One of the highlights of the Platonic dialogues is the Socratic distinction (in the Meno) between right opinion and knowledge. It’s easy to hold a true opinion about something; it’s less easy to know why what you hold is true, and to be able to defend it. But it is crucial, because only the habit of wanting to know why a thing is true enables you to actually guard against false but attractive opinions masquerading as “right.”
(The irony is that Socrates, who claims to give himself
wholly to truth and good arguments, can be remarkably shifty in the actual
logical structure of his argumentation.
But that is another topic for another day.)
If we all approached our potential “friends” in the world of
internet content as if our primary identity were “truth seeker,” rather than
this or that other value that we hold, I suspect we’d all be a lot happier. We might even discover a renewed tolerance
for our real life friends who, being human, will occasionally disagree with us,
and still deserve our trust for all that.
I am, of course, proposing—seemingly against the moral of “A
Bargain for Francis”—that it is sometimes better to be careful than to be
friends. But since the proposal concerns
not real human beings, but what passes for them on the internet, I am not sure
that the author of this urtext of human wisdom would actually disapprove.
Linkup here: https://rosie-ablogformymom.blogspot.com/2021/02/just-because-volume-6.html
2 comments:
I'm not sure I've ever been inspired to think more about any of the Frances stories I've read to the kids 😂 She is not my favorite, with her whiny ways... But you make good points here! I do think that the overwhelming polarization that occurs when we judge people solely based on their opinions rather than their humanity has led to *quite* the breakdown of authentic friendship, and our echo chambers have become more and more rigid. I very much value my friends who have different opinions than I, because they inspire me to think far more about my own opinions. (these are not, however, friends who have resorted to dishonesty and manipulation, as Thelma did!)
Lol, Frances is a lot less whiny in "a Bargain" than she is in "Bread and Jam" (those are the only two we currently have). I think she's older in the bargain story too; maybe that's why?
This is the big trick, right? Sorting "these people agree with me" from "these people are people who (in virtue of being honest) I can be friends with, even if our disagreements mean we sometimes have to work extra at it."
I think, retrospectively, I should have been clearer about there being two kinds of "work": the work that goes along with sorting honest from dishonest content/ideas/stories, and the work that goes along with dealing with people who honestly disagree. We tend to forgo both too often, perhaps.
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