tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3977100651062963844.post653626439988255604..comments2024-03-28T12:31:13.509-05:00Comments on Throne, Altar, Liberty: How the Gnostics Destroyed CivilizationGerry T. Nealhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12137796641408373451noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3977100651062963844.post-20734895218411748442015-02-09T22:06:15.556-06:002015-02-09T22:06:15.556-06:00According to Talhelm, political conservatives in t...According to Talhelm, political conservatives in the United States, generally, and East Asians, particularly, are intuitive or "holistic" thinkers, while Westerners, generally, and American liberals, in particular, are more analytical thinkers.<br /><br />The so-called "culture war," he said, is an accurate if dramatic way to state that there are clear cultural differences in the thought processes of liberals and conservatives.<br /><br />"On psychological tests, Westerners tend to view scenes, explain behavior and categorize objects analytically," Talhelm said. "But the vast majority of people around the world -- about 85 percent -- more often think intuitively -- what psychologists call holistic thought, and we found that's how conservative Americans tend to think."<br /><br />Holistic thought more often uses intention and the perception of whole objects or situations, rather than breaking them down to their parts -- such as having a general feeling about a situation involving intuition or tact.<br /><br />Analytic thinking styles tend to look at the parts of a situation, and how they work together toward the whole. This involves "slicing up the world and analyzing objects individually, divorced from context," Talhelm said.<br /><br />http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150122114428.htm<br /><br />I thought this might interest you. I think that ideology is just an obsessive focus on one or a few simple concepts to the exclusion of ALL ELSE. Typically, liberals obsess about achieving their one major goal and are indifferent to collateral or unintended consquences. If the state will acquire yet more power or if liberty is diminished, this is simply ignored if it is even perceived. There must be a federal right to abortion and if it takes a debasement of the Constitution to achieve it, well, then who cares. I have never heard my liberal friends speak of the Constitution. Not one. It simply isn't in their thinking. But abortion, welfare, income redistribution, global warming, environmentalism are in a big way.<br /><br />This all with reference to the earlier point regarding ever more hyper-focused research on less and less.Col. B. Bunnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09590364016079745156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3977100651062963844.post-11459864796734886842015-01-29T18:44:38.231-06:002015-01-29T18:44:38.231-06:00Thanks for your thoughtful response.
No I'm n...Thanks for your thoughtful response.<br /><br />No I'm not familiar with Richard Weaver and we are straying off into <em>terra incognita</em> with this reckless talk about nominalism and positivism. :-)<br /><br />I'll have to look at those two things more without expressing an opinion just now. (After I finish my courses on electronics, mathematics, and calculus!) <br /><br />The obsessive focus on narrow areas of sub-disciplines and related aimless data accumulation seems like a mirror image of the bizarre focus on language. You've seen the "<a href="http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/" rel="nofollow">postmodern language </a> generator I'm sure. E.g.:<br /><br />"Thus, if neosemanticist semiotic theory holds, we have to choose between cultural nihilism and neosemiotic materialist theory. Lacan uses the term ‘neosemanticist semiotic theory’ to denote not dematerialism, as Derrida would have it, but postdematerialism." <br /><br />It's funny but, then, it's not. People who write the genuine article are not concerned with accuracy, logic, rigor, testing, or sense. So, a breakdown of the understanding of the scientific method can occur with even intelligent people. Whether of good will or not is hard to say, though the departure is so great . . . .<br /><br />No question that moral agency sets the social "sciences" apart. Behavioralism has its uses but the explanations for behavior have to be offered with reservations. I remember reading a clever blog article about school districts where one couple was studiously anti-racists or, at least, worked at being color blind, but when they had a kid they sold their house and moved to a community that had "good schools." The author checked the demographics and found that the community was something like 98% white. But I digress.<br /><br />PS – I think you will find this interesting: "<a href="http://thefederalist.com/2015/01/29/evangelicalisms-worldwide-explosion-may-strengthen-progressivism/" rel="nofollow">Evangelicalism’s Worldwide Explosion May Strengthen Progressivism</a>," by Peter Burfeind.<br />Col. B. Bunnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09590364016079745156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3977100651062963844.post-63833860838412542692015-01-16T10:47:02.962-06:002015-01-16T10:47:02.962-06:00Thank you Col. B. Bunny. I think that there is a ...Thank you Col. B. Bunny. I think that there is a difference in nuance between what Voegelin meant by "theory" and the working hypothesis in the scientific method. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the work of Richard M. Weaver, but in his book "Ideas Have Consequences" he too offered a critique of the breakdown of Western thought and one of his criticisms he makes of nominalism and positivism is that they broke down an integrated system of looking at reality as a whole and replaced it with a number of disciplines each of which accumulated vast amounts of data about a fragment of what used to be a whole. As the disciplines grew more specialized the fragmentation increased. Of course, within each discipline, theories in the sense of scientific hypotheses were used, but I think what Voegelin had in mind by theory, was the kind of integrated approach that treats reality as a whole that Weaver spoke about. I'll have to re-read the relevant pages to be sure this is what he meant, but it would make sense as there were a number of parallels between the two books' critiques of positivism and modern thought.<br /><br />One problem I would see with trying to make the social sciences fit the template of say chemistry or physics is that the social sciences deal with human beings who are moral agents with minds and souls and wills. To try and explain and predict their behaviour in the way a chemist can explain and predict the result of combining certain elements in certain conditions would require us to be merely highly advanced machines. If we are not merely that, then attempts to explain and predict our behaviour as if we were will be bound to go wrong, possibly with very unpleasant consequences if there are also attempts to condition and change that behaviour.Gerry T. Nealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12137796641408373451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3977100651062963844.post-77905030932160731092015-01-15T17:41:50.757-06:002015-01-15T17:41:50.757-06:00As always, most interesting, especially for the in...As always, most interesting, especially for the insight you continue to provide into the thinking of the Puritans.<br /><br />One question. If positivism has the intention of making "the social sciences ‘scientific’ through the use of methods which as closely as possible resemble the methods employed in sciences of the external world,” is it correct to say that it represents an "elevation of method over theory" or "method over relevance"?<br /><br />The scientific method doesn't proceed to data collection without there being a theoretical proposition in need of disproof. Nor do scientists collect data irrespective of its relevance to their purpose. Method proceeds in view of theory and data collection is within the outlines of project at hand.<br /><br />I don't see anything wrong with trying to employ in the "social sciences" the methods of science in exploring the material world. The danger is that scientific method might be used to claim more for the conclusion than is warranted or to cloak the "social scientist" with an unwarranted patina of authority.Col. B. Bunnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09590364016079745156noreply@blogger.com