I remember a cartoon where a lot of different animals were gathered, amongst them a giraffe, a monkey and a goldfish in a bowl. A human opposit of them said “To make it fair everybody gets the same task: climb that tree.” Of course, all animals except the monkey were quite unhappy.
That is the situation of the “no critizism” rule. While it might sound fair and reasonable, the truth is, that this rule favours the cultists. And that is what Charlie seems to be, a cultist who wishes to recrute the weakly minded. So your emotions might have been quite a rational response.
I guess, the important question is, what do you do about your emotions? Will you continue to be angry whenever you think about him, or do you only feel that anger when someone close to you is threatened to fall for him like your boyfriend seemed to? If it is the former, then you’re might be right, your emotions seem to be social signaling, but if it’s the latter then it’s probably a good rational immune reaction and it might be better to cultivate it.
Wow...your comment definitely made me look at the situation in a different light! I’m going to try and respond, but bear in mind that if I’m ignorant of someone’s motivations, I tend to ascribe them the best possible reasons for their actions.
First off, I had not thought of Charlie as a cult leader. You’re right, the ‘non-criticism’ rule would favour cultists more than skeptics, but the immediate feeling I got was that Charlie wanted to encourage more viewpoints to be talked about, not less. I ended up talking rather a lot about physics, that being the topic of the meetup, and no one criticized the fact that my points implied I was an atheist. (I didn’t directly state I was an atheist because I felt like it would be a conversation-stopper and pointless, and maybe the real reason was that I didn’t want to be excluded, but I don’t think I would have been.)
I’m 100% not worried about my boyfriend being drawn into any kind of cult. He has far greater independence of thought than I do, in that he really doesn’t try to impress people or fit in by believing the same thing as them, and would be offended if anyone tried to ask it of him. He’s not per se a skeptic, but his temperament is so skeptical that he can’t help it a little.
But yeah...it does bother me that Charlie is saying these things to a group of new immigrants who are doubtless feeling a little bit shy and wanting to impress. Vulnerable, in other words. He explicitly says that everyone’s welcome no matter where they come from and what they believe, and that no one criticizes anyone else, but implicitly, just by being the leader of the group and a good public speaker, he’s going to root the ideas of ghosts and dead grandmothers in other dimensions into their minds. Not that I think he intends to do anything by implanting those ideas...he just believes them himself, AFAICT. But when I do the thought experiment, it wouldn’t annoy me nearly as much if he were a low-status weird guy talking about the same beliefs, or if he were in the same position and believed the same things but kept them to himself.
Not that I think he intends to do anything by implanting those ideas...he just believes them himself, AFAICT
Inducing others to hold my beliefs is doing something. And in particular, when they are beliefs that don’t derive from those people’s observations of the world, but rather from their belief in my reports about the world, one of the things it is doing is increasing my status within the group.
Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with using newcomers to a group to bolster my own group status, but it’s not nothing.
That is the situation of the “no criticism” rule. While it might sound fair and reasonable, the truth is, that this rule favours the cultists.
To be fair, I think you’re judging this rule based on what effect it would have on rationalists. However, rationalists are few and far between, and moreover since most groups of people who meet each other do so for other reasons than having a “rationality Meetup”, it would be reasonable to expect essentially no rationalists in the typical meetup. Population density and self-selection bias are usually both working against us here.
So, what effect does the “no criticism” rule have among non-rationalists? At least in my experience, it prevents identity politics from destroying the group. It isn’t hard to use one overarching goal to bring together people with polar opposite views in politics, religion, aesthetics, childrearing, dietary choices, business, etc. As a practical matter, you can’t forbid people from saying what they believe—the beliefs propogate into all manner of unexpected places—and you wouldn’t want to anyway. To prevent pointless internecine conflict, though, a “no criticism” rule is often highly effective.
What about among discussion groups where pointless internecine conflict is, in fact, the point? On many occasions I’ve joined philosophy Meetups lacking a “no criticism” rule. It turns out that this simply compounds loony ideas with loony criticism.
I remember a cartoon where a lot of different animals were gathered, amongst them a giraffe, a monkey and a goldfish in a bowl. A human opposit of them said “To make it fair everybody gets the same task: climb that tree.” Of course, all animals except the monkey were quite unhappy.
That is the situation of the “no critizism” rule. While it might sound fair and reasonable, the truth is, that this rule favours the cultists. And that is what Charlie seems to be, a cultist who wishes to recrute the weakly minded. So your emotions might have been quite a rational response.
I guess, the important question is, what do you do about your emotions? Will you continue to be angry whenever you think about him, or do you only feel that anger when someone close to you is threatened to fall for him like your boyfriend seemed to? If it is the former, then you’re might be right, your emotions seem to be social signaling, but if it’s the latter then it’s probably a good rational immune reaction and it might be better to cultivate it.
Wow...your comment definitely made me look at the situation in a different light! I’m going to try and respond, but bear in mind that if I’m ignorant of someone’s motivations, I tend to ascribe them the best possible reasons for their actions.
First off, I had not thought of Charlie as a cult leader. You’re right, the ‘non-criticism’ rule would favour cultists more than skeptics, but the immediate feeling I got was that Charlie wanted to encourage more viewpoints to be talked about, not less. I ended up talking rather a lot about physics, that being the topic of the meetup, and no one criticized the fact that my points implied I was an atheist. (I didn’t directly state I was an atheist because I felt like it would be a conversation-stopper and pointless, and maybe the real reason was that I didn’t want to be excluded, but I don’t think I would have been.)
I’m 100% not worried about my boyfriend being drawn into any kind of cult. He has far greater independence of thought than I do, in that he really doesn’t try to impress people or fit in by believing the same thing as them, and would be offended if anyone tried to ask it of him. He’s not per se a skeptic, but his temperament is so skeptical that he can’t help it a little.
But yeah...it does bother me that Charlie is saying these things to a group of new immigrants who are doubtless feeling a little bit shy and wanting to impress. Vulnerable, in other words. He explicitly says that everyone’s welcome no matter where they come from and what they believe, and that no one criticizes anyone else, but implicitly, just by being the leader of the group and a good public speaker, he’s going to root the ideas of ghosts and dead grandmothers in other dimensions into their minds. Not that I think he intends to do anything by implanting those ideas...he just believes them himself, AFAICT. But when I do the thought experiment, it wouldn’t annoy me nearly as much if he were a low-status weird guy talking about the same beliefs, or if he were in the same position and believed the same things but kept them to himself.
Inducing others to hold my beliefs is doing something.
And in particular, when they are beliefs that don’t derive from those people’s observations of the world, but rather from their belief in my reports about the world, one of the things it is doing is increasing my status within the group.
Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with using newcomers to a group to bolster my own group status, but it’s not nothing.
To be fair, I think you’re judging this rule based on what effect it would have on rationalists. However, rationalists are few and far between, and moreover since most groups of people who meet each other do so for other reasons than having a “rationality Meetup”, it would be reasonable to expect essentially no rationalists in the typical meetup. Population density and self-selection bias are usually both working against us here.
So, what effect does the “no criticism” rule have among non-rationalists? At least in my experience, it prevents identity politics from destroying the group. It isn’t hard to use one overarching goal to bring together people with polar opposite views in politics, religion, aesthetics, childrearing, dietary choices, business, etc. As a practical matter, you can’t forbid people from saying what they believe—the beliefs propogate into all manner of unexpected places—and you wouldn’t want to anyway. To prevent pointless internecine conflict, though, a “no criticism” rule is often highly effective.
What about among discussion groups where pointless internecine conflict is, in fact, the point? On many occasions I’ve joined philosophy Meetups lacking a “no criticism” rule. It turns out that this simply compounds loony ideas with loony criticism.