I love this essay. It speaks to my deep intuitions about how we huddle around groups of ideas that do not necessarily cohere naturally, and how those groupings warp us, reducing our ability to think and communicate clearly and honestly about any specific idea, that questioning one idea somehow affects faith in other ideas within the grouping. I feel echoes of one of the more powerful movie moments I've seen: In Thirteen Days, JFK says "You know, there's something immoral about abandoning your own judgement." He says it in the context of listening to all the military and intelligence experts telling him he has to bomb and invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that it's the only responsible thing to do. That quote resonates, vibrating some deep recognition within me. (I've done some minor research, and it doesn't seem like this quote came from JFK or anyone else I can find except the movie's screenwriter, but maybe it did and I wasn't able to find it.)
"Why identify as anything? Why not just be and do? Which can obviously involve being and doing in ways that are commensurate with the things you think. This isn't a nihilist philosophy of nothing really matters. Of course things matter, so think about them all you like. While also just being you."
This idea was once an anodyne platitude of what we would today call the educated elites: that we should all just be who we are and ignore labels. I can't help but feel conservative as I lament its passing (even though at the time I found it solicitous and trite).
I love this essay. It speaks to my deep intuitions about how we huddle around groups of ideas that do not necessarily cohere naturally, and how those groupings warp us, reducing our ability to think and communicate clearly and honestly about any specific idea, that questioning one idea somehow affects faith in other ideas within the grouping. I feel echoes of one of the more powerful movie moments I've seen: In Thirteen Days, JFK says "You know, there's something immoral about abandoning your own judgement." He says it in the context of listening to all the military and intelligence experts telling him he has to bomb and invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that it's the only responsible thing to do. That quote resonates, vibrating some deep recognition within me. (I've done some minor research, and it doesn't seem like this quote came from JFK or anyone else I can find except the movie's screenwriter, but maybe it did and I wasn't able to find it.)
"Why identify as anything? Why not just be and do? Which can obviously involve being and doing in ways that are commensurate with the things you think. This isn't a nihilist philosophy of nothing really matters. Of course things matter, so think about them all you like. While also just being you."
This idea was once an anodyne platitude of what we would today call the educated elites: that we should all just be who we are and ignore labels. I can't help but feel conservative as I lament its passing (even though at the time I found it solicitous and trite).