The Uncharitable Way People Interpret Disagreement on Ukraine
Expressing a dissenting opinion on Ukraine can be difficult, as people tend to interpret it in the most uncharitable way possible. This article examines the effect of this phenomenon and why people who disagree may not express their views in public.
Philippe Lemoine
I'm a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell. I'm also a research fellow at @CSPICenterOrg. I write about stuff. "At least he's pretty smart." (@bechhof)
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I've said this before, but if you disagree with the prevailing view, you literally can't say a word on Ukraine without people interpreting you in the most uncharitable way possible and ascribing to you views that don't actually follow from what you said. 1/n
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
The effect is that people who disagree with the prevailing view will tend not to express their views in public, because it results in a massive waste of time as you constantly have to explain why you didn't say or imply what people claim and people don't like to be demonized. 2/n
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
This effect will be greater on the people who are ideologically closer to you, because they're more likely to care about being painted as immoral by you, but they're also the most likely to convince you, so by doing that you're doing epistemic harm to yourself. 3/n
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
Indeed, the result is that only people who are ideologically distant to you will speak up against the prevailing view, which will strengthen your confidence that only idiots or immoral people can disagree with it. I cannot stress enough how pernicious that phenomenon is. 4/n
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
Of course, it's *possible* to make the right decisions even in an epistemically dysfunctional intellectual environment, but it's much less likely. We've been down this road before many times, and it has led to a lot of stupid shit, but people never learn 🤷♂️ 5/n
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
This is why you should strive to be charitable even to people who oppose the prevailing view and even if you feel strongly about the issue. In fact, as I noted before, this is precisely when it's most important to be charitable. 6/n https://t.co/Mpgb6tjn2o
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
That is not to say that interpretative charity doesn't have limits, it does and I'm obviously not saying that people who oppose the prevailing view should be protected from criticism, but trust me given how they're treated at the moment the risk is not very high. 7/n
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
What I find really baffling is how blind to this phenomenon people are, even when on other topics they perceive it very clearly. I genuinely don't understand it and it frankly makes me afraid that I'm like that on other topics where I'm on the side of the majority. 8/n
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023 -
Again, this obviously doesn't prove that the prevailing view is wrong, but even if it's correct it's clearly much harder to be rationally justified in holding that view in this kind of intellectual environment and this claim at least should be totally uncontroversial. 9/9
— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) March 23, 2023