Actually, I want to thank you (and Dan, below) for making me think a little more carefully about this.
I now think that the constant wrongness of Ann Coulter isn’t an accident. She is an almost perfect example of a pure anti-rationalist: someone who will always and only believe things that accord with her ideology. You can predict what she will say about many issues via a simple process.
For instance, take the sentence “Muslims are bad,” and apply it simplemindedly to any issue involving Muslims, and you will be able to predict her beliefs. She insists that Muslims had nothing to do with the advance of knowledge; that Islam has never been a religion of peace or tolerance; that Sirhan Sirhan was a Muslim (he wasn’t). She writes: “Muslims ought to start claiming the Quran also prohibits indoor plumbing, to explain their lack of it.” And on, and on.
Similarly with “liberals are bad.” She believes that liberals are always wrong. Among the conclusions she draws: liberals believe in evolution, therefore evolution is false.
I don’t know, it’s a pretty impressive record she’s got going. She will, no doubt, be right about things on occasion, by accident. But I’m starting to feel better about the reliability of my “shortcut to truth.” :)
She will, no doubt, be right about things on occasion, by accident. But I’m starting to feel better about the reliability of my “shortcut to truth.” :)
Most real-life issues admit of more than two answers. It’s just the political and media approach to paint things as black and white.
In other words: reversed falsehood is not truth. You can’t get at the truth by taking the opposite position from Ann Coulter. Because the vast majority of statements don’t have a single opposite position.
So while you can judge her always wrong, it will only help you to be right by dismissing her opinions, not by suggesting the right ones.
I now think that the constant wrongness of Ann Coulter isn’t an accident. She is an almost perfect example of a pure anti-rationalist: someone who will always and only believe things that accord with her ideology.
I’m very opposed to this kind of statement, because one of my core beliefs is that reasonable people can and will disagree on politics. This sounds too much like people calling Bush or Obama stupid when they disagree.
I suspect that you have a strongly opposing political ideology to Coulter’s, and this is biasing you against her. I am aware of factual errors in some of her books, especially the ones about evolution, obviously. But assuming that you don’t like Coulter and that you disagree with her values, I don’t think you can objectively comment on her rationality.
But assuming that you don’t like Coulter and that you disagree with her values, I don’t think you can objectively comment on her rationality.
That would seem to make being politically polarized a bulletproof protection against people noticing that you are completely irrational. I don’t buy that.
Do you extend this distrust of statements made about people who disagree with you on politics, to the field of religion as well? Do you expect creationist Christians to be as rational as scientific atheists who accept evolution?
Coulter is not only “conservative,” she’s also a creationist.
My problem with Coulter is not that she’s conservative. It’s that she doesn’t think about issues independent of her ideology. There are those on the left who are similar.
Do you expect creationist Christians to be as rational as scientific atheists who accept evolution?
Of course not, because that’s not a two-sided debate. Politics is.
My problem with Coulter is not that she’s conservative. It’s that she doesn’t think about issues independent of her ideology. There are those on the left who are similar.
But in that case, you could equally well say, “The first thing I saw was that X is convinced that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent. I immediately moved my belief in their innocence way down. When X takes a strong position on a controversial issue, she is almost always wrong,” where X is Coulter’s left-wing opposite.
If Coulter and X always write rhetoric from one ideological position, I can agree that you could say they were equally irrational, in the sense that they can’t think outside their ideology. But I don’t see how you could come up with a useful truth-heuristic from that. Ideological does not imply incorrect. Your truth-heuristic of always opposing Coulter seems to be another way of saying “Coulter’s ideology is always wrong.”
Of course not, because that’s not a two-sided debate. Politics is.
I’m curious what you mean by this exactly. Do you mean that politics is something on which rational people can agree to disagree whereas the truth of evolution is not?
Politics, unlike evolution, isn’t really a factual matter. Take abortion, for instance: some people have the goal of reducing abortions, some people have the goal of reducing the population, some people have the goal of maximizing women’s reproductive choices, and some people have the goal of maximizing fathers’ control over whether or not they have kids. Which goal you have depends on your personal preferences and values, though you may have to bite the appropriate bullet for whichever goal you accept.
And even if two people or groups agree on the goal, there isn’t enough information for us to know what the most efficient way of getting to that goal. We might have different ethical or pragmatic constraints as we work towards that goal (for instance, not wanting to give the government too much power on our way there). Even if we agree on the probabilities of success for each legislative choice, say, we may have different tolerances for the risk we as a society assume in getting there. The world of politics and legislation is vague enough that there’s not always only one right answer (though there may be definite wrong ones).
I think it’s probably true that some political disagreements come down to differing preferences and values. It doesn’t strike me that the majority of policy debates which account for much of the noise that passes for ‘political discourse’ can be seen as debates over fundamental values and preferences however.
A significant amount of political debate seems to revolve around what at least appear to be questions of fact about how to best achieve certain broadly agreed upon aims. I tend to think that a lot of politics and political debate is best understood not as a search for truth but as serving other goals not related to the surface appearance but the more thoughtful and better intentioned participants in the debate do generally seem to believe that they are to some extent debating a factual matter, albeit one that is not as clearly settled by the available evidence as the question of evolution.
I’m very opposed to this kind of statement, because one of my core beliefs is that reasonable people can and will disagree on politics. This sounds too much like people calling Bush or Obama stupid when they disagree.
You can doubt k3nt’s ability to recognize such cases correctly, but there’s no internal inconsistency in his description.
I know that many people—certainly public media or political personas—are, in fact, ideologists of this kind. I can’t say about Coulter because I’m not from the USA and know nothing about her...
Actually, I want to thank you (and Dan, below) for making me think a little more carefully about this.
I now think that the constant wrongness of Ann Coulter isn’t an accident. She is an almost perfect example of a pure anti-rationalist: someone who will always and only believe things that accord with her ideology. You can predict what she will say about many issues via a simple process.
For instance, take the sentence “Muslims are bad,” and apply it simplemindedly to any issue involving Muslims, and you will be able to predict her beliefs. She insists that Muslims had nothing to do with the advance of knowledge; that Islam has never been a religion of peace or tolerance; that Sirhan Sirhan was a Muslim (he wasn’t). She writes: “Muslims ought to start claiming the Quran also prohibits indoor plumbing, to explain their lack of it.” And on, and on.
Similarly with “liberals are bad.” She believes that liberals are always wrong. Among the conclusions she draws: liberals believe in evolution, therefore evolution is false.
I don’t know, it’s a pretty impressive record she’s got going. She will, no doubt, be right about things on occasion, by accident. But I’m starting to feel better about the reliability of my “shortcut to truth.” :)
Most real-life issues admit of more than two answers. It’s just the political and media approach to paint things as black and white.
In other words: reversed falsehood is not truth. You can’t get at the truth by taking the opposite position from Ann Coulter. Because the vast majority of statements don’t have a single opposite position.
So while you can judge her always wrong, it will only help you to be right by dismissing her opinions, not by suggesting the right ones.
Of course. It’s an exceedingly limited heuristic and valuable only in rare circumstances.
I’m very opposed to this kind of statement, because one of my core beliefs is that reasonable people can and will disagree on politics. This sounds too much like people calling Bush or Obama stupid when they disagree.
I suspect that you have a strongly opposing political ideology to Coulter’s, and this is biasing you against her. I am aware of factual errors in some of her books, especially the ones about evolution, obviously. But assuming that you don’t like Coulter and that you disagree with her values, I don’t think you can objectively comment on her rationality.
That would seem to make being politically polarized a bulletproof protection against people noticing that you are completely irrational. I don’t buy that.
Do you extend this distrust of statements made about people who disagree with you on politics, to the field of religion as well? Do you expect creationist Christians to be as rational as scientific atheists who accept evolution?
Coulter is not only “conservative,” she’s also a creationist.
My problem with Coulter is not that she’s conservative. It’s that she doesn’t think about issues independent of her ideology. There are those on the left who are similar.
Of course not, because that’s not a two-sided debate. Politics is.
But in that case, you could equally well say, “The first thing I saw was that X is convinced that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent. I immediately moved my belief in their innocence way down. When X takes a strong position on a controversial issue, she is almost always wrong,” where X is Coulter’s left-wing opposite.
If Coulter and X always write rhetoric from one ideological position, I can agree that you could say they were equally irrational, in the sense that they can’t think outside their ideology. But I don’t see how you could come up with a useful truth-heuristic from that. Ideological does not imply incorrect. Your truth-heuristic of always opposing Coulter seems to be another way of saying “Coulter’s ideology is always wrong.”
I’m curious what you mean by this exactly. Do you mean that politics is something on which rational people can agree to disagree whereas the truth of evolution is not?
Politics, unlike evolution, isn’t really a factual matter. Take abortion, for instance: some people have the goal of reducing abortions, some people have the goal of reducing the population, some people have the goal of maximizing women’s reproductive choices, and some people have the goal of maximizing fathers’ control over whether or not they have kids. Which goal you have depends on your personal preferences and values, though you may have to bite the appropriate bullet for whichever goal you accept.
And even if two people or groups agree on the goal, there isn’t enough information for us to know what the most efficient way of getting to that goal. We might have different ethical or pragmatic constraints as we work towards that goal (for instance, not wanting to give the government too much power on our way there). Even if we agree on the probabilities of success for each legislative choice, say, we may have different tolerances for the risk we as a society assume in getting there. The world of politics and legislation is vague enough that there’s not always only one right answer (though there may be definite wrong ones).
I think it’s probably true that some political disagreements come down to differing preferences and values. It doesn’t strike me that the majority of policy debates which account for much of the noise that passes for ‘political discourse’ can be seen as debates over fundamental values and preferences however.
A significant amount of political debate seems to revolve around what at least appear to be questions of fact about how to best achieve certain broadly agreed upon aims. I tend to think that a lot of politics and political debate is best understood not as a search for truth but as serving other goals not related to the surface appearance but the more thoughtful and better intentioned participants in the debate do generally seem to believe that they are to some extent debating a factual matter, albeit one that is not as clearly settled by the available evidence as the question of evolution.
You can doubt k3nt’s ability to recognize such cases correctly, but there’s no internal inconsistency in his description.
I know that many people—certainly public media or political personas—are, in fact, ideologists of this kind. I can’t say about Coulter because I’m not from the USA and know nothing about her...