[nindalf]

I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf? Most people have only read a handful of books. If they were limited to expressing their views on those topics, there wouldn't be very much said about anything in society. I'm not sure society would benefit from that.

[serf]

>I've made my mind about Nazism, because it strikes me as an abominable philosophy. I haven't read any books about it though. Would you dismiss anything I said about it until I read Mein Kampf?

I think that you're using the theme of nazism as a way to make an opinion from a protected standpoint -- it's difficult to refute what you say without sounding sympathetic to nazis.

But i'll say it anyway : I think you, and anyone else in the same boat, hold less authority on a topic without being well-versed on said topic.

It's really that simple for me.

Don't stop speaking to or throw out the opinions of folks uneducated on a topic, just weigh them appropriately along with the expert opinions.

"Making up your mind" without educating yourself on the topic is dangerous, no matter which side you start leaning towards.

I'm not telling you to go pick up 'Mein Kampf' -- not by a long shot -- but to condemn all books on the topic is frighteningly naive as a societal habit. It propagates a certain kind of sneaky "head-in-the-sand" behavior that may lead to even more strife in our world, and prevents the great historic feedback-loop of the knowledge of our past preventing historical repetitions of our worst atrocities.

[hindsightbias]

Well, Godwin is Godwin.

I think a better example would be Marx's Das Kapital. I probably wouldn't waste any time talking to someone about 20th century political & economic history/theory who dismisses it out of hand.

And I can tell you the vast majority of Americans will dismiss it. The standard response to "I've read it" is: "What, you're a commie?"

[BuckRogers]

That's a very interesting anecdote. About 15 years ago I went to my local library and checked out every book by Marx that I could get. One of the librarians said "why would you want to read THAT". She looked actively disgusted.

I'm not a Marxist, but I have read Marx and Engels. If I had to be pidgeonholed into any political ideology that would be the vein I'd choose. I probably most appreciate Peter Joseph from the Zeitgeist Movement, which is similar and derided as "Communism with robots". But at least I've read a few treatises on the subject. I also went to Moscow about a decade ago, simply because I didn't want to form a strong opinion about a world power that everyone thinks they know about- without actually at least stepping foot on their soil myself.

In sum, people need to put their mind where their mouth is.

[nindalf]

Yes thank you. You gave a much better example than I did. I just chose Nazism because Charlottesville was fresh in my mind.

[BuckRogers]

You have an opinion about Nazism. You certainly do know less than someone who has read Mein Kampf, so your opinion is to be discarded versus someone like Noam Chomsky's. Who probably has read Mein Kampf. As long as you accept that, and accept why some outsider would take Chomsky's take on Nazism over yours, then we're on the same page.

I do think society would benefit greatly if we cut out the masses who have strong opinions on subjects they haven't even bothered to read.

Your Nazism opinion for example, doesn't sound like it's based on much other than trendiness. If it were 1935 and you were in the environment where it were popular- someone like yourself would probably would be Sieg Heiling with your jackboots on, in all seriousness.

[nindalf]

I'd like to think I wouldn't be a brownshirt, because that makes me feel better. But I guess its definitely possible if I didn't make up my own mind about things and I went with the crowd.