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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Are we living in a post-factual society?
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
I know there are many people on this board who voted to Leave the EU. I also know that the referendum has spawned multiple thread, so my apologies. However I do think that the referendum result is the epitome of what I want to talk about - facts do not matter anymore - it's just a matter of who can shout the loudest.
I know that some who voted to leave did so for good reasons. I happen to believe that the arguments for leaving were massively outweighed by the costs but that's actually beside the point. Almost everything claimed in the campaign was untrue.
Let me give two examples:
1. The £350m / week cost of EU membership
2. Gove's assertion that we are 'fed up of experts'
1. I want to start here because there is no room for opinion or argument, this statement is simply and demonstrably false. If it was a marketing campaign and not an election it would have been stopped by the advertising standards authority (they have no jurisdiction over political advertising).
Let me just break that down. The UK's theoretical contribution to the EU is £17.8Bn (£342m/week). However as the rebate applies upfront the actual amount that the UK sends to the EU is only 12.9Bn (or 248m/week). So, even if we ignore the huge amount of EU spending in the UK (yes, the UK is a net contributor) the statement is quite simply untrue. Untrue to the tune of £100m/week or, nearly £5Bn/year. Or to put it another way it is a figure inflated by 40%.
Yet, this was a major cornerstone of the campaign and all that might be done with this pot of money.
2. What the hell? I mean, as with many things the issues here are very complicated and how can people make an informed decision without listening to experts. But, according to Gove it's only people like him we should listen to.
I think there are lots of big factors behind all of this, part of it is the appalling state of our media - the print media push an agenda shamelessly regardless of the truth. The broadcast media, for the most part adopt the Shape of the earth - opinions vary approach and hence outrageous claims go unchallenged.
From my area of expertise it is very like the anti-vaccine brigade: facts become irrelevant. How can democracy possibly function in this context?
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif) ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
As a wise man once said "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free..."
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
24/7 News editorial "balance" has a lot to answer for. I don't think Ed Murrow was all that balanced about McCarthy and McCarthyism. Woodward and Bernstein weren't all that balanced about Watergate. There does seem to be some kind of responsibility to call Bullshit, when the smell is obvious.
But I'm still not sure such cries will be heard any more. The Pomo "this is my truth, tell me yours" has had pervasive influences. Plus if you're angry and disillusioned, objectivity can be much less attractive than venting and ranting.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Having both sides of an issue presented equally is not balance, as John Oliver demonstrates here. (skip to 3:27 for the relevant demonstration)
Issues are rarely 50/50, they should not be presented so.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Political life has always been flexible with the truth, hasn't it? I was remembering Eden's denial to parliament that there had been a conspiracy over Suez, but I think that there are probably other examples. I suppose Blair must come into this.
But in science and medicine, although there are frequent populist campaigns, along the lines of 'vaccines cause autism', they are usually shown to be inaccurate.
But it does show that there is an appetite for superstition and magical thinking, or whatever you call it. Hence, conspiracy theories.
And of course, the popular media don't bother really with accuracy; they just make stuff up. I think the autism scare was partly inflamed by the tabloids.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
24/7 News editorial "balance" has a lot to answer for. I don't think Ed Murrow was all that balanced about McCarthy and McCarthyism. Woodward and Bernstein weren't all that balanced about Watergate.
I'm not sure I'd blame post modernism at all. I think the rolling news cycle leads to the most extreme voices being represented in media - as that's what makes for good television.
I think in this country the BBC have tended to sometimes interpret the 'balance' requirement as the need to show both sides of the argument, without any serious investigation. So in the examples above, they'd feature someone making the 350m claim, feature someone who contested it, and it would come down to a popularity contest with the viewers as to which side was telling the truth.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Have we ever lived in a 'truth-based' society? I was thinking about Kenya, and the allegations that some people were tortured in various camps, and even killed. I wonder if these things were reported at the time in the media? Cover-ups and dissimulations are the stock-in-trade of governments, and other powerful forces, such as media, I think.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
If you watched the box after the referendum, you would have seen plenty of older people sobbing with joy about "getting their country back" and the like. To them, this wasn't about statistics like the £350m (total bollocks I agree). It's about identity.
Fighting that with facts about relative payments was never going to work. You have to fight an identity argument with a better identity argument.
There's a great deal more to say on this subject, but that will do for now.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
There have always been complaints about a lack of respect for facts and truth. In 1921, G. K. Chesterton wrote:
quote:
"They would just swallow the scepticism because it was scepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority."
The point being that, if you had a factually true statement, it was considered enough to be "skeptical" of it to have some people accept the skepticism as truth--even though there was no facts at all to support the skepticism. The act of being skeptical was imbued with a sort of holy aura that made poor fact seem less believable.
But the issue goes back further than that. Thousands of years ago, the question was asked: "What is truth?" It is an old problem.
But I do think it is getting worse today because of the speed at which we do things. We have "information" available to us through the World-Wide Echo Chamber that is the internet. We no longer give ourselves time to gather facts and reach a considered conclusion. "Too slow! The conversation has moved on!" That is a breeding ground to allow substance to triumph over form; to allow emotional appeal to triumph over fact.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Is thread only about another UK referendum, or is there a desire to discuss the topic more generally? I actually think the premise of the topic is wrong. It presumes that we appraised facts differently in the past and that we've lost something. Which presumes some sort of progression, improvement and development in our capacity to think. Which is probably not true.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
So was there a golden age when governments, kings, political parties, and media didn't lie and cover up, and make stuff up? Hmm. About 1640?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is thread only about another UK referendum, or is there a desire to discuss the topic more generally? I actually think the premise of the topic is wrong. It presumes that we appraised facts differently in the past and that we've lost something. Which presumes some sort of progression, improvement and development in our capacity to think. Which is probably not true.
I don't think it's unique to the UK referendum at all. I think the issue is that there
should have been a progression, based on the thing we're using to communicate here - the internet.
It's never been easier to be well informed - both on factual matters, and for things that aren't factual, to study a diverse range of opinion.
I think the irony is that people have instead used the internet to seek things that reinforce their own world view, rather than challenge it. Since they can all do it publicly, they're prone to storming someone else's kingdom shouting about how the other people are wrong.
I think actually there has been a regression, rather than a progression. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We could and should have got better at calling bullshit on things, but we've just chosen to swallow more bullshit instead. Perhaps because bullshit is more easily spreadable.
This argument probably doesn't apply to the ship, which remains by far the sanest environment I've come across during the referendum.
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I thought I should update my signature line....
Posts: 836 | From: North West UK | Registered: Apr 2007
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is thread only about another UK referendum, or is there a desire to discuss the topic more generally? I actually think the premise of the topic is wrong. It presumes that we appraised facts differently in the past and that we've lost something. Which presumes some sort of progression, improvement and development in our capacity to think. Which is probably not true.
That's a fair criticism. I have two premises and I haven't properly separately them:
1) We have a culture that presupposes arguments are of equal weight. This assumption is held even when there is a large imbalance of facts.
2) It feels to me that this is a bigger problem than it was 20 years ago.
1. I think is demonstrably true. 2. I am less sure about.
I don't want to talk about the referendum as such, except that I think it really does represent the nadir of this phenomenon. Conversely I think some intelligent people who should (and indeed do) know better have deliberately exploited it for their own gain. Previously I have talked about how much of the last GE campaign was propaganda and lies. I don't really want to focus on that so much because whilst I do think it true it is a harder one to demonstrate. I picked the £350m example because in 3 sentences I can show why it was a lie. I do believe I can show the same for so much of what this current government claims but it takes several paragraphs and references to do so. See the recent dispute between Mr Hunt and Junior Doctors for another example*
My current SoF signature is a quote of which I am particularly fond. My problem is that the public conversation gives equal weight to opinions regardless of the facts. In a different context I have argued that it is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that benefits are too generous. However it is only reasonable to hold this view if you happen to know how much cash per week such benefits** involve. My universal experience of arguing with people who hold that view, is that they universally think benefits are much higher than they actually are.
AFZ
*This story isn't over. if my current colleagues are in anyway representative, junior doctors are about the reject the contract deal
** I hate the term benefits. I believe social security is much more appropriate.
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I don't understand how we would know if there has been a progression or regression. How can I tell?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
If you watched the box after the referendum, you would have seen plenty of older people sobbing with joy about "getting their country back" and the like. To them, this wasn't about statistics like the £350m (total bollocks I agree). It's about identity.
I think the lie about the money was part. It allowed people voting against their own interest to believe they were not.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
In a different context I have argued that it is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that benefits are too generous.
Benefits are always too generous unless they are your own and your own are always justified, where 'theirs" are not.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
But I do think it is getting worse today because of the speed at which we do things. We have "information" available to us through the World-Wide Echo Chamber that is the internet. We no longer give ourselves time to gather facts and reach a considered conclusion. "Too slow! The conversation has moved on!" That is a breeding ground to allow substance to triumph over form; to allow emotional appeal to triumph over fact.
It seems to me that the crucial difference with the World-Wide Echo Chamber is that anyone can participate and make themselves seem like experts, allowing readers to find "facts" that look as though they are well-researched, to support any position they are already inclined to agree with. The prime example I'm thinking of is climate change.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
That's a fair criticism. I have two premises and I haven't properly separately them:
1) We have a culture that presupposes arguments are of equal weight. This assumption is held even when there is a large imbalance of facts.
2) It feels to me that this is a bigger problem than it was 20 years ago.
1. I think is demonstrably true. 2. I am less sure about.
I don't want to talk about the referendum as such, except that I think it really does represent the nadir of this phenomenon. Conversely I think some intelligent people who should (and indeed do) know better have deliberately exploited it for their own gain. Previously I have talked about how much of the last GE campaign was propaganda and lies. I don't really
What I have seen in my 30 years of professional and business practice is the intrusion of business analysis methods and legal / procedural argumentation into places it doesn't belong.
Case in point is the Sasktachewan government's spending of some $40 million on "lean management" for all the health care (hospitals, clinics, imaging centres etc). The argument from the business side was that if they applied Toyota assembly line methods to hospitals that they could specify the processes that streamlined the delivery of health services to individual customers, er, um , patients. This is an example of how a seemingly fact-based analysis method provided data which was then applied to an area of human endeavour where it just doesn't work. The cost saving didn't occur, and morale of health care staff fell. The program was terminated early. Lean in health care - a link which gives some flavour.
I do agree that argument and manner of delivering the message has often usurped facts. Business people and their business lawyer kin are only partly fact-based at best in my experience and opinion.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
But I do think it is getting worse today because of the speed at which we do things. We have "information" available to us through the World-Wide Echo Chamber that is the internet. We no longer give ourselves time to gather facts and reach a considered conclusion. "Too slow! The conversation has moved on!" That is a breeding ground to allow substance to triumph over form; to allow emotional appeal to triumph over fact.
It seems to me that the crucial difference with the World-Wide Echo Chamber is that anyone can participate and make themselves seem like experts, allowing readers to find "facts" that look as though they are well-researched, to support any position they are already inclined to agree with. The prime example I'm thinking of is climate change.
Yes, the World-Wide Echo Chamber is very good at giving the appearance of "truthiness."
Of course, in the section that you quoted, I meant form over substance, not substance over form. I had just started drinking my cup of tea and my brain had not yet kicked into proper gear...
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I have been wondering about the intersection of the widespread criticism here of the "Leave" narrative in the referendum (as being so far removed from reality) and the frequent dismissal of a belief in the objective truth of at least some of the Bible, most notably the resurrection.
To me, if Christ did not rise from the dead in bodily form, there's no Gospel. Others seem to think it's the narrative that matters - indeed, that the narrative is in fact the substance.
Don't events such as those of last Thursday suggest that to be sustained, a narrative requires at least some grounding in objective reality? Failing that, it's delusional.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
If you watched the box after the referendum, you would have seen plenty of older people sobbing with joy about "getting their country back" and the like. To them, this wasn't about statistics like the £350m (total bollocks I agree). It's about identity.
Alright, and I call bullshit on the term "identity".
For some, that will mean Britain controlled from within rather than without. For some, it means no more bloody foreigners. For some a mix. How much is misguided nationalism and how much is racism/xenophobia is up for discussion, but ISTM the former rarely exists without at least a whiff of the later.
"Identity" is a pretty wrapping on a generally less pleasant package.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Thing is, as people we don't always like the truth. We will deny it, turn a deaf ear to it, sometimes even say ---we're not interested in facts. So it really isn't difficult for those who lead us to dish up white pork/propaganda in order to manipulate the masses towards which ever is expedient. Whether it be to keep us peaceful or to psych us up for battle.
Most noticeable when Britain's policy of appeasement turned to a declaration of war in 39. Apparently Pathe News switched it's oratory from benign to aggressive literally overnight. People just dealt with it. In a situation like that what other choice is there?
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Elemental
Apprentice
# 17407
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Alright, and I call bullshit on the term "identity".
For some, that will mean Britain controlled from within rather than without. For some, it means no more bloody foreigners. For some a mix. How much is misguided nationalism and how much is racism/xenophobia is up for discussion, but ISTM the former rarely exists without at least a whiff of the later.
"Identity" is a pretty wrapping on a generally less pleasant package.
Isn't that last line the truth!
But ISTM that there should be scope for an English identity without that being the EDL. There are distinct things about me that I believe are firmly derived from growing up in semi-rural England. Those things don't make me hate others, they just make me me, and somehow very English. But I felt no need to vote to leave the admittedly flawed EU to protect that identity.
Anyone I have challenged about what exactly the EU did to take away their identity couldn't provide a specific example.
Back to the OP, I fear that our longing for evidence-based decision making (such a simple premise!) might make us imagine a time when it was so, much as many Leave voters are imagining Enid Blyton's England. I'm not sure such a factual society did ever exist on a large scale.
In the past week I have realised how incredibly privileged I am in my life to be surrounded by smart people who do live in a microcosm factual society, to the extent that I was totally unprepared for the post-vote stories of some people. I blame the smart people, they fooled me into thinking everyone was smarter... ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
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If anything is sacred, everything is
Posts: 16 | From: On the water | Registered: Nov 2012
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
LilBuddha wrote quote:
Alright, and I call bullshit on the term "identity".
For some, that will mean Britain controlled from within rather than without. For some, it means no more bloody foreigners. For some a mix. How much is misguided nationalism and how much is racism/xenophobia is up for discussion, but ISTM the former rarely exists without at least a whiff of the later.
"Identity" is a pretty wrapping on a generally less pleasant package.
Of course it's a disgrace.
Last week, before the event, I spent a day in town talking and listening to plenty of people. I can't tell you the number of times I was told "But I'm English (or British but usually English), not European." There was a load of other stuff in there of course, but frequently this.
English national identity has been a vague, mostly unpopulated outer suburb of people's consciousness for decades, occasionally visited by national sports teams, skinheads and the far right. Can you think of any other country with such a vague sense of identity? As opposed to Britain of course.
And for a similar length of time, the left has maxed out on internationalism. National consciousness has been a bit of dirty word, save amongst a few thinkers who pointed out that national sensibility lay behind numerous liberation movements.
Then along came globalism and international fuck-you capitalism. The people who most predominantly voted to leave are those who have got nothing out of globalism. Of course as anyone here will know, there are other factors behind their complaints, but they are fed a constant diet of simplistic hate by their preferred tabloid. Europe is somewhere different. It's beyond their area of knowledge. It's easily conflated with all these problems they are told crowd in on them from outside. Europe must be the problem then! Out of Europe!
Nature abhors a vacuum. That whooshing noise you just heard was that vacuum of national identity being filled. Of course, its now a dereliction zone filled with toxic waste. But there you go.
Personally I really am considering emigrating. I am disgusted by the extreme manifestations of the Brexit mob (whilst recognising that those who had technical issues with democracy deficits, etc. etc. had perfectly reasonable reasons for coming to the opposite decision to me). I feel no affinity whatever with this sense of identity. As my daughters would tell you if asked, I have been banging on for years about this particular vacuum and the threat it poses. I had no idea that Brexit would be the occasion of its demise.
Identity politics has always been a dangerous game. Constructively, it can help disadvantaged people gain confidence in their own worth and what they can specifically contribute to greater society. Used destructively, it becomes Us v. Them.
If national identity is not a form of identity, then words have lost their meaning. So your call is duly considered and dismissed.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I agreed with your first comment Honest Ron and your restatement of it.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
If you watched the box after the referendum, you would have seen plenty of older people sobbing with joy about "getting their country back" and the like. To them, this wasn't about statistics like the £350m (total bollocks I agree). It's about identity.
Alright, and I call bullshit on the term "identity".
For some, that will mean Britain controlled from within rather than without. For some, it means no more bloody foreigners. For some a mix. How much is misguided nationalism and how much is racism/xenophobia is up for discussion, but ISTM the former rarely exists without at least a whiff of the later.
"Identity" is a pretty wrapping on a generally less pleasant package.
I think I agree with Honest Ron. I was talking to a Leave voter who today who was upset that people think that she is racist (and I know her fairly well and she isn't) and trying to explain, as gently as I could, why some of us are a bit pissed about this and what I came up with was that for some of us who we are has been taken away from us. The boring "do not do this damn silly thing, in this damn silly way" aspects of the business scare me witless, of course, but the reason I suspect the aftermath of all this is going to be so bitter is that for every old person who has got their country back there is a young person who has lost theirs.
[x-posted with Honest Ron's admirable second post.]
[ 30. June 2016, 19:17: Message edited by: Callan ]
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
What is truth? Whole cultures disagree on such things as legitimacy of slavery (lots of it in today's world), "role" of women, what amount is fair pay for a worker or a multinational CEO, when is war (or torture) "right," and many other issues.
Scientists are not great sources of truth. They need to please the company making the grant or they won't get another grant! The primary goal is their own career - scientists who "proved" tobacco healthy to smoke have a lot of companions in those "proving" for example that high consumption of refined grain and sugar is "healthy".
And how about all those docs who insist nutrition has nothing to do with health, what you really need is pills for the rest of your life, come back every month. Self interest is never a good source of truth.
There is no such thing as human truth untainted by self interest or by conditioning that affects how we view data.
Truth in public debate? There won't even be agreement on what the debate is really about!
And yet we (usually) muddle though. Humans are amazing.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Hiro's Leap
Shipmate
# 12470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
What is truth? Whole cultures disagree on such things as legitimacy of slavery (lots of it in today's world), "role" of women, what amount is fair pay for a worker or a multinational CEO, when is war (or torture) "right," and many other issues.
These are moral issues, not factual ones.
quote:
Self interest is never a good source of truth. [...] There is no such thing as human truth untainted by self interest or by conditioning that affects how we view data.
Sure, but we can try to be honest; we can set up systems to counteract our biases; and we can challenge misinformation and lies (from our own side as much as our opponents').
Posts: 3418 | From: UK, OK | Registered: Mar 2007
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Callan wrote: quote:
...the reason I suspect the aftermath of all this is going to be so bitter is that for every old person who has got their country back there is a young person who has lost theirs.
(sigh)
That's my worry too.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Scientists are not great sources of truth. They need to please the company making the grant or they won't get another grant! The primary goal is their own career - scientists who "proved" tobacco healthy to smoke have a lot of companions in those "proving" for example that high consumption of refined grain and sugar is "healthy".
And how about all those docs who insist nutrition has nothing to do with health, what you really need is pills for the rest of your life, come back every month. Self interest is never a good source of truth.
There is no such thing as human truth untainted by self interest or by conditioning that affects how we view data.
Except that ultimately all that research was discredited. Not by uneducated blowhards spouting unscientific theories-- but by science. Good, peer-reviewed, science showed that yeah, really aren't good for you and neither is all that sugar.
Appeals like this seem to me like a prime example of what was described above:
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
There have always been complaints about a lack of respect for facts and truth. In 1921, G. K. Chesterton wrote:
quote:
"They would just swallow the scepticism because it was scepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority."
The point being that, if you had a factually true statement, it was considered enough to be "skeptical" of it to have some people accept the skepticism as truth--even though there was no facts at all to support the skepticism. The act of being skeptical was imbued with a sort of holy aura that made poor fact seem less believable.
Sure, everyone has motives, and motives/personal agenda can obscure truth. That's why we have things like peer-review, to help weed that out-- by looking at things like vested interests and faulty research methodology. It's not fool-proof, but it's a darn sight better than going thru the world with this anti-intellectual chip on your shoulder that any yahoo's opinion/pet theory/voodoo is just as good as those so-called experts.
[ 30. June 2016, 21:12: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Elemental:
But ISTM that there should be scope for an English identity without that being the EDL. There are distinct things about me that I believe are firmly derived from growing up in semi-rural England. Those things don't make me hate others, they just make me me, and somehow very English. But I felt no need to vote to leave the admittedly flawed EU to protect that identity.
So my theory is that those kind of things are generally not enough; if you look at resurgent nationalisms (at least of the healthy rather than cancerous kind) they are preceded by decades of building up cultural movements and national institutions - often this is focused around language (think Eisteddfod).
One of the legacies of colonialism is that there are very few distinctively English institutions. It's easier to have a generous outward focused nationalism based on a cultural and institutional richness, absent these things there are only the kinds of national myths that are centered around victim hood and vengeance.
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Elemental
Apprentice
# 17407
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
So my theory is that those kind of things are generally not enough; if you look at resurgent nationalisms (at least of the healthy rather than cancerous kind) they are preceded by decades of building up cultural movements and national institutions - often this is focused around language (think Eisteddfod).
One of the legacies of colonialism is that there are very few distinctively English institutions. It's easier to have a generous outward focused nationalism based on a cultural and institutional richness, absent these things there are only the kinds of national myths that are centered around victim hood and vengeance.
My childhood genuinely seemed to revolve around steam trains and the canal network and spotting native trees and morris dancing and clog dancing and English and Irish folk songs and stories in rainy tents. It felt quite intensely English. In fact, a fair amount of my life now does, too.
However, this is certainly not typical, but there are others who have had differently intense experiences.
What I said, and didn't clarify, was that there should be space for an English identity that isn't about exclusion. Perhaps there isn't though.
FWIW, I think of my self as a citizen of humanity first, Western European second and English last. But I have lots of other ways in which I identify, too, for a combined sense of who I am. I work hard to acknowledge that my experiences are different to but no better than people with other identities, and to benefit from other's experiences. I never understood how people could use multicultural as a negative word.
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If anything is sacred, everything is
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
"Identity" is a pretty wrapping on a generally less pleasant package.
I don't think the sense of shock and sorrow felt post-vote by those of us who supported Remain is down entirely, or even mostly, to economic factors. We're not going on about how stupid Cameron, Johnson, Gove et al are because we're going to be a bit out of pocket and need to sort out a visa when we go on holiday. It's because our identity as both British and European, or as non-xenophobic British, is under threat.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Elemental:
But ISTM that there should be scope for an English identity without that being the EDL. There are distinct things about me that I believe are firmly derived from growing up in semi-rural England. Those things don't make me hate others, they just make me me, and somehow very English. But I felt no need to vote to leave the admittedly flawed EU to protect that identity.
So my theory is that those kind of things are generally not enough; if you look at resurgent nationalisms (at least of the healthy rather than cancerous kind) they are preceded by decades of building up cultural movements and national institutions - often this is focused around language (think Eisteddfod).
One of the legacies of colonialism is that there are very few distinctively English institutions. It's easier to have a generous outward focused nationalism based on a cultural and institutional richness, absent these things there are only the kinds of national myths that are centered around victim hood and vengeance.
That doesn't really explain why it's a problem for us but not the other big ex-colonial powers. I'm more than happy to concede colonialism may have had a hand, but making it the hegemonic narrative looks a bit of a stretch.
Plus - it's very hard to see how one could say that England does not have cultural richness. We have an astonishing list of active artists, musicians, scientists... And that goes for every level of society, its not just an elitist thing.
Even so, that's just me expressing my doubts on the run. I'll give it some more thought.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's because our identity as both British and European, or as non-xenophobic British, is under threat.
Spot on. I've been shocked by what has crawled out into the open and asserted itself as an expression of "getting our country back".
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Elemental:
FWIW, I think of my self as a citizen of humanity first, Western European second and English last.
So I think that when I "identify" as X, I am also identifying as not not-X. I am among those who would describe myself as "British, not European" in most contexts. Here's why:
I grew up in England, and speak with an English accent as a result. However, my grandparents came variously from England, Wales, and Scotland, and I have cousins in all three countries. So "English" is a bad fit, for to feel "English" I would be excluding "Welsh" and "Scots", and those things are part of my personal cultural makeup. But at the same time it would be silly for me to claim to really be either Welsh or Scottish in any real sense. "British" is the only word that fits.
But I don't really feel "European". I am European, of course, in the narrow technical sense that Britain is in Europe, and to therefore British is a subset of European, but to identify as "European" I'm implying that I'm not not-European. I'm implying that I have more of a common identity, more shared cultural capital or whatever, with a Greek, a Croat or a Spaniard than I do with a Canadian, American, New Zealander or Aussie.
And I don't think I do. I think I have more in common - more of a shared cultural identity - with the Anglophone West than with most of the rest of Europe.
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Golden Key
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# 1468
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Posted
lowlands boy--
quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
I think the irony is that people have instead used the internet to seek things that reinforce their own world view, rather than challenge it.
Errr...how often do people--any people--seek to have their world view challenged? They might seek truth/fact, in order to find/create their worldview. But to challenge it?
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--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
I think one's views should always be open to examination. Does that qualify?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Elemental:
Back to the OP, I fear that our longing for evidence-based decision making (such a simple premise!) might make us imagine a time when it was so, much as many Leave voters are imagining Enid Blyton's England. I'm not sure such a factual society did ever exist on a large scale.
Nostalgia is not what is used to be. I have no illusions that there ever was a perfect time but I do feel things are getting worse. It seems to me that politicians know that certain types of claims will go unchallenged and hence have become bolder.
On my Facebook feed this morning was a link to the Daily Show segment on Trump claiming that the tax rates in the US are among the highest around (only 3 industrialized countries have lower tax (as %GDP) than the US.
It is clearly not a uniquely British problem.
When talking to a friend about the economic fall-out from the EU, I pointed to detailed analysis about the economic costs of leaving the EU. (The issue is not if there will be a cost, just how big - could be small, could be very large). In return he sent me a link to the group "Ecomists for Brexit" who claim to be a 'group of leading economist who support leaving the EU.' The first issue with them, is that there are only 8 of them. The second is only 2 of them are actually economists...
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
That doesn't really explain why it's a problem
for us but not the other big ex-colonial powers.
Because we are talking about 'English' identity, which was further subsumed as a sub category within a UK/GB identity.
Besides, it may well be a problem for them - but I wasn't addressing them specifically, just what I think the problems for an *inclusive* *English* nationalism may be.
[ 01. July 2016, 08:50: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I think one's views should always be open to examination. Does that qualify?
You and me both. Bullshit should not baffle brains, provided we are prepared to do the hard work of using our brains.
Said it before, lilBuddha. Edward de Bono used to ask the question "Why do people think?" and after he had collected stock answers he used to say this. "People think in order to stop thinking".
Translation. Working things out is hard work. Much easier to find a stock solution stored in the memory and use that. Once you find the stock solution, you stop working things out.
Hence the attraction of some modern media and the plethora of Internet solutions. Much easier to find something which reinforces your stock solutions, confirms you in their correctness.
Whereas, as some of us still know, working things out does involve a challenge to stock solutions, to received wisdom, and a willingness to change or modify those stock solutions.
I had a boss at work who used to say, sometimes "For God's sake don't give me any more facts! I'm trying to make up my mind!". Now that I understand. There can be an inescapable pressure to make decisions.
But what concerns me these days is a different response. "I've already made up my mind so don't bother me with what you claim to be facts!" And variations on the theme.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
There is a distinct whiff in this thread of the old Marxist standby of "false consciousness", ie "You are naively incapable of understanding what is in your best interests, but we are, and therefore for your own (real) good you should not be given the opportunity to make decisions on your own behalf".
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There is a distinct whiff in this thread of the old Marxist standby of "false consciousness", ie "You are naively incapable of understanding what is in your best interests, but we are, and therefore for your own (real) good you should not be given the opportunity to make decisions on your own behalf".
No that's just bollocks. And a perfect way of avoiding the issue.
There are complex issues in life where it is simply not possible to form a proper, considered view without careful study and analysis. That is why we have experts. Of course they're not perfect and of course they get things wrong but that's actually beside the point. I do expect experts to justify their conclusions and explain them to everyone. The complaint is not that everyone gets a vote, it's that the experts get shouted down by people who are just louder.
This is what I do at work: present the evidence in a balanced way so people can make an informed decision.
We can argue the details about the way both campaigns presented evidence and it is a little complicated but I chose the example in the OP carefully... There is no doubt about the £350m claim. It is simply false. Yet I know some smart people who thought it was true that this money could now be spent on the NHS... The same is true about the Trump claim about tax.
I can't tell you how often I heard the 350m on the BBC... and the only critique was "The remain campaign disagreed..." giving equal weight to true and not true arguments.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
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moonlitdoor
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# 11707
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Posted
I think your original question is quite interesting, but you've chosen an example that makes it overwhelmingly likely that people will discuss the example rather than the question, which is a pity.
In order to tell whether ignoring facts is an increasing trend, I think you want to consider whether you notice it on the increase amongst people who are on the same side of issues as you, or in discussion of issues you don't particularly care about either way.
Looking for it primarily on the opposite side of arguments you feel very strongly about isn't likely to give a very objective picture.
I did receive as an example on facebook a post stating that Donald Trump's father Fred was the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, which had been liked and shared many thousands of times. As far as I can tell there is no factual basis to this.
It does seem to me that when someone becomes extremely unpopular, some people are prepared to believe more or less anything negative which is said about them, whether there is any truth in it or not.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I think your original question is quite interesting, but you've chosen an example that makes it overwhelmingly likely that people will discuss the example rather than the question, which is a pity.
In order to tell whether ignoring facts is an increasing trend, I think you want to consider whether you notice it on the increase amongst people who are on the same side of issues as you, or in discussion of issues you don't particularly care about either way.
Looking for it primarily on the opposite side of arguments you feel very strongly about isn't likely to give a very objective picture.
I did receive as an example on facebook a post stating that Donald Trump's father Fred was the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, which had been liked and shared many thousands of times. As far as I can tell there is no factual basis to this.
It does seem to me that when someone becomes extremely unpopular, some people are prepared to believe more or less anything negative which is said about them, whether there is any truth in it or not.
That's a fair point. I don't think it can easily be separated though as fact-ignoring can have big consequences. My archetypal example of this is the MMR vaccine scare. And yes I do care deeply. At least one child died as a consequence.
The example of the Trump post of FB is interesting though. There was a similar false one about Palin and Jo Cox's shooting.
The other thing is that I do think this is a partisan issue in the sense that whilst no one is perfect and no party is perfect, it does seem (at present) to be certain groups that are most associated with this 'approach.'
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I have been wondering about the intersection of the widespread criticism here of the "Leave" narrative in the referendum (as being so far removed from reality) and the frequent dismissal of a belief in the objective truth of at least some of the Bible, most notably the resurrection.
To me, if Christ did not rise from the dead in bodily form, there's no Gospel. Others seem to think it's the narrative that matters - indeed, that the narrative is in fact the substance.
Don't events such as those of last Thursday suggest that to be sustained, a narrative requires at least some grounding in objective reality? Failing that, it's delusional.
Your post made me think, so that's good. The trouble is that whereas in the physical sciences objectivity has some kind of praxis attached to it, via repeatability and so on, in social science and politics, it is more up in the air.
If I am an astronomer, and I discern an anomaly in Alpha Centauri, I will probably contact colleagues, and ask them to check. If they agree, we can work towards setting up further tests and so on.
However, with social and political stuff, it's more subjective. For example, with immigration, some people just don't like it. And even on economic questions, some people like full employment, and some think that it's counter-productive. We are encroaching on value systems, I suppose, I mean the goals of a modern society. Are they objective? Hmm.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
I am certainly not suggesting that you shouldn't care about the consequences of people refusing the MMR vaccine. Equally I agree it's fine for you to say that the campaigns against the vaccine were not based on facts.
But when it comes to whether that is indicative of a post factual society, the fact that you noticed the unsubstantiated claims may mostly reflect the fact that you care a lot about vaccinations and not tell you much about how typical of society the claims are.
However if you find yourself noticing unsubstantiated claims across the board, including issues that you don't care much about. it's more likely that you are seeing a general trend.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
I am certainly not suggesting that you shouldn't care about the consequences of people refusing the MMR vaccine. Equally I agree it's fine for you to say that the campaigns against the vaccine were not based on facts.
I didn't think you were. It does keep coming up in areas I do care about though... unless of course I am just not noticing in the ones I care about...!
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, with social and political stuff, it's more subjective. For example, with immigration, some people just don't like it.
More subjective, but often less so than presented. Why does someone not like immigration? Racism/xenophobia is large. This is tough because whether or not one should treat "others" as equal is subjective. Economic fear is also a big one and that can be much more objectively addressed. However, people tend to grab the soundbites which confirm what they already wish to believe.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, with social and political stuff, it's more subjective. For example, with immigration, some people just don't like it.
More subjective, but often less so than presented. Why does someone not like immigration? Racism/xenophobia is large. This is tough because whether or not one should treat "others" as equal is subjective. Economic fear is also a big one and that can be much more objectively addressed. However, people tend to grab the soundbites which confirm what they already wish to believe.
Yes, confirmation bias is rife. I saw a TV item on Oldham, which votes Labour, and voted Leave. Anyway, it claimed that unemployment was historically low.
None the less, plenty of people in Oldham will say that they have been treated like shit by different governments, so there are low wages, bad housing, poor public services.
So then being told that the EU is a good idea might elicit a big fuck off. I don't think this is particularly rational or objective, but it is expressive.
I should look for a good quote from postmodernism here, but basically in summary, it's the surface that is meaningful, not the depths. See Mrs Brown's Boys for further details.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
I can't tell you how often I heard the 350m on the BBC... and the only critique was "The remain campaign disagreed..." giving equal weight to true and not true arguments.
You don't get it.
The Leave case did not stand or fall on the validity or otherwise of the economic arguments.
A Leaver could clearly recognise the falsity of the 350m. claim, equally recognise the validity of the economic arguments for Remaining, but still decide that they preferred Britain to be independent of the EU.
In other words, it was not a false dichotomy case of an expert-supported "right" decision (Remain) versus a charlatan-supported "wrong" decision (Leave).
In the end, individuals decided not only what to vote, but what they considered to be the most important and relevant criteria on which to base their vote, some of which might not have been susceptible of truth/untruth analysis - de gustibus non est disputandum.
Of course, the ad hominem solution is to claim that all those uppity Leavers were motivated solely by racism and xenophobia, probably the biggest counterfactual to come out of the whole episode.
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