(I realize that this reveals a potential bias on my part regarding a correlation between intelligence and a liberal bent).
I wouldn’t expect an intelligent conservative to posit this:
the reason it had not been cleaned up already was a conspiracy on the part of President Obama
So I don’t see a bias if that idea shocked you (unless I share your bias). On the other hand, if you expected this:
“Oil companies shouldn’t be allowed to make a mess they can’t clean up.” or “Shouldn’t we invest in clean energy?”
simply because they were intelligent, then maybe there’s a bias there.
As for the answer to the question that you asked, I agree with TheOtherDave and knb (not that I disagree with multifoliaterose either). Recognise that there is more variety of opinion, even among people who seem intelligent, than you previously realised, and the only way to find out what people believe is to talk to them.
I wouldn’t expect an intelligent conservative to posit it either. That was the largest part of my shock; not that intelligent people were conservative, but that people I thought intelligent were spouting views that I correlated more closely with “Get your government hands off my Medicare.” than with any thoughtful conservative analysis.
That encounter (among others) has changed my beliefs about the beliefs of others, and I do talk to many people of differing views. My most strongly held belief that was shaken, though, was the belief that intelligent people who disagree can at least find sufficient common factual ground to determine the precise nature of their disagreement, if not to come to consensus. Belief-as-attire is the best explanation I’ve seen for that, but it doesn’t help me much in interacting with such believers, since by the time I’ve determined their beliefs they have determined mine, and identified me as an outsider.
Being tactfully noncommittal about your own beliefs until you’ve scoped out the lay of the land is a learnable skill.
Unfortunately, it’s actually not the most important component. In many communities, it’s the shibboleths that will trip you up… things the community tacitly expects all right-thinking people to already have a familiarity with. It’s possible to spin one’s ignorance of such things as an unfortunate personal deficit that one is eager to have corrected, and that can often overcome the barriers to entry… but it’s a lot of work.
I think you’re right, but suspect I will have more difficulty with the first than with the second. I am honestly curious about almost everything, which is a decent stand-in for spinning lack of knowledge as a personal deficit, but I am very bad at not speaking. I work at it, but I remain someone whose default setting is to babble at random people on the street. I’m better at “tactfully noncommittal” than I used to be, but I’m still pretty bad at it.
(nod) I used to be really bad at it; I’m now only mildly bad at it. As I say, it’s a learnable skill. Training the habit of substituting questions for assertions—genuine questions, ones that don’t presuppose a specific answer—has worked pretty well for me.
It sounds to me like the core of the shock might be due to an overly high estimate of the degree to which apparent intelligence is correlated with rationality (or critical thinking skills and the will to apply them). There are many apparently intelligent people who have poor critical thinking skills and little desire to apply them or to come to the truth.
I wouldn’t expect an intelligent conservative to posit this:
So I don’t see a bias if that idea shocked you (unless I share your bias). On the other hand, if you expected this:
simply because they were intelligent, then maybe there’s a bias there.
As for the answer to the question that you asked, I agree with TheOtherDave and knb (not that I disagree with multifoliaterose either). Recognise that there is more variety of opinion, even among people who seem intelligent, than you previously realised, and the only way to find out what people believe is to talk to them.
I wouldn’t expect an intelligent conservative to posit it either. That was the largest part of my shock; not that intelligent people were conservative, but that people I thought intelligent were spouting views that I correlated more closely with “Get your government hands off my Medicare.” than with any thoughtful conservative analysis.
That encounter (among others) has changed my beliefs about the beliefs of others, and I do talk to many people of differing views. My most strongly held belief that was shaken, though, was the belief that intelligent people who disagree can at least find sufficient common factual ground to determine the precise nature of their disagreement, if not to come to consensus. Belief-as-attire is the best explanation I’ve seen for that, but it doesn’t help me much in interacting with such believers, since by the time I’ve determined their beliefs they have determined mine, and identified me as an outsider.
Being tactfully noncommittal about your own beliefs until you’ve scoped out the lay of the land is a learnable skill.
Unfortunately, it’s actually not the most important component. In many communities, it’s the shibboleths that will trip you up… things the community tacitly expects all right-thinking people to already have a familiarity with. It’s possible to spin one’s ignorance of such things as an unfortunate personal deficit that one is eager to have corrected, and that can often overcome the barriers to entry… but it’s a lot of work.
I think you’re right, but suspect I will have more difficulty with the first than with the second. I am honestly curious about almost everything, which is a decent stand-in for spinning lack of knowledge as a personal deficit, but I am very bad at not speaking. I work at it, but I remain someone whose default setting is to babble at random people on the street. I’m better at “tactfully noncommittal” than I used to be, but I’m still pretty bad at it.
(nod) I used to be really bad at it; I’m now only mildly bad at it. As I say, it’s a learnable skill. Training the habit of substituting questions for assertions—genuine questions, ones that don’t presuppose a specific answer—has worked pretty well for me.
It sounds to me like the core of the shock might be due to an overly high estimate of the degree to which apparent intelligence is correlated with rationality (or critical thinking skills and the will to apply them). There are many apparently intelligent people who have poor critical thinking skills and little desire to apply them or to come to the truth.