As I noted before, the best intellectuals argue fervently over the right analysis of our entire society. They rarely convince each other. You can listen to the arguments, but you have to be an extraordinary person to understand all the details. So how should an ordinary person make up his or her mind?

On most complicated issues, we go with what other people think -- or if we want to look into it a bit more closely, look at what experts think. You believe in the Big Bang, you believe in plate tectonics, you believe that Obama was born in the USA, and unless you are a religious fundamentalist, you believe in the theory of evolution. Most of us believe those things because people we respect believe them. That is as it should be.

Now, you as a typical GC member disagree with the bulk of society about adult-child sex -- even though the vast majority think it is wrong, you're convinced it is good. So surely some things are right even if the experts and popular opinion are fixed in the other direction, right? Absolutely!

The willingness to go against common wisdom when the situation calls for it is a good thing. It suggests you are willing to think outside the box. However, it does not suggest you should be willing to go against it lightly. To see why, think of all the other minority opinions -- that aliens are running our world or that the earth was created 4,000 years ago. Some opinions held by large minorities are mutually exclusive, such as that Catholicism is the one true religion or that Islam is.

For each individual question, you should continue to figure the majority and the experts are right unless you have a strong reason to disbelieve them.

Dissy's analysis is that Western society is fundamentally flawed in many ways and needs a major overhaul. Your skepticism should start with the idea that very few in the West think that. Even fewer agree with Dissy's particular sort of analysis.

But on the other hand (as some evidence I'm not just giving arguments in favor of my position) you also might agree with Dissy because you trust him.

There's a temptation at GirlChat to be mad as hell at the world. They think we are all scum, all sick, all plotting to rape kids. We know we're not. So any view attacking society at large is appealing. They're not with the Child Love team -- they're the enemy, so it's comforting to accept any accusations against them. But that's not ultimately a very good reason to believe something.

Those are all considerations for how to go about making a decision. I'll leave for another post the substantive argument for a liberal world view. It won't have the detail to truly convince you (nothing could), but if you haven't seen it in a while maybe it's worth seeing it alive and looking good.