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Comment by jgoosse on Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism · 2010-09-17T22:01:47.346Z · LW · GW

To be contrarian, I think you're only portraying a subset of possible outcomes. We might say the following fits:

Kantian Deontological Ethics (all men are oblidged to) > Positivist Ethics (ethics don't exist as anything more than preference) > Modern Liberal Ethics (ethics exist as preference but preferences are important survival tools that can lead us to objective ethics),

But the truth is I don't see a necessary triad in any of this because there is no original position. In my example, we would find that Kantian Dialectical Ethics consumed prior theories or objects and, in fact, I think we could say that about most of your examples. Popper might argue that a dialectic is merely consuming the prior creation (a la Popper)... the process could continue for infinity until one approaches a complete model (assuming some discipline is in the mix).

Another thought: in reality arguments occur in multiple dimensions (real decisions often evaluate economic, political, health, legal and safety outcomes).. other dimensions canthrow off the pattern of contrarianism when there are trade-offs that need to be made. In that sense the contrarian model presented is rather simple.

All of that being said, I'm a little meta-meta-contrarian too... I like the analysis you've presented because the analogy seems to work as a simple cartoon explanation for hipsters. =)