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1,070 bytes added ,  10:49, April 30, 2012
expanding on the Pharisees - perhaps the most important historical parallel to the h. s.
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Conversely, [[socialist]] and other left- or [[liberal]]-leaning societies have been characterized by a deference to authority, even when those in authority are clearly mistaken or deliberately acting against the interests of the society in question. This deferential tendency is of a piece with the attitudes that drive the hearsay society - supposed authorities, whether scientific, political, social or trivial, are taken as arbiters of truth regardless of their real credentials, and even when individuals' own logic ought to guide them otherwise.  
 
Conversely, [[socialist]] and other left- or [[liberal]]-leaning societies have been characterized by a deference to authority, even when those in authority are clearly mistaken or deliberately acting against the interests of the society in question. This deferential tendency is of a piece with the attitudes that drive the hearsay society - supposed authorities, whether scientific, political, social or trivial, are taken as arbiters of truth regardless of their real credentials, and even when individuals' own logic ought to guide them otherwise.  
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==Pharisees==
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The similarities between the hearsay society and the [[Pharisee]]s who opposed [[Jesus]] are marked. As a group, the Pharisees were characterised by a petty and inflexible adherence to rules whose observance had long been divorced from their original purpose; and by a scandalized reaction to anyone who dared to think for himself rather than accept the views of authorities who they saw as beyond question.
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The hearsay society is perhaps the most common modern manifestation of both of these Pharisee-like tendencies. Where the Pharisees ignored or tried to suppress truths because they came from Jesus (a carpenter by trade) rather than the priests of the temple, the hearsay society similarly censors or refuses to acknowledge anything not recycled from a limited pool of approved sources. Where the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus for spurious violations of the [[Sabbath]], so the hearsay society censors through recourse to rules on citation, regardless of how badly they might be misapplied, or how irrelevant they might be to the case in question.
 
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
 
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
 
[[Category:Epistemology]]
 
[[Category:Epistemology]]
 
[[Category:Censorship]]
 
[[Category:Censorship]]
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