While religion and politics may seem to us like good things to schism over, why are they any more important (in terms of schisming, i.e. \u201cwhy schism at all?\u201d) than type of computer or baseball team? I think it\u2019s fairly obvious that we can say this: the content is almost beside the point. The point is that humans split based on commonalities, and ideas seems to be the prime commonality to split over. Group-dynamics are psychology. Group-splitting is innate to us, an irresistible proclivity. Might as well ask dogs to not like fire hydrants\u2026<\/p>\n
Enter here: virtue ethics. And it\u2019s all to do with the group, again. Virtues and vices have a bad tendency to be set by whatever group happens to have them. Person approaches group. Group sets standards for membership. Walk like this, say this, graffiti this. Now you are a loyal one of us. Go write a mean comment on that out-group blog! (PZ Myers\u2019s community does this all the time.) Hurt others and you are really one of us. Just like a gang.<\/p>\n
This is the pitiable state of humanity where this is considered normal, even as we are surrounded by the riches of technology and thousands of years of culture and science. We can talk to anyone in the world and we choose to be rude to them. What small hearts we have. We can seek truth in conversation with others and instead we see who can land the best verbal punch. Thus we gain the approval of our in-group and validate our beliefs against those of our out-groups. Little dopamine receptors get stimulated in our brains and we get all happy. How embarrassing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Although I agree with Green\u2019s conclusions that we do wrong to try to win praise from our team by brutalizing the opponent, I still think there\u2019s a qualitative difference between groups that coalesce around, say, devotion to a particular piece of Harry Potter fanfiction<\/a>, and those that are rooted in a teleological claim. \u00a0Although I may think you\u2019re totally missing out if you don\u2019t share my reading preferences, that\u2019s a long sight from the terrible privation ascribed to the people you diverge from on the big questions. \u00a0Teleological beliefs make more urgent claims and these claims are assumed to be relevant to out-group people. \u00a0In the case of simple preference or arbitrary affiliation, the stakes are not anywhere near as high.<\/p>\nIf ideas have consequences, and we\u2019re trying to seek truth, some amount of schisming is going to be\u00a0necessary\u00a0to better define the ideas we\u2019re trying to defend and explore. \u00a0Think about how the wishy-washy catch-all of \u201cSpirituality\u201d can make it impossible to have any conversation about it. \u00a0The group marching under that standard has an ideology too diffuse to be answerable or substantive.<\/p>\n
For me, the goal is not to ignore consequential division in the name of tolerance. \u00a0I want to find a way to confront opponents without totally reducing them to enemies. \u00a0The goal is to become a happy warrior for truth, not for our team. \u00a0Learning to not let compassion for the other side quench a fierce commitment to truth and to not allow frustration and contempt to blind us to any data that do support the other side.<\/p>\n
Any suggestions on how?<\/p>\n
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