Tuesday, April 05, 2016

C. S. Lewis on talkative communities

It's as if he knew what the internet would be like long before Al Gore invented it!

In any fairly large and talkative community such as a university there is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together into coteries where they will henceforth encounter opposition only in the emasculated form of rumour that the outsiders say thus and thus. The absent are easily refuted, complacent dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, that the other group can say.

4 comments:

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

I went over to Loftus DC blog to lay on them the link to my answer to his thing about naturalism. one of them said he is not going to read my essay because he knows it's no good. Now think about it, they don't believe in God and yet they are prophetic. Or is it psychic?

Anonymous said...

On the flip side, if you just have people who are interested in "debunking" the other chap, then you mostly get endless squabbling about basics (if that), and the discussion never advances to anything interesting or productive.

The best situation is to have people who are all genuinely interested in learning about a subject, even though they may disagree about it.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

The best situation is to have people who are all genuinely interested in learning about a subject, even though they may disagree about it.

agreed. where do I find them?

Lacie said...

I just happened upon this very idea elsewhere. Check out "Thought Collectives". You see the same kind of thing, but the author had in mind medical/scientific thought.