On a right-wing friends thread, on which I was typically lambested for being a pompous elitist (this time, for starting one of my comments with your error is, in response to a guy who had relied entirely on irrelevant ad hominems to respond to my previous comments), this is what I just wrote: Im going to agree with Jake about something: We have to do a better job of not vilifying people across this ideological divide. But if saying to someone across that divide your error is is an example of this error, and if someone across the divide points that out (by essentially saying in return, your error is), then weve lowered the bar on what counts as vilification, or discourtesy, or whatever you want to call it, to such a point that we cant have any real discussions anyway, because we have to start and end and fill in the middle of every exchange with, well, what you think is fine, and what I think is fine, and we shouldnt suggest that one analysis might be better than the other, because thats just too impolite. Of course, that’s not really what happens. Rather, one or both sides try to capture that narrative, accusing the other of being uncivil or impolite simply for stating their case, and often (though not always) making the accusation in an aggressive way. When we do that, saying, “it’s really offensive of you to have said ‘my error is,’” we’ve perfected the impenetrable hypocrisy of “when you are critical of me, you are an arrogant elitist, but when I am critical of you, I’m just stating my opinion.” No. That doesnt work. We need, rather, to admit that we have differences, to admit that we have a stake in each other’s political opinions because we have the shared responsibility of governing ourselves, and we are trying to sway those with whom we share that responsibility to see what we respectively see, to include our understanding of what works, of what’s right, of what best serves our shared humanity, in their own political decision-making, their own electoral choices, their own organized efforts. That’s fine. That’s natural and necessary and inevitable. We can’t and shouldn’t pretend that we have no stake in one another’s political opinions: We do, and we must, because we are all affected by the outcomes of our political processes. And, in a vibrant, well-functioning democratic republic, the most important part of those processes is not the election, but rather the public discourse that informs all of those participating in, voting in, the election. What we don’t need is to pretend that all opinions are equal and courtesy demands that we make no attempt to sway others to our analysis. What we do need is to commit, together, to all striving to be rational and humane people, knowing that none of us (not me, not you, not any of us) knows all that much, that human suffering and injustice isnt irrelevant, and that we can and should work together to do the best we can in a complex and subtle world. We should recognize that there are methodologies that have developed in the modern era that are particularly good at reducing the aggregate effects of bias and increasing the aggregate accuracy of factual and logical assertions, and we should agree to use or rely on or defer to such analyses as much as possible when we are discussing those things that fall within their ranges of competence (i.e., factual, logical discussions, particular about causal relationships and systemic dynamics). The goal is not to politely talk past each other from our respective entrenched blind ideologies, but rather to effectively talk with one another from the shared agreement to strive to be rational and humane people working together to do the best we can in a complex and subtle world.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 16:26:23 +0000
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