I have a visceral aversion to binaries, and therefore to any argument that claims something can be divided into two. Yet, the more that I study train wrecks in public deliberation, the more that I think there really might be a binary.
It isn’t, though, that there are two kinds of people, or our political options are usefully divided into two (or a continuum of the two), but that it might be that the ways that people assess claims can be (more or less) divided into two.
Imagine that I say that Chester Burnette is the right candidate for President. That’s a claim.
We can assess that claim through the filter of assuming that the in-group is the only group with legitimate claims, objective views, good evidence. So, we look at a claim and accept it (as “objective” or “true”) or reject it (as “biased” or “false”) purely on the basis of whether it supports/contradicts what we already believe, and/or is from a source we consider loyal to the in-group.
We stride through our vexed, complicated, nuanced world confident that we, only we, are people who see things clearly. And we see things so clearly that we refuse to see things that might suggest we aren’t seeing things clearly.
Most of us spend most of our time striding through social media this way.
We assess arguments and claims on the basis of whether the people making them are in-group or out-group, they support in-group v. out-group beliefs.
Or, we can assess every political argument on the grounds of the stases of policy argumentation, which means that we apply standards of rational argumentation equally across groups.
If you look at our political landscape through the lens of proto-demagoguery, then you spend your political life drinking deep from the genetic fallacy (any information that complicates or contradicts the in-group talking points or that criticizes an in-group political figure can be dismissed because it comes from a non-in-group source).
I think there are times that the source of information is relevant to assessing the information, but it’s always a secondary consideration. The first consideration is what their evidence is.
Imagine that you have a cousin who always has a new get-rich-quick scheme. After two or three of those schemes have blown up and lost him a lot of money, you can conclude he has bad judgment and ignore him. It’s the genetic fallacy if you refuse to consider his evidence because he supports Trump; it isn’t the genetic fallacy if he’s consistently been wrong, repeatedly shared false memes and debunked claims, and often misrepresents things he’s read. It’s rational to abandon a source, not because it’s out-group, but because it’s consistently irrational.
After you’ve been burned a few times by a source, you can conclude you won’t rely on it anymore (for me, that would be RawStory, The Drudge Report, PETA, Mother Jones, The Blaze, Rush Limbaugh, and various other sources). I still read them, but I never believe anything I say without checking their sources (which is complicated if they don’t give their sources, and some of them don’t).
I think it’s valid to conclude that PETA is just completely unreliable as a source. But, concluding that PETA is completely unreliable (and, honestly, I think it is) doesn’t mean that criticisms of animal testing, Big Agra, or our reliance on beef are invalid.
To argue that all criticisms of animal testing are invalid because those criticisms are made by PETA and PETA can’t make a rational argument to save its life is an irrational argument. And yet that’s how far too much of our political world works. And, just to be clear, PETA cannot make an irrational argument to save its life. It’s kind of a bad car crash for me–if I want to find an example of a fallacy, and I’m teaching, I just go to PETA. I know I’ll find it there.
And I say this as someone committed to animal rescue, opposed to (almost all) animal testing, vegetarianism.
Our world is not PETA or no restrictions on animal experimentation. Our world is not the NRA or Obama personally kicking down your doors to take your guns. Our political world is not a world of binaries and identities. You don’t have to choose between PETA and all animal experimentation all the time; you don’t have to choose between the NRA and Obama personally kicking down your door to take your guns.
I don’t believe we are in a political world of left v. right. I think that model is not only false, but toxically so. I think it’s like saying that all colors are either yellow or blue. You could organize all colors that way, just as you could organize all the things in your house as square or round, or all animals as bunnies or ants. You could do it, and that binary would be self-fulfilling, but the important questions would be: why that binary? Is that a useful binary? If it’s useful, to whom?
The binary is self-fulfilling insofar as, were we in a world in which all animals were categorized as bunnies or ants, then that would seem natural.
Our political world is no more “left” v. “right” than the animal world is bunnies v. ants.
And here is the important point: so what? Even were our world actually bunnies v. ants that wouldn’t mean we should argue about policies in terms of a zero-sum between bunnies and ants.
I shouldn’t assess the claim that Chester Burnette would be a great President purely on the basis of whether in-group media supports him, nor whether he feels in-group to me. I should consider his policies, whether his voting record suggests he really supports those policies, and what various media say about him. And I shouldn’t decide to dismiss any criticism of him on the basis that only bad people criticize him.
It’s perfectly fair to decide that some sources are engaged in bad faith argumentation, but that they are critical of the in-group or an in-group candidate is not adequate evidence. If I firmly, thoroughly, and completely believe that squirrels are evil because they are trying to get to the red ball (the basic belief of my favorite dog) that doesn’t actually mean that it is rational for me to frame my entire world in terms of pro- or anti-squirrel.
It’s fine for me to be passionate about squirrels; it’s fine for me to ask every political figure about his stance on squirrels. I have that right. But having that right and having a rational argument aren’t the same thing.
If you dismiss every source (or rhetor) who disagrees with what you think is true without considering their arguments, then you are not engaged in rational argumentation. (It’s fine to dismiss some sources and rhetors, either because they’re consistently wrong and you’re done with them –me and PETA–or because they never engage in argumentation to support their point. Oh, wait, that was PETA again.)
All sources should be held to the same standards. If a source consistently fails to represent the opposition(s) fairly, engage in internally consistent arguments, make falsifiable claims, you can decide it’s an unreliable source, not engaged in good faith argumentation. But you’re making that assessment on the basis of how they argue, not what they argue or who they are.
If you read something that says your admired political figure has done something wrong, and you dismiss it as “biased,” since it was critical of your admired political figure, you’re the one who is biased. If you aren’t willing to listen to the most fierce criticism of your political group and figure, then your political position is not a rational position about policies. You’re just a person screaming in the bleachers for your team.
Perhaps a constitutional republic contrary to the vision of the founders, is the wrong form of government for how people really think and how politics and the world, really operate.
They failed to foresee the rise of parties, the groups we are in and out about, and they assumed that people could discern their true self interests and that politicians could actually lead and bear the pressure of their base
So how do we fix or replace our democracy?