can exhibit contradictions in religious doctrines. (If there are any.) With facts: for example geological/fossil evidence can be used to argue against creationism. (The best one can do in trying to put forward 'facts' is to put forward what is well supported by the available evidence, and better supported than known alternatives. So, here for ex…

With logic: one can exhibit contradictions in religious doctrines. (If there are any.) I've always found it a bad idea to pretend to be an expert in someone else's religion. Pointing out contradictions in someone else's religion 99.9% of the time is just going to make you sound very ignorant as to how people interpret the things that you find at first glance contradictory.

Christianity has had 2,000 years to iron out the obvious contradictions. I am pretty sure that the more mature faiths are consistent if you accept their axioms.

I doubt you can think of anything that Augustine and Aquinas didn't. The dudes had nothing else to do but think.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#196

Post by [deleted] »

wensing wrote: post #63
parenthesis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can argue against (a) religion with logic and facts. With logic: one can exhibit contradictions in religious doctrines. (If there are any.) With facts: for example geological/fossil evidence can be used to argue against creationism. (The best one can do in trying to put forward 'facts' is to put forward what is well supported by the available evidence, and better supported than known alternatives. So, here for ex…

With logic: one can exhibit contradictions in religious doctrines. (If there are any.) I've always found it a bad idea to pretend to be an expert in someone else's religion. Pointing out contradictions in someone else's religion 99.9% of the time is just going to make you sound very ignorant as to how people interpret the things that you find at first glance contradictory.

[deleted]

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#197

Post by mattmaroon »

neilk wrote: post #188
mattmaroon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe the small smattering of polls cited in this Wikipedia article people have actually become less religious over the last 10 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#B... They moved from 94% believing in God to 73%. Might just be the small sample or differences in questions asked though.

It's a complex question. Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting With Jesus, can be a good explainer of evangelical religion in America to the rest of us. He asserts that there have always been people who are this deeply religious in about this proportion, but the difference is that now they are a political constituency and a valuable demographic for advertisers. Perhaps it's very simply that culture isn't controlled by…

My thoughts exactly pretty much. I also think the atheist movement has become much better organized and more assertive, largely due to the net. The two probably whip each other up into a frenzy as well.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#198

Post by pgrunwald »

Interesting post Paul - you essay is exactly why today I decided to take another run at Practical Common Lisp rather than starting a blog about the Demopublicans and Republocrats (I can't tell who is who anymore...)bankrupting America as I was considering. I made that decision before I saw your essay.

I just hope there is a need for Lisp programmers after the uprising or apocalypse... ;-)

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#199

Post by pgrunwald »

pgrunwald wrote: post #198

Interesting post Paul - you essay is exactly why today I decided to take another run at Practical Common Lisp rather than starting a blog about the Demopublicans and Republocrats (I can't tell who is who anymore...)bankrupting America as I was considering. I made that decision before I saw your essay. I just hope there is a need for Lisp programmers after the uprising or apocalypse... ;-)

p.s. http://www.aegisub.net/2008/12/if-programming-languages-were...

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#200

Post by bianco »

Identity is not the problem. And identity is always strong, and has to be strong to be able to achieve great things.

We are all very vulnerable when it comes to things that are rooted deeply in our own live (read: soul). So we behave quite aggressively when someone touches these things -- especially when we have been hurt there (and who hasn't been hurt in our violent times?).

If anybody is telling me that I should keep something small, and this thing is positive by its nature (like identity), then I already know that it's wrong from the beginning, and that the real problem hasn't been discovered yet.

So, keep searching!

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