What is it?
Rather than starting from some epistemically humble foundation and individually constructing beliefs, people inherit constellations of beliefs from the social groups they find themselves in, often due to social pressures that push them towards these belief systems. These constellations of beliefs will share some similar, hollow chains of logic, but they are ultimately absorbed at the “applied” level for most people and often have little to no thought put into them before they’re accepted as a person’s own beliefs. These beliefs are always somewhat abstract as well, meaning there is no immediate corrective mechanism that exists in the real world to counter them, as they always make claims that are either just out of our ability to directly perceive them or will come at some point in the future (though they rarely, if ever, manifest).
The constellation are also confusing because, upon deeper analysis, almost every stated reason for believing in a particular “star” in a constellation is directly contradicted by the belief itself. Almost all constellations require very high levels (approaching 100%) of ideological congruency insofar as the “important beliefs” are concerned. This means that, upon learning a single belief a person has, it becomes trivial to predict several other beliefs they are likely to have as well.
Examples
The Anti-Establishment Constellation
- Supports Donald Trump, believes he will “save America” and maybe the world against the evil establishment, despite the fact that Donald Trump is a billionaire real estate developer from New York City who’s also worked extensively in entertainment.
- Opposed to almost all government organizations, especially anything related to health and intelligence, but will implicitly trust almost anything from a medical journal or “professional” if they happen to already agree with their position, and will almost always believe in other state media, especially enemies to the United States, e.g. Wikileaks, Russia Today, etc…
- Believes Andrew Tate is a victim of the system, insofar as the charges against him are fake and the girls are coordinating against him with the government, despite the fact that the Tate’s themselves said they moved to Romania to take advantage of their lax laws, and despite the fact that there are hours and hours of the Tate’s on camera admitting to scamming their workers and the men they sell services to.
- Believes immigration is destroying America because immigrants are either stealing our jobs, leeching our welfare, corrupting the system with their votes or changing the character of our country, despite there being no data to support job theft, no data to show overconsumption of welfare, no data to support they are helping Democrats voting in meaningful ways and no coherent explanation of what the “character of our country” even is.
- Does not trust the vaccines, thinks COVID was overblown. They will always claim to know someone or know of someone who’s either died to the vaccine or suffered a vaccine injury, or they will deny that COVID was ever a problem at all. There is no data to suggest widespread vaccine injury in any meaningful way, and no one knew what COVID would look like when it first appeared. This same group of people was angered because they felt like COVID was the “cause of death” for every single person who happened to have COVID and die of something, even car accidents, but this same group of people will attribute every single death or illness someone had to a vaccine as long as they were vaccinated.
- Does not trust any mainstream media, or essentially anyone that has any ties to any mainstream media companies, unless they are reporting something that conforms with their preconceived notions (like the New York Post, a mainstream media company, reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story). They will claim to trust alternative media over mainstream media, but again, they will source mainstream media when convenient and deny alternative media when it goes against their narrative.
The Woke Constellation
- Everything is seen through the lens of oppression, regardless of any other factors at play. It’s an incredibly socialist, western way of viewing the world, but almost every single conflict will be reduced to oppressor/oppressed dynamics, even if involved parties aren’t saying as much.
- Minorities are not held accountable for anything, there is always some greater reason to explain a behavior by a minority, such as crime, poverty, or any other “ill”, and it is always blamed on a larger group, almost exclusively white people. This might be despite the fact that there are competing explanations and despite the fact that the trend may persist in other areas where the “white oppressor” explanation makes no sense.
- Both political parties stand for the same thing, which usually just boils down to “not socialism”, so absurd statements like “Bernie Sanders would be a conservative in Europe” are uttered to show the contempt the “woke” people have for the American system not embracing socialism. This is despite a painfully obvious difference in politics between the Republican and Democrat party in the United states.
- All foreign policy is dictated by whatever opposes United States interests, this applies to every single foreign conflict, even if it means ostensibly supporting Iran, Russia, Hamas or China, even though it seems as though any of those other entities would oppose the “woke” constellation in every single way.
- Minorities cannot be racist towards major power holders, despite using a strictly academic definition of racism (power + prejudice). These people, however, would never concede that you could be racist towards a non-white in another country where they are a majority power holder, and they would never concede that some forms of racism would “become okay” if more power was suddenly held by minority communities in the United States.
- Corporations are always bad, when they invent medications it’s just because they want to withhold them from people for profit, when they support LGBT individuals it’s just “rainbow capitalism”, etc…etc…This is despite the fact that major corporations have enabled almost everything activists do and the ways they communicate with each other, e.g.: iPhones, social media. It’s also strange that labor unions prior to Civil Rights fought so harshly against integration of minorities into the work place, and that worker’s unions today fight against the adoption of green energy to support their workers, yet receive almost no criticism from the “woke” constellation for said actions.
Limitations
Belonging to “constellations” are bad because the person does essentially no work in arriving at any of their applied positions. It means they will be unable to argue for any of them, so they will be prone to simply attack those who disagree. It also destroys their ability to consider any contrary position, since they arrived at theirs without even considering their own, meaning they will be resistant to accepting new information or changing their beliefs.
How to Avoid
The easiest way to avoid falling into a constellation is to simply commit yourself to good epistemic practices. Make sure you are arriving at your conclusions by doing independent research, don’t simply believe something someone you like tells you.
How to help others
It becomes incredibly difficult to break anyone out of any given constellation because there is always some underlying transcendental entity that can explain every single part of why the constellation is true. Even evidence that seems to be in opposition to any particular belief is reinterpreted through the transcendental entity and becomes evidence for the particular belief, so there is absolutely no way to disconfirm the constellation as a whole.
Perhaps you can try and point out that it seems as though their are underlying explanations to their believe system that can explain literally everything, and ask them what kind of evidence would be disconfirming to their belief.
Examples of this in relation to the earlier examples given:
- The Anti-Establishment Constellation
- They will claim that they do not trust the mainstream media because it is bought and paid for and a part of the establishment, however they will repeat Tucker Carlson’s words as God, they will repeat Russia Today, a mainstream media outlet from Russia, and they will cite any mainstream media whenever it agrees with a position they have.
- They will claim that they don’t trust the government because it is also bought and paid for by lobbyists, and because career politicians are inherently corrupt and untrustworthy, but they will never turn that same corrupt eye to Donald Trump, despite him working in heavily government-favored industries like real estate and being the literal president of the United States, and they will trust figures like Rudy Giuliani, despite him being one of the most famous mayors in United States history.
- They will doubt everything put out by our intelligence agencies, but they will uncritically and enthusiastically cite them when they confirm prior biases, such as our intelligence agencies claiming they believe COVID may indeed have originated from a Chinese lab. The “transcendental entity” at play here is essentially some large, intangible web of actors who seem to simultaneously in control of everything but also unable to prevent some things from getting through, despite them seeming to have the power otherwise. So this entity will be in control of large swaths of society, yet somehow miss things that they seem otherwise easily capable of controlling, e.g. election outcomes, media reports, etc…
- The Woke Constellation
- They will claim that all social ills of a particular person can be seen through an oppressive lens, but this will never be applied when the “oppression” could be seen to affect a traditionally unoppressed person, e.g. a white person living in an all black neighborhood, or a white person visiting a foreign country.
- Minorities will be given almost zero agency, and historic oppression will always be given as an excuse for why they are facing a particular problem. This will apply, however, even when there is absolutely no historical oppression, e.g. “black people” are seen as the same thing despite black immigrants from Africa having significantly different lived experiences and social outcomes compared to African Americans.
- Both political parties will be said to stand for the same thing, but when a socialist appears on the left, and finally gets elected by fails to achieve “socialism” in the US, it’s because the politician either sold out or was crushed by the media/corporations. This might be despite the fact that some even manage to out-raise their non-socialist opponents and lose, like Nina Turner. The “transcendental entity” in play for the Woke people is always some form of oppressive capitalism or White/Straight/Cisexual/Heterosexual male. If good stuff is happening for minorities or LGBT in some corporation, it’s almost because it’s part of some larger insidious plan. If minorities in any part of the world are ever having problems, it is always explained by exploitation, imperialism or colonialism of some sort, even when it’s intra-regional violence, and even when they themselves are the exploiters, imperialists and colonizers.