Zealotry as a Substitute for Wisdom

The human mind is pretty limited. The rational/verbal part of the mind seems the most hampered in a lot of ways--it relies on pretty crude models of nature to interpret experience--even the scientific models based on first principles are limited, distorted, and fail repeatedly.

The "wise" approach to life would recognize those limits. Humility and caution would be the typical stance on any given issue. Let's take abortion as an extreme case. When does life start? Does anyone really know for sure? No, not even in general, and it's even less apparent in a particular case. That said, I'm sure lots of women or girls who get an abortion know and feel that they're doing "evil" and suffer afterward for their choice. (That personal moral compass is probably the best thing to follow.)

Humility and caution are pushed aside in favor of extreme positions and zealotry. The zeal of partisans and the group-think/hive mind opinions replaces actual knowing. The same thing happened with covid.

Individuals should be extremely skeptical of political parties and movements, and mass opinion, just like they should be skeptical of their own ideas. On almost any topic, even really mundane things, a truly honest person will realize he knows very little. Take something prosaic like, "which brake pads should I use on my car?" It's possible, but slightly difficult to even come up with an answer for something simple like that, and even in this simple example, the person asking the question is forced to come up with fairly arbitrary and limited criteria to assess "best" versus "worst".