Uglysasquatch, ****** Superhero wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I want people to challenge their assumptions. I want them to question the very beliefs they've been taught to base their entire political ideology on. I want them to challenge every single news article they read, question every single word out of a politicians mouth, and otherwise look at the world as it is, instead of as those around them want them to view it.
Which is fine for others but not yourself, right? You're always arguing against everyone else, but
never pointing out that you yourself could be wrong. Never. If you want others to do so, you may want to try doing so yourself,
in front of them. I don't insist that others point out that they are wrong. That's kinda silly. I'm not asking for that either. I'm asking for people to assess the methodologies they use to derive their positions and *then* decide for themselves what they think is right and what they think is wrong.
It's about the process for me, not the specific answer that you end up with. And of course this can result in a wrong answer. But at least you know why the answer may be wrong. The guy who determines his position by picking a side wont even have the tools available to him to determine if he's wrong, much less why. We don't live in a perfect world. It's absurd to insist on perfect answers to everything. But we can adopt a process for arriving at answers that produces the highest rate off "right" answers.
That's what I'm about. That's why I painstakingly work my way through an argument, building it up from the smallest and simplest facts to whatever endpoint is relevant to the discussion at hand. Most people start at the end and then construct statements and arguments to defend that end point. I believe that's a flawed approach because they fail to see other possible end points. The very argument about having to "point out if you're wrong" follows from that approach. All you can do is assess your own position when you do it that way. That's because you haven't considered an alternative, and are only looking at facts and arguments that support your position. If you do it the other way around, you're just plain more likely to arrive at the correct (or most correct) answer.
Consider a question about whether apples or oranges are better for you. You could approach this in one of two ways:
1. Assume apples are better. Then research facts showing the different ways in which apples are good for you. You can then repeat those facts about how good apples are if anyone questions your starting assumption.
2. Define what makes things good or bad for you. Then assess the degree to which the good things are present and the bad things absent in both apples and oranges. Then generate a position based on that assessment.
Note, that the guy using method 1 never has to consider the positive aspects of oranges. And he doesn't even have to consider the negative aspects of apples. Remember. He's starting with an assumption that apples are better for you. All he needs to support that are facts showing the ways in which apples are good for you. Build up a mountain of "good things" about apples, and he will appear to have a strong case. But he hasn't actually compared them though, and often will resist doing so. After all, looking at oranges can only weaken his position, so why do it?
My point is that most people use method 1 most of the time. They start with an answer they believe is correct and then look for information that supports that belief and *only* information that supports it. Why would you go looking for evidence that apples aren't good for you, if you know that they are? It's much easier to just find and repeat evidence that supports your position, and just refute anything that opposes it as a rubbish. And when a large enough number of people use this method and hold to a particular belief, it becomes increasingly hard to convince them otherwise, no matter how much evidence you have. After all, you're presenting evidence that refutes what they know to be true, so you must be either lying or just plain wrong.
And in terms of political debate on this forum? I've had an awful lot of that sort of thing thrown my way. It's somewhat painful to carefully walk through a logical process just to have someone say "False". No reason why, just "false". As though by ignoring the counter-argument, it'll just go away. Of course, if you've got enough people who agree with your starting assumption, it's easy to get the crowd to support you and drown out the opposition, isn't it?
I've stated this before. You get the level of discourse that you're willing to engage in. If you want all political threads to just be a bunch of people agreeing with each other, by all means continue marginalizing and attacking anyone with a countering point of view. But if you want to actually engage in intelligent conversation, it might help to stop and consider the other person's point of view instead of dismissing it out of hand, because his conclusions are different than yours...
Edited, Mar 10th 2009 7:34pm by gbaji