Credit & Copyright: Tom Masterson (Transient Astronomer)
"Moreover, the judgement of beauty has an absolute aspect to it; beauty seems well suited to be a companion to truth. When we are gazing at some object, we do not consider our judgement of its beauty to be a mere assertion of taste; we do not emphasize the relative aspects of our experience- the time of the day, the particular moment in cultural and historical life, our passing mood. Instead, we feel beauty to be universal, beyond the reach of time of fashion or individual whim. The experience of beauty refuses the particular even as it embraces the abstract; the instant becomes an instance of something else." - Edward Rothstein
George Church starts out almost immediately in this video above about Denialism of global warming. He mentions denialism of Nazi's killing off Jews. I'd point out that I've seen denialism of the dark ages, flat-earthers, denial of the moon landings.
He mentions a book, but doesn't say what the book's author is - the Righteous mind. George mentions scapegoating. He calls it "the blame game." These are social games people play to evade responsibility. I'd say that's similar to the evasive language I've been pointing . . . now in numerous posts since my Sophie and Silas post. I find this "blame game" similar to how slave owners use to just blame the slaves every time something went wrong. It's easier to put the blame on someone else who isn't like you. Today, it's easier to attack the A.I,, the scientists, than for people to look at themselves. This is what the Terminator movies do.
People rationalize away problems. Rationalizing sounds like being rational; but, really, this is an unfortunate language twist. Really, what's meant by rationalizing away is like political spindoctoring.
- I'll leave the links of all my previous posts about fear, evasive language, irrationality in the replies section.
Sophie and Silas - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2015/06/astro-picture-for-day-sophie-and-silas.html
ReplyDeleteirreligion! - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2016/02/astro-pictures-for-day.html
Invasion of the body snatchers - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2017/03/fearevasive-language-and-invasion-of.html
Planet of the Apes - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2017/03/fearevasive-language-planet-of-apes.html
Forbidden Planet - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-dark-side-of-force-and-forbidden.html
L.A. Confidential - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2017/10/la-confidential-scene-beware-when.html
Zen Koans - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2017/10/fear-of-knowledgeevasive-language-and.html
Homer's Odyssey! - http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2017/12/evasive-language-in-homers-odyssey.html
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ReplyDeleteAnd oh yes, my Gospel of Truth also covers fear of rationality,
ReplyDeletehttp://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2017/06/gospel-of-truth-you-know-it-polished-up.html