On psychologizing: the problem is I think you have to do that when you find out you have a connotation problem on your hand, not a denotation problem. You see some guy giving PUA (pick-up artist) advice. The denotation, actually actionable ideas how to find a girlfriend may or may not work, you don’t know. But you see really problematic connotations behind the words, the usage of words, they tend towards hostility, enmity felt towards women, tend towards a cultish mindset, tend towards a manipulating guys through their sense of pride and so on. But it is the connotation, not the denotation. You can debate denotations rationally but connotations not, and yet it seems the main problems always from connotations.
I must admit the only solution for the connotation problem I found and it really does not work today is that you must have a community with a shared sense of connotations and people may disagree only in the denotations. So they can argue about ideas rationally but they must feel emotionally the same way about the major concepts and simply exclude everybody else.
For example I am one of those atheists who can argue with religious folks because my denotation about the Catholic church is that it is about worshipping something that does not exist, but my general connotation / feeling is that it is a nicely moderate civilizing force led by quite logical folks. So my attitude is so positive that they don’t get defensive and angry and we can stick to the rational, denotational level. But of course today you cannot arrange things so that only those atheists who don’t hate religion should debate it. So it does not really work.
I don’t see any way to keep people denotationally rational but to enforce connotational harmony somehow which is essentially policing feelings. I know some folks here who would restore capital punishment. To have a productive debate we must first ensure we connotationally feel the same, such as, we feel life is relative sacred but not absolutely so, or something along those lines, before we can engage it productively.
I seriously don’t know how else to deal with connotational problems.
On psychologizing: the problem is I think you have to do that when you find out you have a connotation problem on your hand, not a denotation problem. You see some guy giving PUA (pick-up artist) advice. The denotation, actually actionable ideas how to find a girlfriend may or may not work, you don’t know. But you see really problematic connotations behind the words, the usage of words, they tend towards hostility, enmity felt towards women, tend towards a cultish mindset, tend towards a manipulating guys through their sense of pride and so on. But it is the connotation, not the denotation. You can debate denotations rationally but connotations not, and yet it seems the main problems always from connotations.
I must admit the only solution for the connotation problem I found and it really does not work today is that you must have a community with a shared sense of connotations and people may disagree only in the denotations. So they can argue about ideas rationally but they must feel emotionally the same way about the major concepts and simply exclude everybody else.
For example I am one of those atheists who can argue with religious folks because my denotation about the Catholic church is that it is about worshipping something that does not exist, but my general connotation / feeling is that it is a nicely moderate civilizing force led by quite logical folks. So my attitude is so positive that they don’t get defensive and angry and we can stick to the rational, denotational level. But of course today you cannot arrange things so that only those atheists who don’t hate religion should debate it. So it does not really work.
I don’t see any way to keep people denotationally rational but to enforce connotational harmony somehow which is essentially policing feelings. I know some folks here who would restore capital punishment. To have a productive debate we must first ensure we connotationally feel the same, such as, we feel life is relative sacred but not absolutely so, or something along those lines, before we can engage it productively.
I seriously don’t know how else to deal with connotational problems.