I’m not sure I understand how cults are examples of taking an idea seriously, surely a cult is a complex of ideas—not any single one, some of which one can take seriously and others not so (in relgions there’s debates about Hyperdispensationalism and patripassianism which show that even within the complex of ideas, different ones can be taken seriously. Not to mention a la carte Catholics and reformists ) - and that the chief mechanism by which people become subsumed into cults has nothing to do with reason or logical arguments but social support (or coercion) irrespective of the recruits belief?
The feedback loop is very different then and operates not on ideas but a whole host of different mechanisms. (Feelings of belonging, feelings of personal importance, no longer a need to ‘search’ or ‘question’ existential matters). These don’t require ideas to be taken seriously at all.
Again, on the macro scale I can take seriously the idea of… I dunno… Lamarckism. But even if I seriously investigate it, give it the benefit of the doubt, I’m not really in a position to test it in the sense that it’s a macro idea and not something whcih will affect my everyday routine (like Polyphasic sleeping). Even if I later on have children and try to change my behavior to elicit certain traits in those children, the lag time between when I can confirm it is many years.
I’m not sure I understand how cults are examples of taking an idea seriously, surely a cult is a complex of ideas—not any single one, some of which one can take seriously and others not so (in relgions there’s debates about Hyperdispensationalism and patripassianism which show that even within the complex of ideas, different ones can be taken seriously. Not to mention a la carte Catholics and reformists ) - and that the chief mechanism by which people become subsumed into cults has nothing to do with reason or logical arguments but social support (or coercion) irrespective of the recruits belief?
The feedback loop is very different then and operates not on ideas but a whole host of different mechanisms. (Feelings of belonging, feelings of personal importance, no longer a need to ‘search’ or ‘question’ existential matters). These don’t require ideas to be taken seriously at all.
Again, on the macro scale I can take seriously the idea of… I dunno… Lamarckism. But even if I seriously investigate it, give it the benefit of the doubt, I’m not really in a position to test it in the sense that it’s a macro idea and not something whcih will affect my everyday routine (like Polyphasic sleeping). Even if I later on have children and try to change my behavior to elicit certain traits in those children, the lag time between when I can confirm it is many years.