Everyone believes what they want to in a post-fact world

The fallacy of mood affiliation by Tyler Cowen on March 31, 2011 at 8:43 am in Philosophy Permalink Recently I wrote:

It seems to me that people are first choosing a mood or attitude, and then finding the disparate views which match to that mood and, to themselves, justifying those views by the mood.  I call this the “fallacy of mood affiliation,” and it is one of the most underreported fallacies in human reasoning.  (In the context of economic growth debates, the underlying mood is often “optimism” or “pessimism” per se and then a bunch of ought-to-be-independent views fall out from the chosen mood.)

Here are some further examples:

1. People who strongly desire to refute those who predicted the world would run out of innovations in 1899 and thus who associate proponents of a growth slowdown with that far more extreme view.  There’s simply an urgent feeling that any “pessimistic” view needs to be countered.

2. People who see a lot of net environmental progress (air and water are cleaner, for instance) and thus dismiss or downgrade well-grounded accounts of particular environmental problems.  There’s simply an urgent feeling that any “pessimistic” view needs to be countered.

3. People who see a political war against the interests of the poor and thus who are reluctant to present or digest analyses which blame some of the problems of the poor on…the poor themselves. (Try bringing up “predatory borrowing” in any discussion of “predatory lending” and see what happens.)   There’s simply an urgent feeling that any negative or pessimistic or undeserving view of the poor needs to be countered.

4. People who see raising or lowering the relative status of Republicans (or some other group) as the main purpose of analysis, and thus who judge the dispassionate analysis of others, or for that matter the partisan analysis of others, by this standard.  There’s simply an urgent feeling that any positive or optimistic or deserving view of the Republicans needs to be countered.

In the blogosphere, the fallacy of mood affiliation is common.

Let’s not count the poor from Kafila by Shivam Vij

As someone recently commented on a Kafila post, we live in a post-fact world where there are no facts. Everyone believes what they want to. So depending on your ideology, poverty in India has reduced or increased. But such is the debate on poverty that the definition of poverty itself is subject to debate. How poor do you have to be, so that the government will say you are poor? This poverty debate has been on around the same lines for about ten years now, with the economic left arguing that India isn’t shining, and the economic centre-right arguing that millions of people have been lifted out of poverty by India’s super-successful economic growth. The debate will go on forever, there will be no certainty in numbers, and perhaps there shouldn’t be – perhaps counting the poor cheapens the issue of poverty.

Only Spiritual Idiots heal people’s body, not Saints! by D Kapoor

In Spiritual circles, it is very easy to talk of “nicey-nicey” stuff which looks appealing but is Spiritual nonsense.  Just add in some buzzwords and say something that helps one feel good and placated and you have a best-seller and winner on your hand.  But if Spiritual journey and your longing to know is more than Entertainment for you, then you need to look at everything carefully and ruthlessly. It is very common amongst the religious to look for “Healing” as a sign of the “greatness” of a Saint… Quite honestly, this obsession with healing by Sages has completely screwed up the entire Spiritual World… But there is an entire industry out there for healing.  And it passes off as Spiritual work.

Comment on Circumconscient by Sandesh from Comments for Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother by Sandesh Dear Sandeep,

Is it possible for curing much serious illnesses (like cancer, aids etc) by puryfying the vital body? As illustrated above i believe that there would be a reason behind every illness. So if we are able to nullify the real cause behind that illness, then there is no reason for a particular illness to exist in the body. Allopathic method of treatment involves treating the effect of an illness (Say-A) but the real reason of an illness may go unchecked and this reason could manifest again as another illness (Say B).

http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/satprem/adventure_of_consciousness_e.htm#010

Reference to the descent of force i am wondering whether this descent would make the vital body & circumconcient more resistant against any attacks.(Also if attacked this shakti can flush out unwanted energies from the body-May be this could happen in the later stages of descent not in the initial phase )

Comment posted by Govind Re: What Jugal told me about Record of Yoga 20 March 2012

The gospel of "find thy hid soul", the call of the inner divine, is the one thing that answers to the need for self-fulfillment and self-affirmation that so markedly characterizes the Western personality. The twin obstacles of the vital's attraction towards siddhis and the idolatry of the lower physical mental nature (that PH and his supporters stand for) were, in the scheme of things, perhaps bound to come up and needed to be tackled by the Mother in Her pressure to liberate the Psychic even here.