As I recall, Kuhn took it even further than this, noting that the new scholars got on with the new paradigm but the old ones stuck to theirs until they died. Obviously that isn't 100 percent, but I have known a few scholars and the momentum embodied in their research skills is formidable. They find it very, very difficult to think about the world with a different set of questions.
In my own life I find I tolerate tremendous dissonance. I may conclude that so-and-so at work is a jerk, but there is more profit in finding the levers to get so-and-so to cooperate than in collecting examples to prove my case against them. One track of my mind is convinced that civilization is at stake if we don't all quit carbonizing the atmosphere, but another track is busy accommodating my wife and other near ones, who are not as clear on this point. I am in awe, actually, of people who are able to act single-mindedly on their convictions.
The feedback loops between central media and social media are moving way beyond our experience and ability to predict. People have had the ability to search out sources they resonate with for a long time now. But the rate of exponential expansion of a hot take or meme is just not something we know how to reckon with.
And you are not wrong about the algorithms. I guess we all need to start questioning any one-sided narratives we hear, as part of the resistance to motivated reasoning and the tyranny of the flaming echo chambers. But riddle me this: how well would a website do that specialized in giving both sides of controversies? Real Clear Politics, which Ant likes, is about the only one I know who does this, and they don't do it in a very thoughtful way. Just a flame thrower from one wing and then another flame thrower from the other wing. I do appreciate the thoughtful conservative voices on the NY Times Op-ed, but I would never hear what the MAGA crowd thinks by reading them.
So you are saying that if I recognize that my belief is based mainly on emotion, and defended mainly by emotion, I should question it extra heavily and look for motivated reasoning in my ways of justifying it to myself? That actually makes sense to me. Now I am curious what beliefs you were defending for emotional reasons against MadArchitect's acid skepticism.
There is a very large Facebook group, open only by invitation, for people who are going through "deconstruction" of literalist, evangelical Christianity. Or have gone through it. It is chock full of clergy and ex-clergy members. Schools of theology are notorious for cutting off literalism at the knees, and trying to reconstruct something more solid in its wake. The sense of betrayal is real and tangible, and many find it devastating to face.
Remember that, as with Kuhn's scientific paradigms, the cognitive structures are there to do things. They are there for purposes that often have very little to do with their truth or lack thereof. In the case of clergy members, it might include reassuring dying people, and reminding parents that their children will get less crazy when their pre-frontal cortex finishes filling in, and all kinds of such tricky social problems. There is an old saying in the church that "Love without Truth is mush, but Truth without Love is mush." These tensions, these antinomies, are the stuff of living, and for some people they are easier to negotiate without having to be correct about everything from a rational perspective.
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) and she observed that trust has been demonstrated to require steady consistency of behavior over many, many small choices. I agree there is a fundamental requirement of a willingness in principle to change one's opinion based on new information and reasoning, but over the long haul it doesn't matter so much that you change your views as that you demonstrate that the other person is heard (respectfully). I am quite open to hearing perspectives I am very unlikely to ever adopt much of, and freely confess that I learn a lot of interesting stuff that way.