Some of my majoritarianism is in some sense a rationalization, or at least it’s retrospective. I happened to reach various conclusions, some epistemic, some moral, and learned various things that happened to line up much better with Catholic dogma than with any other system of thought. Some of my majoritarianism stems from wondering how I could have reached those conclusions earlier or more reliably, without the benefit of epistemic luck, which I’ve had a lot of. I think the policy that pops out isn’t actually majoritarianism so much as harboring a deep respect for highly evolved institutions, a la Nick Szabo. There’s also Chesterton’s idea of orthodoxy as democracy spread over time. On matters where there’s little reason to expect great advancement of the moderns over older cultures, like in spirituality or morality, it would be foolish to adopt a modern-majoritarian position that ignored the opinions of those older cultures. I don’t actually have all that much respect for the “average person”, but I do have great respect for the pious and the intellectually humble. I honestly see more rationality in the humble creationist than in the protypical yay-science boo-religion liberal.
He’s a prospective modal catholic—replace each instance of “amen” with “or so we are led to believe.”
Though I think my actually converting is getting less likely the more I think about the issue and study recent Church history.
He suspects himself of prodromal schizophrenia, due to symptoms like continuing to post here.
More due to typical negative symptoms and auditory hallucinations and so on most prominent about six months ago, among a few other reasons. But perhaps it’s more accurate to characterize myself as schizotypal.
Some of my majoritarianism is in some sense a rationalization, or at least it’s retrospective. I happened to reach various conclusions, some epistemic, some moral, and learned various things that happened to line up much better with Catholic dogma than with any other system of thought. Some of my majoritarianism stems from wondering how I could have reached those conclusions earlier or more reliably, without the benefit of epistemic luck, which I’ve had a lot of. I think the policy that pops out isn’t actually majoritarianism so much as harboring a deep respect for highly evolved institutions, a la Nick Szabo. There’s also Chesterton’s idea of orthodoxy as democracy spread over time. On matters where there’s little reason to expect great advancement of the moderns over older cultures, like in spirituality or morality, it would be foolish to adopt a modern-majoritarian position that ignored the opinions of those older cultures. I don’t actually have all that much respect for the “average person”, but I do have great respect for the pious and the intellectually humble. I honestly see more rationality in the humble creationist than in the protypical yay-science boo-religion liberal.
Though I think my actually converting is getting less likely the more I think about the issue and study recent Church history.
More due to typical negative symptoms and auditory hallucinations and so on most prominent about six months ago, among a few other reasons. But perhaps it’s more accurate to characterize myself as schizotypal.