REALITY VERSUS FEEL GOOD

Is this where you are going with the thread, Foxfyre?

Probably. It wouldn't be a complete explanation of what we accept and what we reject. I know many of us, self included, have a tendency to hear and read what we expect. We also tend to believe what we want to believe. Facts make a difference, but they need to be clearly stated. In other words, simply stated. Unpleasant facts are easier to contradict than those we intuitively support.

I think Old Europe is making the same statement elsewhere regarding Russian expansionism.

Is this where you are going with the thread, Foxfyre?

Sure. You couldn't be more accurate. So many people believe that they won't really die exactly; they'll just go to a magical better place, and that eventually God will punish most of their enemies. The ability to remove one's hopes and fears from an analysis is not that common.

I read this today. I hope some will discuss it at face value on its own merits, even if you know the author:

Quote:
The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer— and they don't want explanations that do not give them that.


Is he right?

Quote:

I read this today. I hope some will discuss it at face value on its own merits, even if you know the author:

Quote:
The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer— and they don't want explanations that do not give them that.


Is he right?

But in many cases the issues are complex. Compared to the volume of information out there, people have very little direct experience. Almost everything we know beyond the world we touch with our fingertips comes from other sources which we must choose to trust or not. But trust is an emotional thing. So most of the information we deal with in our lives is tinged with a dose of subjective emotionalism.

I think that people misunderstand issues partly because they are complex, and partly because most of the information available to them is being distorted through an emotional lens. Many people do not know how to differentiate between logical thought and emotional thought.

That everyone in this world is crazy except for me and thee, and sometimes I worry about thee.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Sure. You couldn't be more accurate. So many people believe that they won't really die exactly; they'll just go to a magical better place, and that eventually God will punish most of their enemies. The ability to remove one's hopes and fears from an analysis is not that common.

But there is no evidence that one person can show another about that Brandon, either one way or another. So that analogy doesn't really fit within this thesis.

But take a religious figure such as say Jeremiah Wright and/or Jerry Falwell. I think most people think of both negatively. But attach either to a celebrity figure in the news, I think the thesis kicks in as to whether a person is more likely to condemn such a relationship or shrug it off as unimportant.

I think you have furthered the thesis here Ros. It isn't much of a stretch to take "available information distorted through an emotional lens' and carry it forward to a (therefore they reject) "an explanation that does not leave them emotionally satisfied."

Foxfyre wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Sure. You couldn't be more accurate. So many people believe that they won't really die exactly; they'll just go to a magical better place, and that eventually God will punish most of their enemies. The ability to remove one's hopes and fears from an analysis is not that common.

But there is no evidence that one person can show another about that Brandon, either one way or another. So that analogy doesn't really fit within this thesis.

But take a religious figure such as say Jeremiah Wright and/or Jerry Falwell. I think most people think of both negatively. But attach either to a celebrity figure in the news, I think the thesis kicks in as to whether a person is more likely to condemn such a relationship or shrug it off as unimportant.

You may not like the fact that it fits, but it fits pretty well:

"people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied"

You said it yourself, there's no evidence whatever that Heaven exists, but people don't want to face the fact that they're just a machine that's going to stop, and that's all there is, so they don't face it.

Quote:

I think you have furthered the thesis here Ros. It isn't much of a stretch to take "available information distorted through an emotional lens' and carry it forward to a (therefore they reject) "an explanation that does not leave them emotionally satisfied."

I guess my basic point was that there are a combination of things going on here, and that the person who wrote the original quote didn't do much to further the understanding of human behavior by oversimplifying things.

Quote:
The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer— and they don't want explanations that do not give them that.
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I do not think people necessarily "misunderstand" issues. I believe oftentimes one understands issues from the one perspective of his/her world view. It is just a matter of HOW one understands an issue.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Sure. You couldn't be more accurate. So many people believe that they won't really die exactly; they'll just go to a magical better place, and that eventually God will punish most of their enemies. The ability to remove one's hopes and fears from an analysis is not that common.

But there is no evidence that one person can show another about that Brandon, either one way or another. So that analogy doesn't really fit within this thesis.

But take a religious figure such as say Jeremiah Wright and/or Jerry Falwell. I think most people think of both negatively. But attach either to a celebrity figure in the news, I think the thesis kicks in as to whether a person is more likely to condemn such a relationship or shrug it off as unimportant.

You may not like the fact that it fits, but it fits pretty well:

"people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied"

You said it yourself, there's no evidence whatever that Heaven exists, but people don't want to face the fact that they're just a machine that's going to stop, and that's all there is, so they don't face it.

No, I didn't say there was no evidence. I said that you cannot produce evidence to prove or disprove it to me, nor I to you. So we are dealing with a belief or conviction for which no demonstrable proof is available, and I think that is not what the author of the initial quote intended. (I don't have a clue what religious beliefs or or non beliefs that person might hold actually.)

Now it is true that your belief may be quite emotionally unsatisfactory to me and my belief quite emotionally unsatisfactory to you, so in that regard the concept fits the thesis.

But I'm pretty sure that the author was dealing with concepts that do actually have demonstrably yes, no, or maybe answers and notes that we can resist such answers when they are emotionally unsatisfying.