[ExI] Tolerance

[Damien Broderick]

On 12/7/2009 6:14 PM, Brent Neal wrote:

> I don't think we accomplish much by assuming people are stupid when they
> are, to our minds, mistaken.

The principle of tolerance might be based on the assumption that we 
don't accomplish much by assuming people are *mistaken* when they are, 
to our minds, mistaken--that is, tolerance is a negative epistemological 
thesis. "Repressive tolerance", as Herbert Marcuse dubbed it, is the 
ideologically motivated assertion that any proposition at all is as 
likely to be true as any other, as in the "equal time" notion of the msm 
exemplified by "balance" between (usually) two propositions, even when 
one is utterly grotesque or ludicrous ("Was the moon landing a hoax?--a 
balanced look at the controversy").

In practical terms, one must surely regard many mistaken ideas as 
entirely ridiculous (thetan infestation via Xenu bombing, say), and then 
one casts about for an explanation of how people could devote their 
lives and wealth to such preposterous ideas. It is understandable that 
one might conclude that such people, *in regard to that part of their 
thinking at any rate*, are indeed operationally stupid. But one doesn't 
get far in changing their opinions by baldly announcing this 
diagnosis--which is often wrong anyway. My dear wife tells me that 
Jesuits are obviously stupid (if they are not dissembling rogues), 
because they apparently believe such incredible bullshit. I try to 
convince her that, to the contrary, most Jesuits are smart as whips, and 
apply their keen minds to this bullshit with powerful intellects and 
expertise.

John Clark is convinced that I believe extremely stupid propositions 
about the reality of psi phenomena, but he doesn't think I'm stupid. I 
don't think he's stupid for denying what the evidence insists is the 
case, just pigheaded and lazy for not looking at it.

Damien Broderick