Sensemaking in the IDW

Q: Is it ok for a left leaning person to be here?

A: The point of the IDW for me and many others is that it truly has no use for those labels. In my view, we are mostly here because

1. We find that rationality is missing from public debate.

2. We find that civility is missing from public debate.

3. We find that non-politicized language is becoming rarer in public debate.

Aside from the obvious necessity of what Haidt calls 'disconfirmation' that keeps groupthink at bay, the IDW encourages individual independent thought that stands on its own without appeals to populist sentiment. That's a difficult proposition when this country has fallen prey to the seductions of popularity at every level of our democratic processes.

I would go further to say, as an engineer, sometimes the best thing for democracy is less democracy and more objective expertise. While everything can be up for debate doesn't mean it should be. We shouldn't disable sensemaking by combatting every conflicting assertion. I think a lot of people come here out of a sense of frustration that logic is dismissed in general.

A good principle that works for me is "I don't care who is right. I care what is right." That means I don't care what kind of person you call yourself if you speak the truth. And I see that most Americans have been conditioned to say who they are rather than what they do. Without offense, you can see the problem I have with accepting what kind of person you are. "Left leaning" is a who you are, not a what you do, because the what you do depends on your political fidelity to your identity and sense of belonging to a political tribe. In other words the very idea of tribal affiliation defies the purpose of intellectual freedom. That's not what saves us from this moment.

Some people can't help but to consider the IDW as a political tribe. That is not what it is. It is a refuge of rationality in a storm of idiocy. Or at least that's what it aims to be.