I know "dogmatism" is definitely loaded towards the negative here but that's really the only way I can think to refer to it.

For a specific example, the idea of shutting down and avoiding all criticism of America's geopolitical enemies. I certainly understand where people are coming from with this, and how even leftists aren't immune to state propaganda, but at the same time I have to fall on the "dogmatism is always bad" side. To me it seems like even within a warped and propagandized discourse, shutting down any line of thought uncritically is both a bad general practice and an ineffective way of opposing that line of thought.

    • Liberalism [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      “this belief has done good things for me and I don’t have it in me to question that today” is a fine sentiment. It's not like every day I wake up, get out a pencil and paper and re-prove to myself that x group of right wingers are wrong. But to me the key thing is that I know I could if I wanted to and that belief is well-founded.

      Unless what you meant with this was related more to religious/spiritual claims than political ones, which I think is just an entirely different situation. In that case it doesn't really matter if an idea is factually true, whereas with political ideas believing things that aren't true can be incredibly dangerous.

      And the memes I think are a third thing altogether