From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Aug 15 2002 - 00:10:20 MDT
Anders writes
> 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.
I don't know about the "fair weather libertarians" thinking that
the government can always do foreign policy right---no one here
is going to consciously maintain that. But those libertarians
who also believe that nations *must* have a great deal of internal
integrity (wholeness) if they are to survive will support the
policy of their government being strong against outsiders (other
nations) and weak against insiders (its own citizens).
> 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.
Yes, this is precisely how the mechanism works. As an analogy,
consider the love that a man might have for his son, and a strong
predilection to see everything that his son does in the most
favorable light possible. He "doesn't want to hear" damaging
criticism of his son's character or behavior, and his love for
his son colors everything that he hears others report. Those
who have a strong love of country find that they're in a similar
position---it hurts them very much to acknowledge that their
country is wrong or has evil tendencies.
The key point is that both the man who loves his son, and the
man who loves his country must never become so blinded by
love that they cannot face reality and cannot face the truth.
Yet those of us---like you, Anders, and like me---who have no
country to love must use our imaginations to try to feel what
it must be like (or in my case, my memory).
> 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.
So far as I've seen, it's not much of a real flame war! But yes,
most people have a lot they can improve, and if we stop to think
about it, we can acknowledge that.
As for turning off our amygdalas, or any other part of our limbic
systems, that's impossible unless we want to sacrifice a great deal
of our common sense and good judgment. The books of Antonio Damiaso
make an extremely convincing case that our emotions are *essential*
to our ability to make rational intelligent decisions. My paraphrase
of his observations: it's too difficult to get a good feel of a subject
or a problem or an area of study without the help of the emotions,
which seem to act as some sort of accounting device.
About the alleged degeneracy of the thread, Brian adds
> It needn't have [degenerated], if people could have stuck
> to facts and to addressing the issues.
Were it so simple. But surely it crosses the minds of more people
than just me that if it were so easily done, 'twould have been
done long ago.
Lee
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