From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Aug 14 2002 - 01:05:51 MDT
On Wed, Aug 14, 2002 at 02:39:38AM -0400, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> I, too, am amazed that people who strongly argue anarchist, libertarian,
> and individual causes are so willing to chuck them out the window. I
> can only assume that they never really believed or understood these
> concepts in the first place.
Humans often compartmentalize their thinking, using one set of rules in
one context and another one in another. And heightened emotional arousal
tends to make people react using the oldest rule set. So if these "fair
weather libertarians" started out by being taught that the only power
that can do foreign policy and protect the citizens is the government
which also always does it right. So when under pressure this underlying
assumption reappears, regardless of the inconsistency with other
libertarian beliefs in other contexts. Add to this the nationalist
association between oneself and one's nation (and their values). Any
criticism of the activities of the government is easily mixed up with
criticism of the nation which in turn is viewed as an attack on oneself
and one's highest values.
Enough psychoanalysis for today.
This thread is unfortunately degenerating into the usual flamewar. I
really wish we had a email header tag "Amygdala: off" making the reader
turn off his or her amygdala during reading and responding to the thread.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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