Friday, September 29, 2023

How To Manipulate Non-Rationalists

What are some ways a rationalist can manipulate non-rationalists?  One is to allow them to reveal what appears to be their true self, including any preferences that they directly or indirectly admit they look to for their worldview, such as psychological fulfillment or a desire to fit in with other people, rather than believing a worldview solely dictated by logical necessity (through epistemological recognition of logical truths).  Without lying or in any way truly misrepresenting one's rationalistic worldview or motivations, be inviting enough that they volunteer information about their philosophy, personality, and lifestyle even if you have no genuine interest in deep friendship with them, but be firm and honest enough that they can see, though they do not really understand it, that you are a rationalist who cares nothing for beliefs borne out of emotion, unverifiable perception, preference, societal pressures, or personal/utilitarian convenience.

This way, you will never have actually been dishonest even if they are still somehow surprised when you twist the knife by using their words against them when it will rightfully pain them the most.  Depending on one's intentions and on how one goes about this, genuinely toying with them in part to entertain oneself, since they are already irrational regardless of how you interact with them, can be done without malice, slander, dehumanization, and so on.  Such manipulation can also be conducted as a way to force them to more directly grapple with the nature of reality, which they will inevitably, as a non-rationalist, have believed in on the basis of assumptions or preferences that they simply find personally persuasive or emotionally appealing.  You can still regard them as full persons while not trivializing or overlooking how irrationalism taints the whole person to the extent it is allowed to--and while manipulating them as lesser beings.

One can even enjoy the anticipation or experience of laying psychological and verbal traps for them or bringing up their errors with the potential motivation of making them feel as stupid as they are, maybe in front of both them and people they desperately want to love or approve of them.  If they are fitheists, give them the chance to verbalize this and then, in their presence, speak disparagingly about fitheists for a different religion or kind of theism.  If they believe in conscience having epistemological validity, as most people do one way or another, organically, casually bring up how your own conscience would have you live--if you submitted to it like a damn emotionalist--in ways that they would find hurtful, shocking, or intimidating.  Revel in your own happenstance moral preferences while making it clear that you can have them without actually basing any ideological stances on them, no matter how frightening or upsetting someone else might subjectively perceived them to be (anyone who really thinks everyone would have the same moral "intuitions" or feelings is idiotic).

When they unrepentantly say something irrational, perhaps you can talk about it later on within their indirect earshot to someone else in a way that mocks or validly belittles both the philosophical idea and anyone who would believe it, at least without giving it up once confronted even if they did not realize its falsity or unverifiability left to themselves.  They should both realize from this, if they are attempting to shed assumptions, that the idea in question is wrong and that you are a friend of the truth before you are an ally to any mere person.  If they refuse to reject their contradictions or assumptions or emotionalism, it is not as if they deserve to be treated as rational, morally upright people.  They are slaves to practically anything but reason.  Since their ideas are demonstrably false or can only be epistemologically assumed, they would be as irrational as their worldviews, and if it is rational or just to hate or mock the broad philosophy of irrationalism, how could it be different with the irrationalists themselves?

It is not that manipulating non-rationalists can only be driven by a selfish desire to mistreat someone as long as one derives pleasure from it, and Biblically, this is not necessarily mistreatment at all as long as one's motive is not to be degrading.  Being loving is the same as doing what the justice of Mosaic Law prescribes (Matthew 22:37-40), and if justice sometimes entails killing people no matter their own objections or feelings (such as with Exodus 22:18-20), then fittingly harsh words in acknowledgement of the truth cannot be erroneous, for to the extent that someone flees from the truth, they have chosen delusion and do not deserve the special affection that a rational, righteous person would.  If truth does not matter, although every logical fact would still be necessarily true and of the utmost foundationality, people cannot matter, for it would have to be true that they have special value.  If truth does matter, forsaking or neglecting it would mean a person has less value than a devoted rationalist while still having whatever baseline human worth there is.  Inside or outside of the Christian worldview, there is no valid objection to the manipulation of non-rationalists in the aforementioned ways.

As a non-rationalist, they have ignored or betrayed the necessary truths like axioms that are true independent of all else and that all other things hinge on, from the real nature of morality and religion and science and their own lives.  They have lived for something that is meaningless either way: their assumptions and preferences.  Whether they like it or not or realize it, rationalists are their superiors, and yet still whatever human rights exist would still be theirs.  A thorough rationalist would never try to make it more difficult for a finally willing person to embrace the truth, though it might have taken emotional brutality for them to finally be struck by the stupidity of their assumptions and the unverifiability of their subjective perceptions, and they would never seek to mistreat them along the way.  A rational Christian would never penalize someone for their repentance, which can only occur if errors and wrongdoing were pursued beforehand, no matter how worthy of hatred or belittling manipulation someone was before.  Anyone who is not turning from assumptions and falsities to logical truths, however, could not deserve this type of respite.

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