I love the idea of us talking more about #MediaLiteracy in general, and critical thinking touchstones.
I used to buy into the lie of "rational" debate, but it's much more effective to remember that this isn't how humans develop most of their views - or change them. (That said, some people are more *aware* of their emotional & cultural inputs than others, which makes discussion easier.)
Easy queries today, then:
What's your favourite fallacy?
And what's the fallacy you struggle with the most?
Not a fallacy, but an attitude?
I have encountered a few people who consider fiction to be lies, and thus silly at best or evil. A variation are those who are fine with fiction that's realistic and positive, but anything horror or occult or even too imaginative is sinful or literally cursed. They have been mostly conservative religious Black folks. It's definitely a cultural thing.
@tyghebright @MLClark Emotions tell you which decisions matter to you. They are where we seek meaning.
Our heads may tell us how to accomplish something, but it is our emotions that tell us what we want to do.
Working in marketing and sales (writing business proposals), it's important to remember that we might write a 250 page proposal with all the facts... but most often, the decision's been made based on how someone feels, in the first two pages.
@tyghebright @MLClark I quit working in marketing because it turns out I cannot lie for a living, and that was largely what the job always was.
It really is about manipulating people's decisions by manipulating the emotional content and spin of ideas.
Of course that power can be used for good, but it typically isn't.
@tyghebright @MLClark (To be clear, I worked in the _bad_ kind of marketing. I'm the Devil. It's not like anyone would send me to inspect something full of happy kittens and people behaving well.
@tyghebright @MLClark I feel like someone who claims fiction is lies is either ignorant or some sort of zealot.
The first time I encountered it, I had no idea how to respond. It was a fellow student worker at the library. It was like some revelation to her, that all these books were "made up". Like, she'd previously thought they were real? It was weird. And she was the person who leaned most into fiction being "lies". But I've run into a lot of people who see it as misleading and silly, and who only read non-fiction and "inspirational" work.
@tyghebright @MLClark I've always been amazed that there are some people who can both be avid readers and not like stories.
@tyghebright @AskTheDevil @MLClark When I lived in Macon, GA, a pastor wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper saying that the kids' show Barney was evil because it forced children to conjure things from their imaginations that weren't real. And I met an English professor who had grown up in KY who as a child was only allowed to read the Bible and that was meant to be read literally. Fundamentalism has a lot to answer for.
@Notokay @tyghebright @MLClark Oh, I've met people. I used to give them ghost sickness just to put them out of my misery, but I'm more civilized now.
To be fair, most of me is _made_ of story. I am a creature of the noosphere, the logosphere. Things that hate and poison stories are kind of like a disease to beings like me.
@MLClark
As for myself, I definitely used to believe that people could be rational in ways that they just are not. We may have degrees of rationality, but are primarily motivated by emotion.
I once read a study on how people make decisions, and nearly everyone makes a decision very quickly and based on emotion... and, people who considered themselves rational were actually the fastest to make a decision before they had information. (Least likely to question their decisions.)