Purity Testing is a Fully General Anti-Rational Meme

One commonality I have seen across the political spectrum is the purity test: a strict ideological standard that members of a group, movement, or community are expected to meet to be considered truly belonging or “legitimate.” Even libertarians, who in America often self-style as more independent thinkers, are not immune to it, nor is intelligence a protection; I have seen extremely smart and thoughtful people criticize their close-ideological neighbors in ways that to them I’m sure seems substantive, but to me feels like an obvious purity test.
In basically any context, I consider purity testing a fully general anti-rational meme, in the Deutschian sense: a meme that impedes change, growth, adaptation. Philosophies are dangerously seductive when they make you feel like they have all the answers, and one of the surest rules of dogmatism I have is that if someone believes  following some basic principles or standards will lead to all the good outcomes everywhere, they are probably being dogmatic, and will likely purity-test others for not adhering to those principles closely enough.
Life is complicated. Society is complicated. We do not have nearly all the answers to the most pressing issues, and many of them may not have any universally agreeable answers. If you think just taking the “Liberty” dial or the “Safety” dial or the “Equal Outcomes” dial and crank it all the way up will lead to the best possible world, this seems obviously dogmatic, to me. If you convince yourself, or are convinced by others, that doing so will wrap-around excess benefits so much that the other values will not suffer for it, this seems a particularly strong sign of political mindkill.
Once even minor deviation seems bad, once anyone who doesn’t conform entirely to the espoused principles seems by-default wrong, weak, or hypocritical… the memeplex you’re espousing has become less adaptable, and the egregore has you in a chokehold, no matter how comfortable it feels.
It’s trite among intellectuals these days to say that people should be willing to examine their own side for false beliefs, and notice if they might be wrong about something. But you will still find smart, thoughtful people uncritically rejecting the idea that their favored, guiding values and principles might need to compromise sometimes for a better society.
The most important thing is that a philosophy or political ideology cashes out to real, verifiable, preferred outcomes. If it does not, the philosophy must adapt and learn where it is overconfident, or it’s just another fossil.

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