A Tense Society

In a society like that of present America, there are two conflicting broad social trends regarding the attitudes behind basic interactions.  There is a massive push for tolerance of most or all different worldviews and people, though some advocating tolerance are selective about this (either way, tolerating stupidity and evil is irrationalistic, and where there is neither of these, there is no error to actually tolerate).  There is also such ferocity that people of different political, religious, and scientific philosophies are often wary of any sign of conversational opposition, and the controversy and intensity can increase when people, for once, are focusing on the metaphysical and epistemological issues that all truths about politics, religion, or science would hinge on.  For those who are eager or willing to fight others with their words, this culture is becoming more and more, in some ways, a place where they are right at home.

Increasing in its pervasiveness is the sense that people are walking on eggshells in every interaction, lest they offend someone or spark an enormous, overblown, or simply unwanted philosophical confrontation.  This is a direct consequence of emotionalism and its subjectivity: most people are content to embrace irrationality for its emotional appeal to them as individuals, but they hate when other people are irrational in certain differing (or sometimes the same!) ways.  Not everyone who experiences the tension of social exchanges in a culture like this, though, is reluctant to engage with others.  Timidness or silence might be how some people internally/externally react; for others, the chance to express their allegiance to a philosophical stance--right or wrong, knowable or unknowable, assumed or proven--is too enticing, empowering, or intoxicating to not leap into.  The same is true of rationalists.  The truth, knowability, and epistemological accuracy of one's worldview does not necessarily affect one's personality and make someone more or less reluctant to engage in philosophical conversations of any kind, be they mild or outright hostile.

This kind of social atmosphere is welcome or at least not terrifying for the likes of a certain kind of rationalist, someone who, like myself, does not want there to be ideological conflict because everyone needs to be rationalists, but who absolutely enjoys the chance to clash with irrationalists, even and sometimes especially if it makes the non-rationalist feel as inadequate as they truly are.  A culture immersed in almost total emotionalism can indeed be hurt quite personally and viciously just by finally seeing that the emotions of its members do not dictate anything about reality except that the emotions are being experienced.  When people are reliant on emotions to shape their stances--though it is not emotion that is irrational or evil, but emotionalism--they can be emotionally wounded and humiliated or frightened into silence, which is the best a non-rationalist can ever hope to rise to in their errors and assumptions: at least some of them do not speak about their ideas and thus abstain from promoting their stupidity.

People who do not care about how others think or feel about them will be largely, if not wholly, unaffected by just how tense society is becoming.  People who thrive on conflict or even just savor or do not fear it could find this tension exciting.  If they are rationalists, either kind of person is not the reason for this kind of cultural suspense and anxiety, however.  Emotionalists always have the potential to be or become highly explosive and impulsive with their beliefs, words, and actions, for if their emotions change or fluctuate, living them out would entail being as volatile or haphazard as their feelings are.  Most people are to varying extents very emotionalistic, even if they think of themselves as rational, with the increasingly overt unease of American culture stemming primarily from this common emotionalism.  Providing more opportunities to manipulate non-rationalists, this societal tension is yet another thing rationalists can exploit if they so desire.