A tenacious desire for the truth.
Feb. 2nd, 2004 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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j5nn5r wrote:
The man has a way with words, doesn't he? More to the point, I completely agree with him. One of those memetic personality tests that get loose among the blogs once in a while have some variation of the following question: "Would you rather be liked, or be right?"
The fact is, I'd rather be right. Damn the consequences.
This doesn't make me popular at parties. Hell, this doesn't make me popular, period. When someone says something I disagree with, I want to know why they said it, what values they have that leads them to make such a statement, and what first principles they hold dear. "First principles" matter to me, the fundamental beliefs people have without any support, the bedrock of each person's worldview.
What drives me insane is people who will hold two completely contradictory first principles, can acknowledge that they hold two contradictory first principles, and then shrug and say "So what?" Especially when the consequence of each of those principles is so grave that picking and choosing between them whimsically is metaphysical Russian roulette.
I don't do "social conversation" well. I don't get warm and fuzzy. When discussing politics, religion, or law, the objective is to get at the truth, not a comforting lie; the conversation is a steel cage deathmatch where two ideas enter and one leaves. And I'm not apologetic about a tenacious desire for the truth.
j5nn5r wrote:We should treat ideas in the cruelest, saber-toothed, hunted down while they breathe for their survival, for their last breath, in the same sometimes-futile struggle for existence that attempts to explode an impala's heart as it flees in terror from a pursuing cheetah.
The man has a way with words, doesn't he? More to the point, I completely agree with him. One of those memetic personality tests that get loose among the blogs once in a while have some variation of the following question: "Would you rather be liked, or be right?"
The fact is, I'd rather be right. Damn the consequences.
This doesn't make me popular at parties. Hell, this doesn't make me popular, period. When someone says something I disagree with, I want to know why they said it, what values they have that leads them to make such a statement, and what first principles they hold dear. "First principles" matter to me, the fundamental beliefs people have without any support, the bedrock of each person's worldview.
What drives me insane is people who will hold two completely contradictory first principles, can acknowledge that they hold two contradictory first principles, and then shrug and say "So what?" Especially when the consequence of each of those principles is so grave that picking and choosing between them whimsically is metaphysical Russian roulette.
I don't do "social conversation" well. I don't get warm and fuzzy. When discussing politics, religion, or law, the objective is to get at the truth, not a comforting lie; the conversation is a steel cage deathmatch where two ideas enter and one leaves. And I'm not apologetic about a tenacious desire for the truth.
