It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that critique from right leaning people of the left AND vice versa often hinges on an assumption that the impetus is to control and manipulate others, not a genuine belief in the values espoused.

As you may have surmised, I've been spending time reading and listening to what we can loosely call centrist or conservative thinkers, everyone from professional contrarians like Candace Owens through to more subtle folk like Sam Harris, Helen Pluckrose, Thomas Stowell and others

I've heard enough cogent arguments from a range of belief systems to finally understand that there are many sound reasons for why people think the way they do, regardless of whether I agree with them or not.

What I've realised I don't like, and must be careful to not fall into myself, is this thread of paranoia and distrust sewn into a lot of rhetoric seeking to dismantle a certain worldview. No wonder discourse is so combative when we assume that 'the other side' is playing games.

Eg: the 'wokist left' want to control the media and Hollywood. The right are by definition mercenary and xenophobic. Both sides take the most cartoonish elements of thee other and rip them to shreds w/o addressing the more sophisticated and reasoned aspects of these leanings.

I've heard some critiques of the schools of beliefs I subscribe to that have filled me with doubt, shame and confusion. But what upset me the most was not that I might be wrong or misled, but the assumption that me and others like me operate from a desire to control above all.

There is an overarching assumption of bad faith in a lot of the things I'm listening to. On both ends. There shouldn't even be two ends, ofc. Yet here we are. There has to be a way to critique things we disagree with that doesn't lean on this kind of miserly cycnism.

This is my new marker of whether I will engage with someone moving forward. I'm still hungry for forthright views and robust oppositions. But there has to be space for relativity, understanding how others think & not using the straw man of extremism or caricature to score points.

Something to listen to if any of this intrigues you and you're a bleeding heart liberal like me: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1j75ImP0bTioWIsnPPFymV?si=jefE-kBHTnSL0Vd0HLGQAQ. Am keen to discuss with anyone who would like to.

Dear God, I disagree with so much of it, not least that emotion & storytelling have no place in the way we process the world and make decisions (but then I would say that!) Some bits I do agree with, which is disorienting but this is it - valuable thoughts can be found anywhere.

The host believes the status quo is built on the capacity for change & that that is valuable & should be protected. He essentially argues there is no status quo and thus the left's railing against it is a futile exercise. Not sure what to make of it. Brain's still buffering.

Seems to me control is better achieved by creating general discord and chaos rather than any one political or ideological framework. They've got us bickering about left and right to disarm us via tribalism instincts all the more to steer us from any collective power we may have.

Let's just assume your average person isn't a raging bigot or lily livered snowflake. Let's just assume that people come to a certain way of thinking because of their experiences and what they believe to be a system that is ethically or pragmatically superior and go from there.