I am sorry you see my posts as authoritarian. I see myself as simply passing on information I have learned. Isn't that what we are all doing? Do you see teachers as authoritarian? When I was a teacher I presented my ideas the same way.
I agree with a lot of what you say, I am just trying to organize the information. There are CAUSES for the differences in human behavior and scientists try to figure out what those causes are.
That is called social science. It is important to know why things happen. Trump and the Republicans are a good example of people who do not try and understand human and social behavior and they are a disaster.
Republicans have been anti intellectual for a long time and it has really hurt this country and left us at the back of the pack of other western democracies and led to our electing Trump!
A huge problem we have in this country is our anti intellectual culture. And it doesn't help when people see ideas as authoritarian or elitist. Too often in this country when people try and talk about substantive things they are accused of being elitist.
One can talk about inane things like sports all day long, but try and have a substantive conversation and people too often look at you like you are a freak.
Too many, like Trump, watch mostly sports instead of lectures on ideas. And they end up like Trump, or as Trump supporters. As mentioned, I have sat at a zillion poker tables and I know what males talk about and it is not wondering how the big bang started or how humans evolved-lol.
I don't think women are innately smarter than men, I do think in general they study harder and are generally more empathetic e.g. research shows on average a person with a female doctor lives longer than a person with a male doctor.
What I post are simply my opinions about things, science and logic, and that is hardly authoritarian.
I am simply posting my opinions which i work hard to get right. If anyone thinks I have it wrong they should question me. I am always surprised that discussion of simple ideas gets so much blow back!?
<,Message #325408 from Cautious_Optimist at 4/16/2020 9:59:39 PM
While you and I agree about the goals --
Environmental, health and social justice :-)
I think sometimes you sound quite authoritarian and black/white dualistic in your views. For example men/women. smart/stupid. Republican/Democrat etc.
I see many genders and diversity of political opinions within those many genders -- with factors like religion, race and class that can't be ignored. I see a huge political component in the construct of race leading to the sad history of prejudices.
On smart vs. dumb I feel its is impossible to measure "intelligence" without a colossal amount of bias. Everyone has a gift and some of the brightest people do not go to a university. We tend to value math and engineering (or profit) over creativity and the immeasurable generally. All have a role to play in progress.
On Republicans and Democrats - duality is in the definition (truism?) I think it is more instructive to view political differences as three dimensional - individuals have highly nuanced opinions and its NOT once-size-fits-all. Other than dogmatic extremists, most people I meet do not fit into silos. I've never met a dogmatic moderate. For me, that makes meeting new people much more fun and interesting. |
