Yes, in fact, I do. I specifically seek out and read literature from people with whom I have knee-jerk disagreements.
How else will I be sure I'm not trapped in a thought bubble? It's important to read critically from a variety of sources, while reserving judgement. That's literally how you learn. It's too easy to fall for propaganda, otherwise.
Scared it might not confirm your biases?
Most people hate being wrong, or corrected. They seem to see it as an affront to their very existence, and will often fight back tooth and nail when confronted with any evidence that the things they believe about the world might not be 100% correct.
Source: Any substantial comment thread on any social media platform, ever.
Yeah, the citations of factual events are in the links below the quote. Check out Willam Blum's "Killing Hope" (pdf link) for more citations than you can shake a stick at.
“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
Additionally, check out Willam Blum's "Killing Hope" (pdf link), and/or "America's Deadliest Export", by same (pdf link).
Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. - Sartre
Yeah, sorry about the formatting, I didn't feel like dealing with it when I transferred the data over from ChatGPT.
Bribery, when done intelligently, can be extremely difficult to prove in court.
Many of the accused (on both sides of the transaction) have power, connections, and reputations to uphold. I don't think it's too conspiratorial to suggest that the US legal system delivers judgements, let's say, "inconsistently", based on factors such as the aforementioned.
Same as it ever was.
I'm not sure "favorite" is something I can quantify for you with such ease, as I'm not ranking my favorite movies/spectacles, here. We're discussing engaging with things that don't just pet and soothe your inbuilt biases. It'd be like asking my favorite college coursework textbook.
I most recently digested George Soros' "Alchemy Of Finance" via audiobook, (though I'm not sure he really qualifies as a hedge fund manager, exactly). I'm no fan of his hyper-neo-liberal leanings, but why should I be scared to read what he has to say about finance? I have time. His musings on reflexivity were compelling enough, I guess.
I've also recently plowed through Anne Case and Angus Deaton's "Deaths Of Despair". I've historically chafed against Deaton's particular brand of neo-lib economics. It seems he's had something of a mea culpa moment in the past few years, since his Nobel prize in Econ, because he's been running around pissing off a bunch of economists with articles like these.
If you have any recommendations I'm open to them!