I mentioned this on Twitter, but I think the post in a sense, doesn't quite go far enough - obviously, I agree that accusations of weakmanning can usually be dismissed. But! I think actually talking about what is "representative of a group's beliefs" is an extremely difficult topic, for reasons I hope to write more of a post on, and not …
I mentioned this on Twitter, but I think the post in a sense, doesn't quite go far enough - obviously, I agree that accusations of weakmanning can usually be dismissed. But! I think actually talking about what is "representative of a group's beliefs" is an extremely difficult topic, for reasons I hope to write more of a post on, and not because "It's difficult to tell", but because "It's probably wrong to think of a group as actually having coherent positions and beliefs, and instead they have weird superpositions of possible beliefs and social dynamics where they hold or endorse contradictory beliefs simultaneously".
There's more - you said "Normally someone holding a belief for the wrong reasons is not enough to negate that belief. " I think I actually disagree. Obviously, someone could believe "1 + 1 = 2" for the reason "Yulia Tymoshenko told me in a dream", and that's not enough to say 1 + 1 = 2. But, I would say that people's beliefs about social things, or beliefs they hold because of a community or demographic they're part of, are *not* disconnected beliefs that only mean what they say, but weird nodes of meaning and feeling that exist to support the incoherent wrong reasons they used to believe something in the first place.
Or, perhaps this is clearer: Someone might have the belief "I believe in Free Speech", which I share, but because of the fact that all ideology is social, their belief means *other* things that just them stating it doesn't. It's as though we're speaking different dialects, and that the connotations around what "believing in free speech" mean in the outgroup dialect are actually totally different. We can sense this when we find ourselves wanting to resist someone saying something totally reasonable, hard to disagree with on the surface, but we know that accepting it is a trojan horse, not because it *leads* to agreeing with other arguments, but because it *is* multiple arguments simply self contained. It's why me and some conservative could talk about our beliefs in a way that makes them sound quiet similar - because we'd be avoiding the deeper premise iceberg underneath each of our surface statements, the place where we may be speaking an entirely different language.
And I think, for a really significant amount of things, this means it can be correct to dismiss a belief because it's held for the wrong reason, if you're sensitive to the deeper connotations underneath it.
This is the kind of thing I've been thinking a lot about - very difficult to describe, but I suppose in one sense, I'm saying "Most beliefs are not just beliefs".
I mentioned this on Twitter, but I think the post in a sense, doesn't quite go far enough - obviously, I agree that accusations of weakmanning can usually be dismissed. But! I think actually talking about what is "representative of a group's beliefs" is an extremely difficult topic, for reasons I hope to write more of a post on, and not because "It's difficult to tell", but because "It's probably wrong to think of a group as actually having coherent positions and beliefs, and instead they have weird superpositions of possible beliefs and social dynamics where they hold or endorse contradictory beliefs simultaneously".
There's more - you said "Normally someone holding a belief for the wrong reasons is not enough to negate that belief. " I think I actually disagree. Obviously, someone could believe "1 + 1 = 2" for the reason "Yulia Tymoshenko told me in a dream", and that's not enough to say 1 + 1 = 2. But, I would say that people's beliefs about social things, or beliefs they hold because of a community or demographic they're part of, are *not* disconnected beliefs that only mean what they say, but weird nodes of meaning and feeling that exist to support the incoherent wrong reasons they used to believe something in the first place.
Or, perhaps this is clearer: Someone might have the belief "I believe in Free Speech", which I share, but because of the fact that all ideology is social, their belief means *other* things that just them stating it doesn't. It's as though we're speaking different dialects, and that the connotations around what "believing in free speech" mean in the outgroup dialect are actually totally different. We can sense this when we find ourselves wanting to resist someone saying something totally reasonable, hard to disagree with on the surface, but we know that accepting it is a trojan horse, not because it *leads* to agreeing with other arguments, but because it *is* multiple arguments simply self contained. It's why me and some conservative could talk about our beliefs in a way that makes them sound quiet similar - because we'd be avoiding the deeper premise iceberg underneath each of our surface statements, the place where we may be speaking an entirely different language.
And I think, for a really significant amount of things, this means it can be correct to dismiss a belief because it's held for the wrong reason, if you're sensitive to the deeper connotations underneath it.
This is the kind of thing I've been thinking a lot about - very difficult to describe, but I suppose in one sense, I'm saying "Most beliefs are not just beliefs".