I'm working on my masters right now, unfortunately online. The professor proposed the following question this week, and out of the entire class my answer was the the only different one. So naturally, I'm curious what other people think and just how far off base I am. I'll let a few of you toss out answers, and then tell you what the class said.

Dialectic:Arriving at a truth through exchange of logical arguments or questions

Is it healthy or unhealthy to have continuously evolving view of truths about the world based upon an ability to think dialectically? Why? Why not?

If that were false, then we'd all still think Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real.

I would say a balance needs to be struck.
Too much view changing can be paralyzing.
Not enough can be stagnating.
The balance is dependant upon the individual's needs and goals.

We live in a society that considers some basic truths about the world and society to be self-evident. Those fundemental thoughts make up the basis for our society, and should be the bedrock of any system built on top of it. They should never change.
"Do no harm to others, unless they are bent on doing you harm."
"All people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of property."

Those kinds of things. Now, aside from that, our country was also built on the idea that a free exchange of ideas is required for a healthy society- the bad ideas will be exposed as such through open communication. This is where your Dialectic bit comes in.

So, out me down for "Dialectic conversation is useful up to a point, but there also must be a foundation of ideas that is very hard to change." Yes, there is a problem when someone's bedrock ideals say that racism is good (or something to that effect), and it will be very hard to change their mind. However, as a society, it is our goal to make sure that untruths like that don't get propogated into the next generation of young minds.

I don't think healthy or unhealthy even enters the equation, that's been the de facto method of socialization and enculturation since our distant early mammalian ancestors started developing social communication.

On a more realistic level, if learning new information or having fundamental assumptions challenged does not have the potential to change your mind, what the hell are you even using it for?

If that were false, then we'd all still think Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real.

Dahell is that supposed to mean San, they are real!!!!

Omg, of all the lunacy we've argued about over the years!!!

;P

Fandros

Thanks for the scattered answers, not nearly as exciting as I'd hoped. Nearly the entire class answered that it was unhealthy to change your view of truths, which seemed so wrong to me that I was stunned. Except every one of them said the same thing. Every single one!

Forget the Easter Bunny, what about concepts of slavery, or racism, or the world being round, or anything else that evolves as we age from 3 to 70. It's just odd - the answer seems so obvious to me, that your views of truth MUST change, whether you want them to or not.

Dear Kanyli:

As Malse mentioned, humans are a social species, and thus groupthink (and thus communication aimed at achieving consensus of worldview) is a basic part of our makeup. It is, of course, a double edged sword, as various ideas that seem deranged from an empirical standpoint (or from the vantage of history) tend to get promulgated, as well as the more useful ones, with results ranging from the merely odd, to the aberrant/nonadaptive, to the genocidal - especially if a particularly persuasive person or group is involved.

Science, of course, could not function as a discipline (with any impact, anyway) without a strong dialectic component; hypotheses have to come from *somewhere*, as do peer-review and challenges to the same. Indeed, it is from the dialogue that ensues when the evidence begins not to fit the prevailing theory on a scientific or other concept that eventually results in its revision.

The most dangerous trend I see with regard to over reliance on the dialectic as a means of shaping world view is the erroneous assumption that all ideas are equally valid - this has become an issue in our 'self-esteem' based American school curriculum as well as in places such as science where it is particularly dangerous. One has only to witness the arguments that the creationists/'intelligent design' folks make with regard to evolution (which resonate with the desire to be egalitarian with regard to the validity of and respect for people's ideas in American culture) to see this in runaway fashion. Despite mountains of evidence that evolution by means of natural selection *is* the engine that drives everything that happens in biology, the prevailing response you get from the ID folks is that 'it's just a theory' (which itself contains a fundamental misunderstanding of what a theory is), and that other theories are equally valid and should be given equal time.

There are plenty of other, less traditional/prosaic and more disturbing examples I can think of, but that is a very 'textbook' example :).
On the other hand, if only a little *more* dialectic based exchange had been going on in the current administration (they'd been willing to listen to *anyone*, we might have avoided sending ourselves to hell in a handbasket numerous times over over the last 7 years...

Regards,
Nydia

And, I see that you posted as I was writing! I do hope you get my reply before too long, and that it was at least marginally useful to you.

Regards,
Nydia

Of course it's helpful! I just posted looking for some interesting conversation, not looking for homework help per say.The most dangerous trend I see with regard to over reliance on the dialectic as a means of shaping world view is the erroneous assumption that all ideas are equally valid - this has become an issue in our 'self-esteem' based American school curriculum as well as in places such as science where it is particularly dangerous.This actually came up in the class after I threw out my answer. It's a foundation of the postmodern world, and scary as all get up. It usually goes something along the lines of, "Well, who am I to tell soandso they're wrong?" I'll tell you exactly who I am, dangit!

My short thought was that any 'truth' that's worth believing in should stand up to a little questioning. I'm a little afraid of the folks who refuse to have their beliefs questioned, and won't even enter a discourse. If what you believe is true, what do you have to lose? If your truth stands up to the test, then it should be even stronger by the end, assuming it's true at all. I'd say it's not only unheathly, but downright dangerous not to enter into a dialogue of some sort. Nydia said it first - just look at our present ruling powers.

I was just shocked by the overwhelming response from my classmates. Like I said, universally they responded with the word 'unhealthy' as it pertained to changing views of truth through a dialectic process.

Look, proof that no thread on ARo can avoid becoming about the American political system! :D

'If that were false, then we'd all still think Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real.'

- Wait.. what are you saying?

This was neither a quick or interesting questin :)

This was neither a quick or interesting questinWait a couple of years, your opinion will change.