Philosophizin' Part II: Revenge of the Sequals
June 16th 2009 22:59
Back to our discussion (see Philosophizin' part I, on the political channel, for details).
Politics, although not inherantly good or evil, seem to have a tendancy to be petty, with little actual discussion between opposing factions. Psychological experiments have shown that when a homogenous group of people displaying a moderate level of prejudice meet to discuss their beliefs, they tend to become more prejudiced (for a complete listing of these experiments, see Exploring Psychology by David Myers, a very engaging school text). This leads to a growing rift in patterns of thought, one which is increasingly difficult to heal. This phenomenon is what some conservatives like to call "America's Culture War". Such splits are dangerous, if history has taught us anything. I'm not saying society needs to be homogenous; far from it! There is room in the world for all sorts of people. We need to be willing to listen to "the other side", at least until we are sure we have heard and can refute their arguments in the manner neccessary to convince them of their error. If we can't convince "them", then we may be missing something.
Once again, dinner interrupts me. Sorry.
Politics, although not inherantly good or evil, seem to have a tendancy to be petty, with little actual discussion between opposing factions. Psychological experiments have shown that when a homogenous group of people displaying a moderate level of prejudice meet to discuss their beliefs, they tend to become more prejudiced (for a complete listing of these experiments, see Exploring Psychology by David Myers, a very engaging school text). This leads to a growing rift in patterns of thought, one which is increasingly difficult to heal. This phenomenon is what some conservatives like to call "America's Culture War". Such splits are dangerous, if history has taught us anything. I'm not saying society needs to be homogenous; far from it! There is room in the world for all sorts of people. We need to be willing to listen to "the other side", at least until we are sure we have heard and can refute their arguments in the manner neccessary to convince them of their error. If we can't convince "them", then we may be missing something.
Once again, dinner interrupts me. Sorry.
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