Good Aliefs

[jack]

I realise my previous post focussed on aliefs which are false and/or harmful, but I'd forgotten to seek out the other side of the picture. Examples of positive aliefs might be (?):

* Someone who thinks being non-straight is a sin, but when actually meeting people who are non-straight, have the reaction that they're people just like everyone else, even if they can't justify that intellectually.
* Someone who aliefs "it will probably turn out ok" -- it's usually easier to be a slightly overconfident, rather than have a realistic assessment of when it's worth gambling on a probable-failure.

Comments

[gerald_duck]

Someone who thinks being non-straight is a sin, but when actually meeting people who are non-straight, have the reaction that they're people just like everyone else, even if they can't justify that intellectually.
Agreed, but note that this could be either of two aliefs.

One possibility is they believe it's a sin but alieve it isn't. The second is that they believe/alieve that everybody, including themself, is a sinner, and non-straight people are people just like everyone else in that deeper sense.

I know people in either, neither or both camps.

(Hmm. Thanks for this — I seem to be edging towards good language to describe something I've noticed about liberal values.)

[jack]

One possibility is they believe it's a sin but alieve it isn't.

This is what I meant, although it might not be even that they didn't think it was a sin in general, but that they saw the situation in front of them was loving and non-harmful, even if they didn't understand in _what_ way it was different from what they'd regard as a sin.

they believe/alieve that everybody, including themself, is a sinner, and non-straight people are people just like everyone else in that deeper sense.

I'm sorry, yes, I did intend to mean a situation where someone's beliefs meant they felt obliged to ostracise or emphatically criticise the non-straight person, but they felt they didn't want to, but I failed to specify that.

Obviously, there are ALSO cases where someone considers them a sinner, but NOT meaningfully more so than everyone else, and extends to them the general compassion people profess and hopefully enact towards all sinners, and may not be relevant to aliefs at all.

Thanks for this — I seem to be edging towards good language to describe something I've noticed about liberal values.

That sounds interesting, what do you mean?

[gerald_duck]

Broadly, I've noticed two different kinds of "liberal", which I've found hard to characterise, and especially hard to characterise in neutral language given I know which kind I am.

I'm not sure this gets right to the heart of the matter, but there seems to be a difference between liberal beliefs and liberal aliefs.

Those with liberal beliefs prefer to associate with others of liberal beliefs, and favour ostracising people who are illiberal.

Those with liberal aliefs are comfortable associating with people of widely differing aliefs, and tend to oppose ostracisation.

An example issue where opinions will be divided is safe-spaces.

But that's an handwavey outline of a thought that's a work in progress. It's probably still in a form that's easily shot down. (-8