Respect

[Rami Rustom]

What do people mean when they say "He has no respect"?

I think they mean that the person in question (usually a child)
doesn't respect his parents. But what's really going on is that he
respects the truth, and that brings him squarely in conflict with his
parents, who don't respect the truth. When a parent lies to his child
-- with the intent of "winning" an argument or of protecting his
self-image -- he disrespects the truth, and more importantly he
disrespects his child. So how is it that the parent expects his child
to respect him after first having disrespecting his child? Why does
the parent not think about *mutual* respect? How can the child respect
his parent if the parent disrespects the truth? The only way for that
to happen is for the child to also disrespect the truth.

For you parents out there that do this, before you lie to your child,
consider this: How can the child respect his parent if the parent
disrespects the truth? The only way for that to happen is for the
child to also disrespect the truth, to become a liar.

...

The same can be said about traditions. Respect for traditions is not
automatic, just like respect for parents is not automatic. Traditions
deserve respect if and only if they are true/good/moral. People
deserve respect if and only if they respect the truth.

-- Rami Rustom
http://ramirustom.blogspot.com

[Elliot Temple]

On Apr 22, 2013, at 6:16 AM, Rami Rustom <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The same can be said about traditions. Respect for traditions is not
> automatic, just like respect for parents is not automatic. Traditions
> deserve respect if and only if they are true/good/moral. People
> deserve respect if and only if they respect the truth.

But we only have fallible knowledge about whether traditions are good, true or moral. Sometimes, not much of that. Sometimes a tradition is complex and 90% inexplicit, and you haven't studied it, so it's hard to evaluate.

The criteria you give for judging traditions have limited usefulness in the hard cases, and can be dangerous when misused. The French Revolutionaries thought certain traditions violated reason, rejected them, and then tried to destroy the world. They used your criteria, combined with their superficial philosophical judgment, and the result was disaster.

One thing to keep in mind when evaluating traditions is *problems*. Why are you evaluating it in the first place? What problems do you want to solve? How can you make minor modifications to get your problems solved? If you can make minor modifications to address the problems you're concerned with, then why do anything more? There could be a reason in some cases but there also might not be; one should consider the question.

And if one is going to reject or disrespect a tradition as a whole, rather than modify a little part, one better consider: what is to replace it? What is the better set of ideas I *already have* that will replace *all* important aspects of the tradition? And why should it be replaced instead of incrementally reformed, anyway?


Sometimes you might have a situation where you know some ways a tradition is false, you know some problems, and you are tempted to reject or disrespect the tradition. But you don't have a full alternative. So you'd better not!

Not all traditions are important. Some could be thrown out and no harm done. But the important ones can be really important. For example, law and order and peaceful, civilized society works partly due to tradition. It's not just the cops. The cops are not involved in most interactions. It's not just the threat of the cops either or something superficial like that. There are old ideas about how to live in society with important content that helps people live peacefully. Some of this stuff is understood philosophically, and some is subtle stuff people take for granted and couldn't explain, but it still works a lot better than random ideas.


See also Burke, Godwin and http://fallibleideas.com/tradition

-- Elliot Temple
http://beginningofinfinity.com/

[Rami Rustom]

On Apr 22, 2013 1:22 PM, "Elliot Temple" <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
>
> On Apr 22, 2013, at 6:16 AM, Rami Rustom <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The same can be said about traditions. Respect for traditions is not
> > automatic, just like respect for parents is not automatic. Traditions
> > deserve respect if and only if they are true/good/moral. People
> > deserve respect if and only if they respect the truth.
>
> But we only have fallible knowledge about whether traditions are good, true or moral. Sometimes, not much of that. Sometimes a tradition is complex and 90% inexplicit, and you haven't studied it, so it's hard to evaluate.

WRT to a parent, if he tells his child about a tradition, and the
child asks critical questions, and the parent doesn't know how to
answer them, that doesn't mean that the tradition isn't good -- it
could be that the parent doesn't know how to explain it (i.e. its
inexplicit).

> The criteria you give for judging traditions have limited usefulness in the hard cases, and can be dangerous when misused. The French Revolutionaries thought certain traditions violated reason, rejected them, and then tried to destroy the world. They used your criteria, combined with their superficial philosophical judgment, and the result was disaster.

They also believed in the tradition of resorting to violence when
their attempts at persuasion failed.

> One thing to keep in mind when evaluating traditions is *problems*. Why are you evaluating it in the first place? What problems do you want to solve? How can you make minor modifications to get your problems solved? If you can make minor modifications to address the problems you're concerned with, then why do anything more? There could be a reason in some cases but there also might not be; one should consider the question.
>
> And if one is going to reject or disrespect a tradition as a whole, rather than modify a little part, one better consider: what is to replace it? What is the better set of ideas I *already have* that will replace *all* important aspects of the tradition? And why should it be replaced instead of incrementally reformed, anyway?

The only reason to replace it is if its *all* wrong, and most
traditions are not *all* wrong -- they are only partly flawed.

>
> Sometimes you might have a situation where you know some ways a tradition is false, you know some problems, and you are tempted to reject or disrespect the tradition. But you don't have a full alternative. So you'd better not!

Right, you should keep the true parts and replace the flawed parts of
the tradition, i.e. reform the tradition instead of chucking the whole
thing (which wastes the good parts in it, replacing it with new ideas
that have had less error correction done to them -- i.e. less real
world testing).

> Not all traditions are important. Some could be thrown out and no harm done.

Those are the ones where the problem (that the tradition was meant to
solve) was flawed, and the person decided that it's not a problem,
hence no solution required (i.e. don't need the tradition).

> But the important ones can be really important. For example, law and order and peaceful, civilized society works partly due to tradition. It's not just the cops. The cops are not involved in most interactions. It's not just the threat of the cops either or something superficial like that. There are old ideas about how to live in society with important content that helps people live peacefully. Some of this stuff is understood philosophically, and some is subtle stuff people take for granted and couldn't explain, but it still works a lot better than random ideas.

Some good really old traditions:

(1) Tradition of using stone tools. 2.3 million years old.

(2) Tradition of cooking food. 200,000 years old.

(3) Tradition of trading via bartering. At least 100,000 years old.

(4) Tradition of using symbols to communicate knowledge. 50,000 years old.

(5) Tradition of using metal tools. 2,700 years old.

(6) Tradition of trading with money (instead of bartering). 2,700
years old. This allowed for more division of labor.

(7) Tradition of criticism. 2,700 years old.


Note how (1) solves the problem of not being able to cut or smash
things with our bare hands. And (5) is a reform of (1) because it
solves the same problem, but better (it has fewer flaws).

Note how (3) solves the problem of not being able to make all the
things one wants. And (6) is a reform of (3) because it solves the
same problem, but better.

-- Rami