As often happens, Richard Carrier got me started on something. It’s this idea that people vote based on personality, that is, their personality, not on reasoned thought and reflection. He sites a paper Leor Zmigrod, but I don’t have a JSTOR account, so I’m trying to find other ways to get to the meat of it. Eventually, I googled, “Calling people stupid is not critical thinking”
AI said this
You are absolutely right. Calling someone “stupid” is not an example of critical thinking, and in fact, it actively undermines it.
Here’s why:
1. Critical thinking focuses on analyzing information, not attacking individuals:
- Critical thinking involves skills like evaluating evidence, identifying assumptions, and forming logical conclusions.
- It requires engaging with ideas thoughtfully and respectfully, regardless of whether you agree or disagree.
- Labeling someone “stupid” shuts down productive dialogue and demonstrates a lack of engagement with the actual arguments being made.
2. Name-calling is a form of the ‘ad hominem’ fallacy:
- An ad hominem fallacy occurs when you attack the person making the argument rather than the argument itself.
- Instead of critically examining the reasoning or evidence presented, an ad hominem attack dismisses the argument based on personal characteristics.
- Calling someone “stupid” is a classic example of an abusive ad hominem attack, as it insults the individual instead of addressing the merits of their viewpoint.
3. Critical thinking requires open-mindedness and intellectual humility:
- True critical thinkers are willing to consider different perspectives and acknowledge that their own understanding may be incomplete.
- They approach discussions with curiosity and a desire to learn, rather than with the goal of “winning” an argument by resorting to insults.
- Calling someone “stupid” demonstrates a lack of intellectual humility and a closed-minded approach, which are the opposite of critical thinking.
In conclusion: Calling someone “stupid” is not only disrespectful and unproductive but also a clear indicator of a failure to engage in critical thinking. Instead of resorting to personal attacks, it’s important to focus on the quality of the arguments themselves and engage in respectful, evidence-based discussions.
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Here’s an interview of the author of the paper. I should have some time to listen to it soon.
Leor and Co’s ideology is feed by John Maynard Keynes where the belief is economic and social problems are the result of poor decisions of our leaders that can be avoided and resolved in future by the correct ideas of enlightened governments developed by thinkers such as he, rather than the ideology that such problems present themselves because of the structural contradictions arising from private ownership and production for profit.
Her research mentions none of that. What’s your source?
That’s one of the basis of liberal economics.
Market is perfect and and self regulating. the difficulties come from the interference of men and bad governments.
And it it the same at the individual level. All people must be free and equal in front of the market. Only the individual efforts and wise decisions make the difference.
Being more on the side of Marxism, I don’t agree with these theories.
Warning : liberal with the classical meaning, referring to economical theory.
Take me off the new user restrictions please
The system just flagged you for your recent barrage of posting, so, keeping an eye on you.
Take me off the new user restrictions please
Is this meant to be ironic??
La Zmigrod is sitting in an empty room, staring at a screen and wearing huge headphones, and asking… how radical ideology is infecting our brains??
Switch off your tech and get to know your next-door neighbours Hun -in person!!
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How do you know what I do with the rest of my life?
This comment has nothing to do with this video. It could be used for any link. It is more likely to have been auto-generated than by a real person.
Sorry, I was directing my comments at Leor Zmigrod. I just think alot of people spend too much time with tech and on the internet which is precisely how people become brainwashed.
Peace
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Still unrelated to the content itself
Not at all. The internet is where people absorb radical ideology, without the necessary skills in critical analysis. Anyone is free to put any old b/s on the net. This is especially noticeable about religion, and the more frothing forms of atheism.
The academic Dara Horn has a rather darkly amusing story about the effect of this sort of brainwashing on halfwit college students:
"I was speaking at a college in California. The student governing board had recently voted down a resolution against antisemitism. The following week the dormitories were all spraypainted with swastikas.
"I asked the person hosting me ‘Do you think this graffiti was done by students or by people from the town?’ She said ‘Oh no we feel it was students because we found the empty spraypaint cans in the recycling bin.’
“Kill the Jews but save the turtles!”
DARA HORN novelist 2022
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And the book she has written, the studies she has done, are exactly about this. You might as well say that books can corrupt minds, therefore, we should burn all the books. Some people use the internet to confirm what they already believe, others use it to challenge themselves.
You are not commenting on her content. You are making general statements about the internet because she is sitting at a desk and talking.
I listened to this one first, a ton of good stuff in it. She focuses on the health of individuals and makes some comments about society. She puts nurture above nature for influences on the adult personality, but acknowledges brain chemistry. She’s very good at recognizing the subtleties, for instance when Dawson asks if you can scan a brain and see if the person is extreme in their beliefs or flexible, she says no. That also applies to determining political affiliation, despite the common belief in Republicans being inflexible, she has controlled for that and found it’s not true. That is, a person could be Liberal but arrived at those ideas from some rigid thinking.
The question section is good. At 52minutes, someone asked about the common thoughts about education and socio-economic status as they relate to this. Despite them being used by pollsters, she says they are proxies for the personality differences and physiology she has studied, and her factors are better predictors.
The question after that one talks about how we relate to injustice. Some people see it as part of the natural order so they don’t react, while others see it as unnatural and react viscerally. She stops short of relating this to our entire evolution since that is not the kind of study she can do, or maybe no one can.
Forgot the link
Definitions here. She defines ideology as inflexibility, then discovers that people she labels ideological tend to be, wait for it, inflexible! Politics of the stupid is the title.
The quackery of measuring “ideology” through arbitrary cognitive tests. Its astounding the BS that some people promote here on a critical thinking site
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She’s not measuring ideology. She’s saying the brain is prone to ideological thinking.
Defined as
In simple terms, an ideology is a set of beliefs or principles, especially about political or economic systems, that guide how people think about and act in the world. It’s a way of understanding the world and what’s considered good or right. Examples include capitalism, communism, or religious ideologies.
And as the publisher’s blurb puts it
Ideologies offer a shortcut, providing easy answers, scripts to follow, and a sense of shared identity.
Neither of those limit the ideologies to a particular belief. So she measures rigidity and flexibility, not politics.
She thinks that ideology is just something that people have - like kidney stones. !!! 
