What people believe, what they say they believe and what they do may be wholly unrelated, but are never perfectly correlated. The only reason I note this is that I meet so many intelligent people who seem to assume a deep correlation between these distinct vectors.
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Yeah, it's a fallacy on par with (and probably closely related to) fundamental attribution error, and common enough to deserve a name.
I am currently involved in a heavy discussion at the Behavior Online Forum at where I have just laid out an hypothesis that I believe accounts for this disconnect. It's at http://www.behavior.net/bolforums/showthread.php?t=790 in case anyone is interested in joining in.
Problem is, the less connection there is, the more powerless everyone else is left feeling. Rational discussion can generally only touch the beliefs that a person claims to hold - if there's no connection between these and the beliefs they actually hold then anyone attempting to debate rationally with them is basically screwed. The only way you can actually get through to someone like this is with violence.
Hence, people who prefer rational debate to violence prefer to ignore this fundamental disconnect. I can very much sympathise.
The only way you can actually get through to someone like this is with violence.
no, there are ways you can twist the argument when you know what they really believe. the key is to convince them that you agree with them. more later.
no, there are ways you can twist the argument when you know what they really believe. the key is to convince them that you agree with them. more later.
Ooh, I'm on tenterhooks now :)