Everyone likes to believe they’re thinking independently. That they’ve arrived at their beliefs through logic, self-honesty, and some kind of epistemic discipline. But here’s the problem - that belief itself is suspiciously comforting. So how can you tell it’s true?
What if your worldview just happens to align neatly with your temperament, your social environment, or whatever gives you emotional relief? What if your reasoning is just post-hoc justification for instincts you already wanted to follow? That’s what scares me - not being wrong, but being convinced I’m right for reasons that are more about mood than method.
It reminds me of how people think they’d intervene in a violent situation - noble in theory, but until it happens, it’s all just talk. So I’m asking: what’s your actual evidence that you think the way you think you do? Not in terms of the content of your beliefs, but the process behind them. What makes you confident you’re reasoning - not just rationalizing?
Short answer? I don’t.
It does. The things is, though - I happen to prominently share basic human values, such as kindness, mutual aid, cooperation, and care, all of which are normally seen as “good”.
My social environment is very median, and I do understand the regular person as I am one. I know the struggles people in my group face, and am open-minded about struggles of others outside it.
I feel relieved in the world where people are good to each other, and if that’s not what we strive for, then humanity has abandoned the very core of its own morals. When such basic things are betrayed, it’s always a sign of corruption, an attempt to justify greed, or selfishness, or something else.
Then comes the critical examination of ideas that claim to lead us there, whether they could be contradictory and leave us with a very different place than we intended, either because not enough thinking went into original concept, or because it was a con to begin with, clearly serving the corrupt interest of the few.