From Jonathan Haidt: A site that lets you "experience different viewpoints"

post by fortyeridania · 2017-05-03T16:01:08.318Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 4 comments

This is a link post for http://heterodoxacademy.org/resources/viewpoint-diversity-experience/

4 comments

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comment by MrMind · 2017-05-04T08:37:25.870Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It's interesting that they present open-mindedness as an intrinsic advantage, where often in political debate one would see openness as the move "cooperate" in a prisoner dilemma, exposing oneself to defection of the opponent.
On the other hand I totally do not understand the purpose of step 2. A bunch of quote and a video about being wrong. Maybe because it's old news from an aspiring rationalist. But is really someone deeply entrenched in a political ideology going to be convinced by two quote from Buddha?
Anyway, a Marginal Revolution comment brings up an interesting point related to the whole project:

Interesting. But one can notice that all the thinkers and opinions presented as diverse share the same basic morality. I might have overseen them, but I haven’t seen any citation of Nietzsche, or of Hindu sacred texts justifying a cast system, or even of the anti-democratic Plato of the Republic.
In fact, studying these very foreign systems of thought would not only enrich the point of view of students, but could also help close the gap between Liberals, Libertarians and Conservative (the three groups addressed by the survey) by showing them how they agree on, essentially, everything — closing that gap being the aim of the whole “viewpoint diversity” project.

Replies from: Lumifer
↑ comment by Lumifer · 2017-05-04T14:39:45.199Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

open-mindedness as an intrinsic advantage

"open-mindedness" has (at least) two meanings:

  • tolerance of ways of thinking and behaving that are alien to you
  • willingness to consider other points of view

Note that the second meaning does not imply you are going to accept or tolerate those views after consideration.

interesting point related to the whole project

That's actually a very good point. Daring to peek out of of the Overton window would be an excellent exercise.

comment by eternal_neophyte · 2017-05-03T17:34:11.338Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

While I feel I technically speaking ought to be applauding any effort to boost the tollerance of heterodox opinions in universities, my heart would not be in it. I think the issue is that many of the most vicious "political types" are the ones with the weakest knowledge about the history and provenance of their own ideas. How many ultra-feminists have ever so much as opened "The Feminine Mystique"? The Feminine Mystique is not even talked about or refferenced in discussions on Feminism I've come across. How many "Marxists" ever struggled as far as the end of the 1st chapter of Das Kapital?

It's puzzling to think about how you could persuade someone to be more open-minded about the beliefs of others when they're hardly even serious about their own.