A reason I had to leave FB was that there were various Poochies in my circle of "friends" (what? why, yes, I **am** a human who was on FB! How did you guess?)
Not sure if this is the same thing (seems to me it is) but I've been following closely how climate change denialism has been evolving into other forms of bad-faith argument as the space for outright denialism continues to shrink. Sometimes it comes out as Climate Doomism: "Oh, it's too late, it's a waste of time and money to even try." Or it comes out as There's Only One Answer: "The only way we can save ourselves is nuclear power, but the environmentalists won't allow that, so it's all THEIR fault." Or sometimes as old-school Zero-Population-Growth racism: "The problem is too many people" [angry glare directed at Africa, which accounts for about 2% of Carbon emissions.]
But push back just the littlest bit and you'll find the denialism comes back out, they really have a hard time keeping it under wraps. But, you know, more sophisticated now: "Well, there just isn't sufficient evidence to show negative effects will outweigh the positive ones." Watch for that "isn't sufficient evidence" thing, it's a tactic they use to turn a matter of fact into a matter of opinion: "Oh, sure, there's evidence, I'm not denying that, it's just not, you know... sufficient." And who gets to decide when it reaches this magical level of sufficiency? They do, of course. The world's climate scientists can continue to risk their lives sampling Antarctic glaciers so they can return home to pile evidence of the feet of the guy who's appointed himself King Shit, so he can tell them, regretfully, that's it's still not enough, try harder.
This set of pieces was really helpful to me to have better language to both understand the process so frequently used by these types of "allies" and to use it when disengaging from them. It can be hard to extricate myself from discussions both online and IRL when people are doing this. It's not that I'm confused about their manipulation and the how what they say contradicts what their words are doing but their refusal to be straightforward about it and how they use my disengaging to claim I'm shutting down the dialogue. I'm not so naive as to think I will now be able to talk them into honest communication but it does help with the dissonance and it will be helpful to discuss with other actual allies. I hate the waste of time and the result of wider permission for inexcusable behavior introduced in this manner. Thanks so much?
I love the phrase "lose the argument" which I'm reading as "Just like you'd 'lose' someone in a crowd if they came with you to the party and then you realized too late that they're an annoying asshole."
And when I'm not just walking away entirely (let them claim I "can't handle the truth" who fucking cares) my standard response is now "OK, so what he's doing right here is..." not talking to them at all, but just pointing out the dishonest tactics they're using in case anyone else is watching. Try to educate the bystanders, don't waste your time on the perpetrators.
Agreed. There is definitely a time and a place for simply opposing horrible arguments/positions, not to 'win the debate', but to simply show that there IS opposition to those positions and arguments. Arguing to the audience can be a powerful action, but as pointed out repeatedly in our host's newsletters and many other places, those times should be chosen carefully and in very limited numbers so as to avoid helping legitimise those positions.
And in my experiences, there's precious few of those moments left. We are mostly past that point, and well into the time where we have to actually look for solutions, whilst still being aware that there WILL be some people in those discussions who are doing all they can to avoid letting those discussions happen at all.
I offer you this basic structural explanation of arguing in bad faith, to expand on as you wish.
An argument is in bad faith if the arguer A does not care about the truth of A’s premises. An argument is malicious if A knows a premise is false and makes the argument anyway.
For example:
Arguments can be made in bad faith when the Arguer A is trying to come up with reasons to avoid the obligation to help those A does not care about. For example, A will argue it is an infringement on A's liberty to tax A at all, when really, A just does not want their tax dollars to pay for the education of the poor, or the healthcare of the disabled. A wants to control where A’s money gets spent and so makes a bad faith argument that it is wrong to tax people in the first place. The reasons given are designed to mislead, or are mere opinion, or support some other argument.
A reason I had to leave FB was that there were various Poochies in my circle of "friends" (what? why, yes, I **am** a human who was on FB! How did you guess?)
Not sure if this is the same thing (seems to me it is) but I've been following closely how climate change denialism has been evolving into other forms of bad-faith argument as the space for outright denialism continues to shrink. Sometimes it comes out as Climate Doomism: "Oh, it's too late, it's a waste of time and money to even try." Or it comes out as There's Only One Answer: "The only way we can save ourselves is nuclear power, but the environmentalists won't allow that, so it's all THEIR fault." Or sometimes as old-school Zero-Population-Growth racism: "The problem is too many people" [angry glare directed at Africa, which accounts for about 2% of Carbon emissions.]
But push back just the littlest bit and you'll find the denialism comes back out, they really have a hard time keeping it under wraps. But, you know, more sophisticated now: "Well, there just isn't sufficient evidence to show negative effects will outweigh the positive ones." Watch for that "isn't sufficient evidence" thing, it's a tactic they use to turn a matter of fact into a matter of opinion: "Oh, sure, there's evidence, I'm not denying that, it's just not, you know... sufficient." And who gets to decide when it reaches this magical level of sufficiency? They do, of course. The world's climate scientists can continue to risk their lives sampling Antarctic glaciers so they can return home to pile evidence of the feet of the guy who's appointed himself King Shit, so he can tell them, regretfully, that's it's still not enough, try harder.
"I’ve started thinking of ways to force hard conversations.
More on this in the coming weeks, hopefully."
Yes.
This set of pieces was really helpful to me to have better language to both understand the process so frequently used by these types of "allies" and to use it when disengaging from them. It can be hard to extricate myself from discussions both online and IRL when people are doing this. It's not that I'm confused about their manipulation and the how what they say contradicts what their words are doing but their refusal to be straightforward about it and how they use my disengaging to claim I'm shutting down the dialogue. I'm not so naive as to think I will now be able to talk them into honest communication but it does help with the dissonance and it will be helpful to discuss with other actual allies. I hate the waste of time and the result of wider permission for inexcusable behavior introduced in this manner. Thanks so much?
I love the phrase "lose the argument" which I'm reading as "Just like you'd 'lose' someone in a crowd if they came with you to the party and then you realized too late that they're an annoying asshole."
And when I'm not just walking away entirely (let them claim I "can't handle the truth" who fucking cares) my standard response is now "OK, so what he's doing right here is..." not talking to them at all, but just pointing out the dishonest tactics they're using in case anyone else is watching. Try to educate the bystanders, don't waste your time on the perpetrators.
Agreed. There is definitely a time and a place for simply opposing horrible arguments/positions, not to 'win the debate', but to simply show that there IS opposition to those positions and arguments. Arguing to the audience can be a powerful action, but as pointed out repeatedly in our host's newsletters and many other places, those times should be chosen carefully and in very limited numbers so as to avoid helping legitimise those positions.
And in my experiences, there's precious few of those moments left. We are mostly past that point, and well into the time where we have to actually look for solutions, whilst still being aware that there WILL be some people in those discussions who are doing all they can to avoid letting those discussions happen at all.
I offer you this basic structural explanation of arguing in bad faith, to expand on as you wish.
An argument is in bad faith if the arguer A does not care about the truth of A’s premises. An argument is malicious if A knows a premise is false and makes the argument anyway.
For example:
Arguments can be made in bad faith when the Arguer A is trying to come up with reasons to avoid the obligation to help those A does not care about. For example, A will argue it is an infringement on A's liberty to tax A at all, when really, A just does not want their tax dollars to pay for the education of the poor, or the healthcare of the disabled. A wants to control where A’s money gets spent and so makes a bad faith argument that it is wrong to tax people in the first place. The reasons given are designed to mislead, or are mere opinion, or support some other argument.