Today in Alex's ill-informed opinions

[kaberett]

I have very little patience for a lot of what crosses my radar as Movement Rationalism. This is primarily because an enormous amount of it seems completely invested in, well, behaving as though humans can meaningfully and en masse be rational actors, in ways that ignore enormous amounts of evidence about How People Actually Work, with a whole bunch of ditching pragmatics in favour of ideological purity. (This shows up A Lot in Movement Atheism specifically, the adherents of which seem very keen to denigrate religion and organised religion without any actual understanding or appreciation for the psychological and sociological role played by religion even if you are starting from a point of No Supernatural Anything.)

I also find massively off-putting the idea that seems to be taken as axiomatic that Humans Are A Good Thing and it is Objectively Important to Keep The Species Going.

The problem being, of course, that I am simultaneously interested in understanding where people are coming from (and in particular having had this entire thing framed as Rational makes me go "... but? you seem to be leaving? a lot of important information? out of your modelling? because... you don't like it?") and... deeply impatient with most of the places I come across it, so: I would be interested in your views and indeed your recommendations on the approximate topic.

Comments

[redbird]

"The survival of our species is good" is in some sense an opinion, but it seems like a better starting point than "emotions are unimportant" and/or "emotions can't be trusted," even if "emotions aren't important" didn't often turn out to mean "your emotions are unimportant, so I get to ignore what you want" or "anger and pride are the only valid emotions."

I don't think the survival of the species is an objective good, but "preserve my species" seems like a better starting point than a lot of things, including most of the also-unexamined priorities of late-stage capitalism.

Can you tell that I have Opinions too?

[hilarita]

I share some of your misgivings on the subject.
1) Humans are not axiomatically good. Right now, we seem to be hell-bent on proving ourselves axiomatically shit. I see no reason to exert myself to preserve humankind unless we improve.

2) Movement Atheism is entirely full of useless bastards that have totally failed to realise what religion is. As in, it's not just about providing explanations for Why Shit Happens (Because Gods), but also a social structure, cultural touchstoat, possibly also an organisation and/or hierarchy, a useful way to connect people and get them to pay taxes, a good way of setting up trading relations with your nearest neighbours, as well as a way of constructing an ethical wossname, and otter things as well.

Ideological purity is a common plague on movements, religions, political parties and so on in that fashion.

[worlds_of_smoke]

I wonder how much this feeds into purity politics.

[lebannen]

I also find massively off-putting the idea that seems to be taken as axiomatic that Humans Are A Good Thing and it is Objectively Important to Keep The Species Going.

(I am also approaching this subject from a point of interest in 'but whyyy do people think that they are making sense?' (see also: economics, maybe I've only ever encountered it at a very superficial level but every system of belief appears to rely on a model of universal rationality) and also a point of 'but what's so great about people anyway?).

Is it just me or do Rationalists (especially the sort likely to be Movement Atheists?) tend to have a fairly high proportion of the sort of bloke who spends a lot of time wondering why women won't sleep with him, and feels that it would be rational for them to do so in order to Keep The Species Going, specifically the part of the species containing his superior and Rational genes? I mean that leads to a lot of circular logic, but you've already got the evidence of human tendencies to non-rational/differently rational behaviours being kicked out of the model, so why not?

[mtbc]

Yeah, humans make many bad choices, do many bad things, and in large groups can be even worse than that. (Bad not just morally but also in an ill-founded, counterproductive sense.) I don't have much reason to think that whatever would emerge in replacement of humans would be much better though so I figure may as well try to find way to make the best of what we already have and half-understand.

[silveradept]

Don't have recommendations, really, but it seems like those types of people want all the benefits of organized religion, just with the supernatural bits filed off. So, maybe Calvin and Hobbes?

[wohali]

This.

Also, you might enjoy http://vhemt.org/ if you want a counter-movement to reference.

[davidgillon]

Atheism does seem to be overrun with dickheads (looking at you, Dawkins) who seem to delight in not treating religious believers with any respect. Which annoys me, because it's completely unnecessary to their point, and essentially boils down to using their beliefs as an excuse to openly bully people with different beliefs.

WRT 'Humans are a good thing' and keeping the species going being important, my position is 'humans are a thing', 'humans not being a thing' would be massively problematic for 1) us, 2) every creature dependent on us, 3) it's complicated.

[ewt]

Sortof off topic but when people have A Probably Gratuitous Whinge about organised religion and aren't in obvious distress, I do tend to say something like "My religion only looks organised from the outside, and barely that: in reality we're just muddling along like anyone else." Like, yes Christianity has been and in too many cases still is associated with significant imperial/hierarchical/colonial/kyriarchal power, and I do not mean to make light of the grievous damage that has caused. But in the meantime, it is often the case that we can barely keep the buildings watertight and the lights on.

(There is a whole sideline here about why I feel more comfortable in but also frustrated by smol churches that are having to struggle, but that's even further off-topic.)