Secular Values, and Reality as Evil

Posted on Friday 22 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Two thematic follow-ups to yesterday’s post.

OnlySky, Bruce Ledewitz, 20 Aug 2025: Can people thrive in a secular society?, subtitled “Are secular values the cause of our malaise?”

Yesterday’s post extended a theme on this blog concerning a range or divergence in human nature that I’ve previously characterized (following Lakoff) as conservative vs. progressive. Red vs. blue, tradition vs. change, and so on. Even, emotion vs. logic. That’s the simplex take. The complex take is every single person is a mix of various positions along multiple dimensions of human nature, and it requires such mixes and blends for optimal survival, given that circumstances change. Iron everyone down to a single traditional way of thinking, as the current administration and MAGA are trying to do, and society will suffer in the long run. Attacking diversity is self-defeating, if only because other societies that value diversity will then prevail.

Yet there are many who think traditional values are essential and secular values are actively harmful. This piece at OnlySky responds to a recent piece by David Brooks on that idea.
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Everything Old and Simple; Conservatives, the Conceptual Ceiling, and Cognitive Dissonance

Posted on Thursday 21 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Conceptual ceiling and conservatives;
  • Thoughts about how humanity might survive, via deliberate cognitive dissonance: “One mindset to maintain the tribe and ensure near-term survival; another to solve problems that threaten long-term survival.” Which one is right? Both are, in different contexts.
  • Can people thrive in a secular society?;
  • Items about the anti-vaxx playbook; Trump and the Smithsonian; Trump and heaven; Gavin Newsom’s trolls; and several others.
– – –

 

I’ve written before about how maybe humanity may have hit a sort of conceptual ceiling, where not enough of us are able, or willing, to understand the complexities of the modern world and would prefer to turn the clock back to simpler ways of life, or reject reality entirely in favor of the local mythology or religion.

But today’s thought, distilling dozens of examples of political behavior every day, is that — of course, since humanity is a spectrum along many dimensions and not everyone is the same — is that many people have already hit this ceiling. To them, everything old and simple is better than anything new and complex. Raw milk, good. mRNA vaccine, or any vaccines at all, bad. The Nazis were the good guys after all, because they hated the same icky people, more or less, that MAGA and ICE hate. Our authoritarian president is preferred by millions who claim to venerate the principles of the Constitution, but by doing so show that they don’t. The flat earth is intuitive–just look out the window. Don’t believe anything you can’t see with your own eyes. Climate change is unreal, because the evidence is too complex to understand, and anyway, father god will take care of us.

These are the conservatives.

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Liberal and Conservative Goals

Posted on Wednesday 20 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why conservatives inculcate young thinkers, and liberals don’t (need to);
  • Christian pastors in Kentucky want to shield children from LGBTQ books; why not shield them from the Bible? Which influence is worse? It depends on your goals, which are driven by evolution;
  • Thoughts about what clear thinking gets you;
  • The Onion [a satire site!] about a conservative “proudly frightened of everything.”
– – –

Now why would this be?

Vox, Zack Beauchamp, 20 Aug 2025: How conservatives help their young thinkers — and why liberals don’t, subtitled “Liberalism has a serious pipeline problem.”

Let me guess before even reading the article. It’s the flip side of “reality has a liberal bias.” Ideology, including religion, must be taught; it is not out there in the objective world to be discovered. Thus, the children need training, or inculcation. Get them while they’re young.

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Eugene Burdick & Harvey Wheeler: FAIL-SAFE

Posted on Wednesday 20 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

(First published 1962. Edition show here: HarperCollins/Ecco, trade paperback, 1999, 286pp.)

Here’s another book that begs categorization; is it really science fiction? I’ve grouped this book with two previously discussed, Pat Frank’s ALAS, BABYLON and Nevil Shute’s ON THE BEACH, because each involves nuclear war in some fashion. And since nuclear war is about the most drastic kind of change that the human race might ever experience, it fits into our broad take of science fiction being about the effects of change on the human race.

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Further Reports on the Current Crisis

Posted on Tuesday 19 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Robert Reich on groveling and inept and unprincipled people;
  • Heather Cox Richardson on our idiot-child president;
  • By wanting to banish mail-in ballots nationwide, Trump attacks states’ rights, a conservative principle for centuries;
  • On the same theme, Thomas B. Edsall looks at the mind-boggling intrusiveness of the Trump administration;
  • Similarly, a demand in Texas that all citizens stand for Christian prayers; a charge that naturalized citizens “are not Americans”; a complaint that teaching that slavery existed (and was bad) is “woke”; and two know-nothings agree that science says nothing about climate change;
  • The Week wonders if medical science will survive RFK Jr., with comments by Andrew Egger.
    – – –

     

    This can’t go on indefinitely; it hasn’t before.

    Robert Reich, 18 Aug 2025: Why Trump will fail, subtitled “The iron law of grovelers and those to whom they grovel”
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The Ultimate Cognitive Bias, and Political News

Posted on Monday 18 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Steve Stewart-Williams about an attempt to identify the one cognitive bias to rule them all: the confirmation bias;
  • Political notes: How Trump claims victory yet again; how even Fox News noticed that not much was accomplished at that summit;
  • And Salon’s Amanda Marcotte on why MAGA calls Trump “Daddy”.
– – –

Via Jerry Coyne:

Steve Stewart-Williams, The Nature-Nurture-Nietzsche Newsletter, 9 Aug 2025: One Bias to Rule Them All, subtitled “All cognitive biases = one of a handful of fundamental beliefs + confirmation bias”

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Distracted by Politics, Again

Posted on Sunday 17 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Eventually I’ll get to more serious subjects. Though arguably politics is the most serious subject, because politics is about psychology and that involves how humans perceive and believe everything else. But there is a reality beneath politics (or should it be ‘beyond’), and even psychology, which is what I’m trying to get at.

  • Summaries and takes on the Trump/Putin meeting in Alaska. No one thinks it went well, except for Trump and MAGA and Fox News;
  • A piece about Trump’s speaking style: “many such cases”; “many people are saying this” and so on;
  • Gavin Newsom mocks Trump’s full-caps posts;
  • And a late Arvo Pärt piece: Symphony #4.
– – –

 

For the record. Trump went to Alaska this past weekend to meet Putin, to discuss the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Trump had two goals. He got neither. He came home and declared victory, the meeting a 10 on a scale of 10. As he does.

NY Times, news analysis by Peter Baker, 16 Aug 2025 (on today’s front page): Trump Bows to Putin’s Approach on Ukraine: No Cease-Fire, Deadlines or Sanctions

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AI Is Telling People What They Want to Hear?

Posted on Saturday 16 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Tom Tomorrow on “defunding the police”;
  • The unreliability of AI, with an example of John Scalzi;
  • An essay about how the future will be mundane;
  • Several links on Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska;
  • Slate’s handy summary of people in the news this week (Antoni, Putin, Big Balls, et al.).
– – –

 

Curiously, given my mention two days ago of what “defunding the police” actually means, this 11-year-old cartoon by Tom Tomorrow popped up in my Facebook feed today. I’ll “quote” just the first two panels; the rest is at the link. Again, this is from 2014.

The Nib, Tom Tomorrow, 14 Aug 2014: Officer Friendly, subtitled “He’s just a good guy with a gun”

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The Fringe Is Becoming Mainstream

Posted on Friday 15 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump threatens to attack Mexico, ho hum;
  • South Koreans think electric fans are deadly;
  • A GOP rep claims evidence of “interdimensional beings”;
  • Hegseth’s pastor claims “gay marriage doesn’t exist” because he doesn’t like it;
  • Lance Wallnau thinks his god wants him to impose his religion on all of society;
  • With brief thoughts about what the world would be like if an intercessory god actually existed;
  • Pentagon uses AI pics to claim recruitment success — of women;
  • How Donald Trump makes America worse than tacky.
– – –

Sure, if you look, you can find a new alarming thing every day.

The New Republic, 15 Aug 2025: Trump Is Ready to Invade U.S. Ally if It Doesn’t Cave to His Demands, subtitled “Donald Trump has drawn up attack plans for Mexico.”
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Why Totalitarians Prefer Crackpots and Fools, as We Are Seeing Under Trump

Posted on Thursday 14 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Lesson for today, from Paul Krugman, from Hannah Arendt: “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
  • With examples of E.J. Antoni, and Stephen Miller;
  • Facts: crime is down. NYT Editorial Board explains why, with my comments about “defunding the police” actually means.
– – –

Beginning with two from Paul Krugman.

Paul Krugman, 13 Aug 2025: Hackification, subtitled “Arendt’s Law comes for economic data”

Hannah Arendt was a writer and political theorist famous for works on totalitarianism. She’s noted for the phrase “the banality of evil.”

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