Trash Reasoning and Political Extremism

[Sunstone]

When it comes to politics, none of us need be too proud of our intellectual prowess. To steal from Abraham Lincoln, "All of us are dumb some of the time, some of us are dumb all of the time, but we are not all of us dumb all of the time."

Having said that, I do believe it can be reasonably argued that we live in a day and age when being dumb is almost systematically encouraged by highly partisan media outlets such as Alternet, Fox News, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, and so forth. Those sources dumb us down -- and that's not just my opinion. Scientific studies have shown that at least some of them actually make people less likely to know the truth than those folks who consume little or no news from any media source at all.

In short, trash reasoning is rampant these days and often fueled by media outlets. Talking heads that cannot themselves reason well do not encourage their viewers to reason well. Most people do not learn how to reason in university courses in logic, general semantics, or some other such disciplines. They learn to reason by observing and aping the way other people reason.

In a very rough and approximate sense, the large group of people who reason like trash when it comes to politics can be further divided into at least two subgroups of people:

(1) Those folks whose reasoning about politics is trash but who cannot help it that their reasoning is trash, and

(2) Those folks whose reasoning about politics is trash but who can indeed help it that their reasoning is trash. ​

To the first group belong those who indulge in trash reasoning and are naturally dumb. To the second group belong the vast majority who indulge in trash reasoning and are naturally smart enough to do better, but who -- for one reason or another -- are not motivated to do better. The lazy thinkers among us.

Please allow me to illustrate:

One form of trash reasoning is to habitually see an equivalence between things that are not actually equivalent. We all do that now and then, of course, but some of us practically make a profession of it.

Take, for instance, a couple of news stories that both came out in late March around the 25th or so of the month. In one story, a woman sprayed Lysol disinfectant into the eyes of a grocery store check-out clerk. In the other story, a man planning to bomb a hospital in the hope of creating "massive causalities" was prevented from doing so. Clearly, it is trash reasoning to suggest that the two degrees of violence are more or less on the same level of significance or importance. Yet that is exactly how some people reason these days.

Let us assume for the sake of illustration that the Lysol-sprayer was a Democrat. We know for a fact that the wannabe bomber was active in at least two right-wing extremist organizations. With that said, it would be trash reasoning to assume that because both people were aligned with (different) political parties, both people were equally motivated by the ideologies of their respective parties to commit or attempt their crimes.

The right-wing extremist organizations that the wannabe bomber was active in openly support and encourage the use of violence to achieve political goals.

The Democratic Party does not support -- openly or otherwise -- the use of violence to achieve political goals. Indeed, the Democratic Party is actively and officially opposed to the use of violence to achieve political goals.

Therefore, to suggest that the Lysol-spraying woman and the wannabe bomber man were equally motivated by their respective political parties is trash reasoning.

To sum up, trash reasoning is rampant these days in politics. All of us indulge in it some of the time, some of us indulge in it all of the time, but not all of us indulge in it all of the time. Those of us of good faith an intentions would do well to be on our guard against it. Being human, we will never be entirely free of it -- no matter which side of the political aisle we are on -- but I do think that by keeping our guard up, we can lessen how often we indulge in it.

Comments?




___________________________________

 

[Twilight Hue]

I'm just going to wait and see what happens after election day. Provided the Coronavirus doesn't kill me first.

 

[Revoltingest]

When it comes to politics, none of us need be too proud of our intellectual prowess. To steal from Abraham Lincoln, "All of us are dumb some of the time, some of us are dumb all of the time, but we are not all of us dumb all of the time."

Having said that, I do believe it can be reasonably argued that we live in a day and age when being dumb is almost systematically encouraged by highly partisan media outlets such as Alternet, Fox News, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, and so forth. Those sources dumb us down -- and that's not just my opinion. Scientific studies have shown that at least some of them actually make people less likely to know the truth than those folks who consume little or no news from any media source at all.

In short, trash reasoning is rampant these days and often fueled by media outlets. Talking heads that cannot themselves reason well do not encourage their viewers to reason well. Most people do not learn how to reason in university courses in logic, general semantics, or some other such disciplines. They learn to reason by observing and aping the way other people reason.

In a very rough and approximate sense, the large group of people who reason like trash when it comes to politics can be further divided into at least two subgroups of people:

(1) Those folks whose reasoning about politics is trash but who cannot help it that their reasoning is trash, and

(2) Those folks whose reasoning about politics is trash but who can indeed help it that their reasoning is trash. ​

To the first group belong those who indulge in trash reasoning and are naturally dumb. To the second group belong the vast majority who indulge in trash reasoning and are naturally smart enough to do better, but who -- for one reason or another -- are not motivated to do better. The lazy thinkers among us.

Please allow me to illustrate:

One form of trash reasoning is to habitually see an equivalence between things that are not actually equivalent. We all do that now and then, of course, but some of us practically make a profession of it.

Take, for instance, a couple of news stories that both came out in late March around the 25th or so of the month. In one story, a woman sprayed Lysol disinfectant into the eyes of a grocery store check-out clerk. In the other story, a man planning to bomb a hospital in the hope of creating "massive causalities" was prevented from doing so. Clearly, it is trash reasoning to suggest that the two degrees of violence are more or less on the same level of significance or importance. Yet that is exactly how some people reason these days.

Again, the Lysol-sprayer was most likely a Democrat, while the wannabe bomber was actually active in at least two right-wing extremist organizations. It is trash reasoning to assume that because both people were aligned with (different) political parties, both people were equally motivated by the ideologies of their respective parties to commit or attempt their crimes.

The right-wing extremist organizations that the wannabe bomber was active in openly support and encourage the use of violence to achieve political goals.

The Democratic Party does not support -- openly or otherwise -- the use of violence to achieve political goals. Indeed, the Democratic Party is actively and officially opposed to the use of violence to achieve political goals.

Therefore, to suggest that the Lysol-spraying woman and the wannabe bomber man were equally motivated by their respective political parties is trash reasoning.

To sum up, trash reasoning is rampant these days in politics. All of us indulge in it some of the time, some of us indulge in it all of the time, but not all of us indulge in it all of the time. Those of us of good faith an intentions would do well to be on our guard against it. Being human, we will never be entirely free of it -- no matter which side of the political aisle we are on -- but I do think that by keeping our guard up, we can lessen how often we indulge in it.

Comments?




___________________________________

After a quick perusal, your post has at least 2 mistakes.
I've underlined both.
1) Fomenting violence need not be official party policy.
It could be by rhetoric or party members or supporters.
2) To make it about being "equal" is a straw man,
since no one has made a claim of equality.

Other points are highly questionable.
- The Drudge Report is an aggregator that links
a far greater variety of sources than you list.
If all are untrustworthy, this raises the question
of which alternatives are so. This is unsupported.
- The epithet of "trash" is needlessly provocative,
& perhaps relates to the origin of the errors.

 

[Sunstone]

After a quick perusal, your post has at least 2 mistakes.
I've underlined both.
1) Fomenting violence need not be official party policy.
It could be by rhetoric or party members or supporters.
2) To make it about being "equal" is a straw man,
since no one has made a claim of equality.

Both of points are misrepresentations of my arguments. The first is a straw man since I am not claiming that encouraging violence need always be official party policy for a political party to be associated with violence. And your second point misrepresents my argument because I am not attacking any specific argument of yours or someone else's. (The world isn't always all about you.) RF Rule 3, section 2 prohibits your misrepresenting my argument.

 

[Revoltingest]

Both of points are misrepresentations of my arguments. The first is a straw man since I am not claiming that encouraging violence need always be official party policy for a political party to be associated with violence. And your second point misrepresents my argument because I am not attacking any specific argument of yours or someone else's. (The world isn't always all about you.) RF Rule 3, section 2 prohibits your misrepresenting my argument.

I certainly intended no misrepresentation.
I read your post to the best of my limited abilities.
And I'm sure your erroneous claims were sincere.
But logical reasoning requires valid premises in order
to be useful. So I offered corrections to that end.
I apologize for any inadvertent offense given in my
clumsy commentary.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I'm just going to wait and see what happens after election day. Provided the Coronavirus doesn't kill me first.

Here's hoping we'll both be here for years after election day to argue endlessly about it.

(Stay safe.)

 

[rational experiences]

The trash man came today at my place and picked up the trash!

 

[Sunstone]

The trash man came today at my place and picked up the trash!

They came to my place to pick up the trash too. Fortunately, my landlord made them put me down before they had entirely hauled me away.

 

[Revoltingest]

The trash man came today at my place and picked up the trash!

I have no trash pickup at home or business.
So we must be careful about what & how we generate waste.
This keeps conservation, recycling, & re-use on our minds at all times.

 

[rational experiences]

They came to my place to pick up the trash too. Fortunately, my landlord made them put me down before they had entirely hauled me away.

And I have animals where I live also....you know about secret commenting.

 

[sun rise]

Again, the Lysol-sprayer was most likely a Democrat

What evidence do you have for that assertion?

 

[Revoltingest]

What evidence do you have for that assertion?

If I may answer, since the original claim was mine.....
See post #11 for the statistical basis.
Democrat Sprays Cashier In Eyes With Lysol
I believe that when claiming membership in a
group, the probability should be quantified if possible.
Then our readers can gauge a level of confidence.

 

[sun rise]

If I may answer, since the original claim was mine.....
See post #11 for the statistical basis.
Democrat Sprays Cashier In Eyes With Lysol
I believe that when claiming membership in a
group, the probability should be quantified if possible.
Then our readers can gauge a level of confidence.

There was nothing in the story that I saw that identified the politics of the woman. That's why I posted in the thread as I did.

For the esteemed @Sunstone to repeat what I judge as something you made up out of whole cloth is what I was challenging.

Of course if I'm wrong, pass the salt because I have a hat to eat.

 

[sun rise]

If I may answer, since the original claim was mine.....
See post #11 for the statistical basis.
Democrat Sprays Cashier In Eyes With Lysol
I believe that when claiming membership in a
group, the probability should be quantified if possible.
Then our readers can gauge a level of confidence.

There was nothing in the story that I saw that identified the politics of the woman. That's why I posted in the thread as I did.

For the esteemed @Sunstone to repeat what I judge as something you made up out of whole cloth is what I was challenging.

Of course if I'm wrong, pass the salt because I have a hat to eat.

 

[Revoltingest]

There was nothing in the story that I saw that identified the politics of the woman. That's why I posted in the thread as I did.

For the esteemed @Sunstone to repeat what I judge as something you made up out of whole cloth is what I was challenging.

Of course if I'm wrong, pass the salt because I have a hat to eat.

Have you read post #11 yet?
I recommend reading the entire 1st page
of the thread to understand what it's about.

 

[Sunstone]

I see. .

I'm incredibly impressed! Foolish me did not realize until now that my effort to bend over backwards to point out that both sides engage at times in trash reasoning was in reality a thinly disguised attempt to bash Republicans! My gods, but you are brilliant to see that! Especially since there is absolutely not a single mention of Republicans in the entire thread. I am in awe of your intelligence!

 

[Sunstone]

What evidence do you have for that assertion?

I was basing that on the Rev's argument that, since the sprayer belonged to a demographic that votes overwhelmingly Democratic, the odds were greater than 50% that she voted Democratic herself. i.e. it was "most likely" she voted Democratic. There are fundamental differences between me and the Rev, but that does not mean I knee-jerk reject his reasoning. In this case, I thought he had a good argument.

However, you have prompted me to rethink my conclusion. I have realized that I was not factoring in the fact that it's likely most people in her Demographic do NOT vote at all, just like most people in most or all demographics do not vote. That might mean there is less than a 50% chance she votes Democratic. At any rate, it now seems to me incautious to say it is most likely she's a Democrat. I will edit the OP to reflect that. Thank you so much for the correction, Sunrise! I much appreciate the reality-check.

 

[Yazata]

Having said that, I do believe it can be reasonably argued that we live in a day and age when being dumb is almost systematically encouraged by highly partisan media outlets such as Alternet, Fox News, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, and so forth.

Your examples reveal your own biases, I think.

Those sources dumb us down -- and that's not just my opinion. Scientific studies have shown that at least some of them actually make people less likely to know the truth than those folks who consume little or no news from any media source at all.

"Scientific studies"? That sounds like (brown anal extrusions) to me. "Less likely to know the truth"? That suggests that the authors of the "studies" are in God-like possession of the "truth" and are in a position to judge. I expect that's extremely unlikely.

In practice, these results simply show that people who read/watch news outlets with biases different than the "study"s authors' own biases are more likely than others to disagree with the authors about the subjects of those biases.

In short, trash reasoning is rampant these days and often fueled by media outlets.

My personal opinion of journalism as a profession is about as low as it's possible to go. I just instinctively distrust people with no special expertise in most of the subjects they cover acting like they are in some position to tell me what to think and believe about those subjects.

Talking heads that cannot themselves reason well do not encourage their viewers to reason well.

I don't think that the problem is that journalists can't "reason well". Their biggest problem is the a-priori bias with which they approach any subject they report. The New York Times annually has the editors of its news sections decide on what they call "the narratives" for the year. Then they are expected to be able to show how their "news" stories contribute to advancing "the narratives". I think that we can be certain that hostility to the Trump administration has been a primary narrative since he was elected. And Fox obviously favors, if not always the Trump administration (there are probably more "never-Trumpers" at Fox than pro-Trumpers at NYT, CNN, MSNBC or WaPo) the Republicans more generally.

The problem is the political tribalism that infests not only journalism but all of life, including higher education and even right here on RF. But it's especially pernicious in journalism, which is still imagined by many dimmer people out there to be authoritative somehow, to be something of an objective window on the world.

When more realistically, it's merely a window on how particular reporters and their editors perceive the world.

 

[Sunstone]

Here's a point I did not explicitly address in the OP, but which should be fairly obvious anyway. A political group need not overtly declare that it condones, promotes, or otherwise encourages the use of violence to achieve political goals for it to he legitimately associated with that position. Obviously, if you had a group whose members were significantly more likely to engage in violence geared towards political ends than other similar political groups, then you could legitimately argue there might be something about them that promotes violence. Of course, you would not be able to logically assert on those grounds alone that there was indeed something about them that promotes violence because correlation is not causation. Nevertheless, you could assert there might be something about them.

 

[Sunstone]

A note about including the Drudge Report in the list of media outlets that are notable for being highly partisan. Some people might be confused by that inclusion on the grounds that the Report is an aggregator of articles appearing in other media outlets. And since the Report links to a variety of sources -- some of them quite good -- one might legitimately wonder where the partisanship comes in. As it happens, many people have argued the Report is partisan in how it often (but not always)) describes or characterizes the articles it links to in the title of its links. That is, they argue it often enough describes or characterizes its linked to articles in a partisan fashion.

Beyond that, the same people usually point out that the Report will link to both a reputable source on the Left and a disreputable source on the Right in such a fashion as to likely give the impression that both sources are of equal merit. So, for instance, it might link to the BBC in one case and Fox News in another, thus creating the impression that Fox News is more or less just as reputable and accurate as the BBC -- especially if someone assumes that the Report carefully vets the quality of its sources. While that sort of thing might seem innocuous, it happens to be a textbook propaganda technique first pioneered by both the Soviet and American intelligence agencies during the Cold War, and it is generally considered effective.

(By the way, some 'supermarket tabloids' make use of a variation of the technique by running two sorts of articles. One sort will be truthful articles, the other source nearly 'whole cloth' fabrications. Their aim is to get people who read the truthful articles to make the assumption that the fabrications are just as truthful. FYI.)

For the above two reasons, the Report has a reputation as partisan despite being "merely an aggregator".