- Registrado
- 8 de Ago, 2020
Politics, understood as matters pertaining to public social and economic policy, are very "principled" in nature. What I mean by that is it isn't typically governed by a set of empirically verifiable facts, but by a guiding set of principles taken as axiom. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's absolutely worth noting. How facts are interpreted and their perception of relevance is entirely based on what your goals are. This should be obvious. But the first thing people tend to reach for in a political discussion is a list of facts, most of which (even if you could convince your opposition that they were true) would not persuade them to change their stance on the matter. As I said: the facts aren't why they hold the positions they hold. These factual arguments are just part of a game of "point/counterpoint" where the "winner" is whoever can memorize the most relevant talking points they were fed by whatever media they consume (be it dumbass journo shit or more in-depth scholarly articles). The first to run out of cards to play loses.
I think it's important that people learn to distinguish a factual argument from a political one. The former is simply "what is true;" the latter is "what should should we do?"
Some fun examples to drive the point home:
Gun control
The factual argument this often devolves into regards crime rates and what their corollaries are. "Would [event] have happened if stricter measures were enforced?" That sort of thing.
The political discussion worth actually having is "Should people have access to guns for the sake of taking violent action against the system?" The answer, "yes," is a blatant acceptance of (though not necessarily advocacy for!) violent crime using guns, up to and including treason. The answer, "no," still doesn't automatically mean you are now in factual territory. How far your gun control policy extends still depends on your principles regarding self defense and how much societal risk you're willing to accept for simple recreation. It's never a question of how often these things happen and why. It's about how much risk you're willing to accept and for what purpose.
Abortion
No amount of statistics regarding various quality of life metrics will convince anyone. The simple question is: "when does a zygote/embryo/fetus/etc. gain human rights and to what extent do they have them?" You can't "science" this question away. Abortion is, and will be, always an argument about when it's okay to kill this... "thing." And the line is drawn the moment you believe said "thing" has human rights such that it's not okay to kill it wantonly.
And one interesting counter-example for funzies:
Anthropogenic climate change
If it is real, you're still free to rail as hard as you want against any measures taken to prevent it. This remains a principled argument regarding how much we're willing to sacrifice our standard of living in some ways in order to preserve it in others. As much of a pain in the ass climate change will be, the measures to mitigate it are a pain in the ass as well. Both are long term commitments. It's up to you and your principles which phallus gets to be the source of the pain and/or how much of each you're willing to take.
Where this becomes a counter-example is if it's not true. No action is needed because it's not happening. Sure, there's other negative effects due to CO2 emissions like ocean acidification but those are all factual arguments as well.
To wrap this all up: Most political discussions could do without the fact bombing and statistics. Those are just a dumb little game we (myself included) like to play sometimes. It's good fun, after all. But you're typically not going to change someone's opinion by playing it. You're no more likely to convince them than they are of convincing you no matter how many of the "facts" presented are shown to be demonstrably wrong. An effective political discussion relies on deconstructing the core belief system. And you can't even truly change someone's principles. They must do that themselves; maybe you can help them along the way...
Maybe.
I think it's important that people learn to distinguish a factual argument from a political one. The former is simply "what is true;" the latter is "what should should we do?"
Some fun examples to drive the point home:
Gun control
The factual argument this often devolves into regards crime rates and what their corollaries are. "Would [event] have happened if stricter measures were enforced?" That sort of thing.
The political discussion worth actually having is "Should people have access to guns for the sake of taking violent action against the system?" The answer, "yes," is a blatant acceptance of (though not necessarily advocacy for!) violent crime using guns, up to and including treason. The answer, "no," still doesn't automatically mean you are now in factual territory. How far your gun control policy extends still depends on your principles regarding self defense and how much societal risk you're willing to accept for simple recreation. It's never a question of how often these things happen and why. It's about how much risk you're willing to accept and for what purpose.
Abortion
No amount of statistics regarding various quality of life metrics will convince anyone. The simple question is: "when does a zygote/embryo/fetus/etc. gain human rights and to what extent do they have them?" You can't "science" this question away. Abortion is, and will be, always an argument about when it's okay to kill this... "thing." And the line is drawn the moment you believe said "thing" has human rights such that it's not okay to kill it wantonly.
And one interesting counter-example for funzies:
Anthropogenic climate change
If it is real, you're still free to rail as hard as you want against any measures taken to prevent it. This remains a principled argument regarding how much we're willing to sacrifice our standard of living in some ways in order to preserve it in others. As much of a pain in the ass climate change will be, the measures to mitigate it are a pain in the ass as well. Both are long term commitments. It's up to you and your principles which phallus gets to be the source of the pain and/or how much of each you're willing to take.
Where this becomes a counter-example is if it's not true. No action is needed because it's not happening. Sure, there's other negative effects due to CO2 emissions like ocean acidification but those are all factual arguments as well.
To wrap this all up: Most political discussions could do without the fact bombing and statistics. Those are just a dumb little game we (myself included) like to play sometimes. It's good fun, after all. But you're typically not going to change someone's opinion by playing it. You're no more likely to convince them than they are of convincing you no matter how many of the "facts" presented are shown to be demonstrably wrong. An effective political discussion relies on deconstructing the core belief system. And you can't even truly change someone's principles. They must do that themselves; maybe you can help them along the way...
Maybe.
