“One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans—anything except reason.” - Thomas Sowell

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[–]magnora7 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Many see reasoning as "boring", and life is supposed to be exciting according to American cultural norms.

Plus if you reason and you're proven wrong, you're just wrong, because that's how logic works. That's no fun. Especially if you're not good at it, and constantly being judged for it, like in school. You learn to not even try to be rational because you're always wrong anyway. Learned helplessness.

But if you feel something, no one can take that away from you even if it logically makes no sense. It's yours to own. And in a world where ownership is being lost by the middle and lower classes, and things are being taken often in ways that don't logically make sense to you, at least you can always have your own feelings. It's the one thing you can own that cannot be taken from you.

People relate logic to being shamed at school, and then in turn relate emotions to free-thinking and perhaps even mental freedom itself. So there is a preference for emotions over logic. Logic is seen as something a person is forced to do, where as feeling is seen as something voluntary and easy.

I think that's the cultural mindset that caused us to get to where we are, if I had to distill it down.

[–]asterias 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Many see reasoning as "boring", and life is supposed to be exciting according to American cultural norms.

I think that this is generally a Western thing, though American cultural influences might have played a role here. Somehow this has intersected with the current sentiment of living to satisfy vice and nothing else and now we ended up with this materialistic society where hard facts are not accepted well and are even perceived negatively.

Little Soldiers by Lenora Chu poses some interesting questions on this.

[–]Djfjfjdbffj 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for that link. I live in China and can confirm. It's a lack of available school and testing to organise society. Everything outside of the testing system is lost. This includes any morals not required for teaching a class at scale. AKA stuff you thought was essential for a functioning society but turns out to be fluff ethics.