| I've been undergoing a similar transition in thought, likely triggered by the same events. I'm struggling to reconcile the competing lenses. In our current political reality, anything that is not desirable to Republican elites will be argued against as if it were simply a technical "Mistake." No matter how many times they're out-argued, they continue arguing on a technical basis. "Tax cuts to the rich increase jobs and wealth for everyone" and "Climate change isn't being caused by human action" are probably the two most glaring examples of trash arguments that should sink under the weight of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but they may never go away. And it seems that more and more political arguments are increasingly in this camp, emboldened by the persistence of these incorrect assertions. Politicians/elites are blatantly arguing in bad faith at least some of the time. They won't be convinced by any argument or evidence, no matter how damning. They are getting away with this because outside of hard science, nothing can be "proven" and they will surface any doubt in an argument and simply magnify it. At some level, it's a social hardship that owes to epistemology and the limits of our knowing. Of course there are still difficult technical questions of governance as well. Policy making is not easy. But at this point, it's extremely difficult to distinguish between arguing against "mistakes" and arguing against something that is simply inconvenient to the arguer. On the surface they generally look the same - like a person in a suit making a technical argument. The trash arguments are poisoning the well, making it impossible to share a space for discussing the truly difficult questions with those who disagree. We live in an era of noise, and we are in desperate need of better filters. How do we detect an argument made in bad faith? How do we respond once we know an argument can't be won? I don't think we have good answers to either question. |
The noise isn't surprising. Certain industries are notorious for producing pollution. Mental pollution produced by bad-faith "debate" is just another instance of a general pattern.
A cure? Cui bono is a reasonable first test for bad faith. It's not infallible and can lead to paranoia, but it's better than nothing.
But I think the pattern is even more general, and transcends political positions.
Some people are inherently entitled, narcissistic, and exploitative, and they will always try to gravitate to positions of power unless there's an explicit mechanism that stops them.
A minority of these individuals are unusually inventive and productive, but most are simply resource parasites. Once in power they do incredible damage.
And they are very adaptive. They will operate successfully in every traditional political system you can imagine. And they will use conflict and mistake rhetoric, as suits their needs.