💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › replies › 2469 captured on 2022-03-01 at 18:00:28. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I think the assumption that poor people are less educated/idiots as you say is rooted in the assumptions of meritocracy. People are expected to fall where their abilities can take them. Given the real differences in IQ (a relatively effective predictor of financial success) amongst people, there is probably some truth to this. However, especially nowadays, many people are poor for reasons out of their control. So yes, it is rather frustrating in that position.
But if you are an orginization that services, say, 20 thousand people of a certain group (poor, in this instance), how do you determine if this is true or not for each customer to avoid condescending or overwhelming?
As we 'zoom out' in discussions of social issues, I think stereotypes become more useful. They are, after all, aggregate observations of people over time (usually exaggerated). Whereas I would not make assumptions about someone at an individual level, a large organization may assume that "poor people are stupid" to be more effective and avoid problems later. If stupidity is a trait that only applies to 65% of the poor populace, than it may act as an effective heuristic.
It's usually a combination of factors, external and self-inflicted, that lead people to failure. Of course, no group is a monolith and there are always exceptions.
-----
On the topic of science, "science" isn't supposed to be a body of beliefs about the world accepted by faith (what "trust the science" implies), rather, it's a self-correcting tool for observing nature that fits into other worldviews. Science itself hasn't 'failed,' but a worldview claiming its name has. --(If you're referring to the mask/covid debate in this statement, most right-wingers aren't distrusting the scientific method itself, just the people that distribute its supposed findings to the masses. The idea that lobbyists and politicians can fund & use scientific institutions to push a preconceived agenda is not inconceivable, even if you disagree that it's happening).
-----
On the topic of religion, it doesn't really matter if it is beneficial to society or not. Of course I believe that Chrisitianity's rules of self-denial, striving for virtue, etc. create order and happy lives, but none of that matters if it isn't true. Both sides of these debates on whether we should keep religion around because it benefits society miss the fundamental issue that religions make claims of universal truth, and that they only really matter IF they are true. If they're not, than what is to be said? You can emulate their symptoms using other methods.
Thanks for the thoughts!
I understand where the stereotype comes from, definitely, and think your guesses are correct. I just don't think that should be our default; sort of a variation of "assume good faith." But where I object is where there's an assumption that poverty, and even a lower-than-average IQ, correlate to a lack of curiosity and thus a lack of knowledge. I just dislike treating people as inferior in some way without specific evidence that they need the extra "help" (i.e. need a simpler vocabulary to be used in our communications with them).
For science: I didn't mean to suggest that science has failed in its stated purpose, but I think too often it gets used for things it's not intended to do, like a replacement for the spiritual part of our lives. This doesn't have to be religious, but we have to recognize that there's plenty that science can't tell us about the world and/or our places in it. The tl;dr is that people need to read some Hume. But in slightly more words, science can only do what science can do, and we forget the uncertainty involved to our peril. And that's without getting into things like the replication crisis striking some disciplines, or the very real politicization of the whole thing. As for trustworthiness, I'm generally inclined to trust scientists' motives, but sometimes things happen that make me wonder. Cf. that recent instance of a vape manufacturer buying up an entire issue of a scientific journal. The profit motive corrupts once again.
For religion: I don't think the ultimate truth is actually the issue. For now, at least, we won't know the truth of our beliefs until we join the choir invisible, but that doesn't mean its effects on our lives aren't very real. It ties into my discussion of science in that there are aspects of ourselves that we need religion or spirituality to nurture, even if that just means going for a hike and enjoying unspoiled nature without over-analyzing it from time to time. I'm very much a "big tent" person when it comes to religious beliefs, and I'm not convinced we're all called by the Divine to believe the same thing (or at the least, we're given the freedom to interpret our experiences differently).