The Diminishing Returns of Reason in Modern Discourse
By
enbywithunix
A second-rack bagel that's nearly first-rack. Tasty stuff.
Summary
The article explores the decline of reason and rationality in modern discourse, particularly since around 2016. The author observes that intelligent, reasonable people have increasingly embraced irrational thinking, conspiracy theories, and tribal politics. Friends who were once capable of nuanced thinking now treat political disagreements as moral corruption, see news as manufactured consent, and use political labels as personality disorders. The piece examines why being reasonable seems to have diminishing returns in a world that rewards emotional intensity, tribal loyalty, and performative outrage over careful analysis and evidence-based thinking.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledSomewhere around 2016, the smartest people I knew started saying increasingly stupid things.
These were folks who could parse dense academic papers, who understood reason, who were entirely capable of holding two competing ideas in their heads without their brains short-circuiting.
Another started treating political disagreement as evidence of moral corruption.
A third began using the word 'liberal' as if it was a personality disorder rather than loose coalitions of sometimes contradictory beliefs.
Is There Still a Return on Being Reasonable?
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