Ideological change requires persistence against contrary immediate evidence

Evidence

But Hayek and Friedman, along with their colleagues in the Mont Pèlerin Society, incontrovertibly played a role in the formation of that network of presuppositions that Dicey referred to as the “spirit of an age.” Their narrative, however exceptional, provides an implicit rebuke to the fatalism engendered by encounters with the real. Ideological changes require individuals who can continue to believe, against good evidence, that actions will at some point catch up with their ideas. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 561

Categorization

• APHORISMS: The final sentence reads as durable practical wisdom: to reshape ideology one must keep believing that action will catch up with ideas despite contrary evidence.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that effective ideological agents must persist ‘against good evidence’ is a genuinely counterintuitive and dense point about how political-intellectual change actually happens.
• XREF: connects to: Prejudice persists because people dismiss evidence contradicting existing attitudes; Ideological factors lag behind economic ones and require conscious political struggle — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 719; Disconfirming evidence rarely topples deeply held doctrines and worldviews. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 94 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Prejudice persists because people dismiss evidence contradicting existing attitudes #corroborates (0.88)
• Ideological factors lag behind economic ones and require conscious political struggle #expands (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 719