Wrestling with Philosophical Arrogance

All philosophers are arrogant. They believe that those who do not agree with them are wrong. This follows from their claims of mutual exclusivity. Pluralism is absent within the field. And this is a good thing. 

Many of my mentors adopted this position, whether implicitly or explicitly. This is a necessary state of mind for professional scholars who have expertise in their field. 

At some point, it began to rub off on me. And my engagement with others became calloused. Abrasive. Argumentative. The type of person I hate the most acts without thinking about the deeper meaning of their actions. What is valuable? What should we believe in? I felt that in order to move in life, one has to find the answers to these problems. And those who do not have answers do not have a right to pursue anything else. 

This turns in to pleasure -- a pleasure derived from pain. The utter collapse and deconstruction of worldview. The unavoidable tide of philosophical skepticism. The history of philosophy is not so simple as to be dismissed. When one encounters it, how can they avoid these questions? 

No ideology is sacred. No assertion can go uncritiqued. 

I think this is why the kind of humor that I am attracted to enjoying is extremist humor. 

Now, Jeffrey, how can you say that! How can you advocate the Nazi position in one moment, the communist in the other, a Rawlsian liberal the next, and after that, anarchism? 

Indeed, by conventional standards, these are incredibly extremist. But to me, there is no such thing as extremism. No ideology is sacred. There is no such thing as left or right, moderate or radical. All that exists are distinct positions to be critiqued. 

And, the point that I make is that rational people much smarter than myself can hold to all sorts of positions. If the rhetoric were not attractive or compelling, they would never have lasted until this day. Therefore, we should never dismiss or look down on our ideological opponent. 

Perhaps the sort of pleasure that I get from attacking other people's worldviews -- or defending my own -- is just an outward expression of my looking down on other people. Like, haha, I know all of these things and more than you do. I can argue for them. Hell, I can argue your position better than you can argue for yourself. 

Or maybe it's more moderate, just the kind of pleasure that I derive from getting to share something that I enjoy with someone else, like a hobby. Or maybe its the pleasure that I get from thinking deeply about things. 

Or maybe I enjoy the sadism that comes with the total collapse of worldview, breaking down the thin walls of the uninitiated, in the same way that I broke throughout my journey in philosophy. I am merely enacting my own "trauma" on them. Maybe this is the case. 

I don't know which motivation best accounts for these things.