Bird droppings

Fascinating article on science denial. It brings up the fact that much of what we do is rationalization. If you want to convince someone of something, lead with your values, not your facts. Leading with your facts can even be counter-productive.

The article seems to hold true to me. A great example is that the people I know that brag about how logical and rational they are tend to be amongst the most irrational and least self-aware folks that I meet. Reason being, I see these people spending more time justifying their beliefs and rationalizing their feelings than they do actually considering information and changing.

I would normally take this moment to acknowledge that I do this myself, but for once, I'm not going to. I'm actually going to go against modesty and claim that I'm actually better than this. How? Why?

I present to you something I wrote a scant 12 years ago about a book I was reading in my freshman year of college for a class.

"I feel weird being the first one to post on this subject, but did anyone else notice the heavy amount of bias in this book? While I don't have the text with me at this moment, there were derogatory remarks made about conservatives, pro-life people, and creationists. While the author may disagree with these groups, isn't it improper to make such off-hand derogatory remarks?"

"I agree that the author is biased toward this belief, but I think that the belief of evolution as a product of God's creation is expressed as it should be: as an intelligent respectful belief. The things I mentioned were treated without respect."

Yes... I used to be a conservative, pro-life, creationist. I actually protested in front of abortion clinics, worked with right-to-life to promote pro-life propaganda. I actually started debates arguing that being gay wasn't right. That sex outside of marriage was wrong, and a whole bunch of other stuff like that. I went to Christian conferences where we all talked about how to convert the entire world and show them the love of Jesus.

I'm now a fairly liberal, near-communist, extremely pro-choice, agnostic/pagan.

I changed.

I submit this merely as evidence for my claim.

Now let me make another claim...

I'm extremely irrational and I rationalize my feelings all the time. I'm constantly drawn into exactly the sorts of behaviors the author describes, judging things based on how I have pre-judged them, rather than evaluating them more objectively.

So what makes me better than this?

Let me come clean. I'm not actually "better" than anyone in this. Rather, I consider it a good about me that I hold as a value being aware of the ways in which I rationalize my feelings. I am constantly spending incredible amounts of time doing self-analysis. Attempting to work through my thoughts and feelings to grow in self-awareness and self-knowledge.

I believe that it is only through measures such as these that we can even marginally overcome our human tendency to irrationality. People that boast about how they are logical and rational? Bullshit. The best and only way to be a person of reason is to admit that you *aren't.* To admit that you're an irrational fuck driven predominantly by emotions. If you want to be a rational and logical person, you have to first acknowledge the things that prevent you from being such. By recognizing and working through those things that stand in the way of rationality. Not things outside yourself, but *inside* yourself.

In my mind... this is all about being on the path to self-awareness. It is a path of humility and pain. It involves being capable of acknowledging that you're wrong. Spending time seriously questioning your own actions and beliefs. It involves being willing to change if deeply held beliefs about your self or your world are proved to be wrong, invalid, or incorrect. It involves the sacrifices and hardships associated with such change.

I feel that I do well about being rational because I know that I am prone to irrationality. I know that I'm on a never ending journey of self-betterment and improved self-awareness, but I will never be wholly rational or self-aware. I'm okay accepting that I don't know everything about the world or myself, and I'm willing to explore all of the questions about this. I am willing to question myself and change. It's obvious from the way I've lived my life.

This is a good thing about me. I'm good at this. My life, behavior, and mind are still flawed and always will be. But when I look at who I am. The person I am... I like this aspect of myself and am pleased that I am capable of doing things like admitting when I am wrong. Especially after I've had some sort of really bad fight with someone and was being really emotional and irrational. Being honestly able to come back to them and say, "I was wrong," and mean it feels really good. It makes me feel good about myself. :)

Incidentally.. it is more and more becoming a measure by which I judge who I want to be associated with. People that seem to be on a path of self-awareness somehow are people I want to spend time around. People that are convinced they already know themselves are a turn off. There's a reason why a lot of the people I associate with have a tendency towards self-analysis of various sorts. (examples include people that attend therapy, support groups, do lots of journaling, etc.)

We are all on this journey called life. We're all trying to figure it out.

I'd rather journey with folks that recognize our mutual idiocy as we stumble along this path. Not those that claim to be superior in their logic, reason, and such while they stumble right along with the rest of us.