Politics, Equivocal Evidence, and Irrationality
(One Last Word Sort of on the Stupid Colbert Affair)

One thing that trips people up when they reason is that the evidence concerning a given claim is often equivocal--some counts in favor of the proposition in question, some counts against it. When passions run high, it is all too easy to exaggerate the evidence that points in one's preferred direction, and to dismiss the evidence that points in the other.

I expect that this is one of the most important phenomena at work in the Colbert affair. There's some reason to think that the MSM should have covered Colbert (Rilkefan informs me (over at Kleiman's digs) that Imus slammed Clinton at the same event years earlier, and the MSM covered that). If we really wanted to track this issue down to the ground, we'd tally that up in the pro MSM collusion column, and then go on to carefully examine all the other presentations given at all the other Correspondents' Dinners, rate them as to how funny and controversial they were, find out what percentage of the extant newscasts were devoted to them, etc., etc. But, since no one's going to do that, people go with their hunches and whatever anecdotal evidence comes readily to mind.

But the actions of the left here just remind me too much of the actions of the right over the past 20 years for me to take them very seriously. There's a consipracy around every corner. In every case in which some indictment of the MSM can be made, it is made. Of course this isn't true of everyone on the left, I'm pointing to some prominent tendencies. Atrios, again, is a kind of exemplar here. Everyone who disagrees with him is an idiot, or a "whiny-ass titty-baby." Everyone in the MSM is a lapdog, an idiot, or a conservative co-conspirator. Those who aren't 100% on our side are 100% on their side. If they're not with us, they're against us. Even someone as relatively neutral as Russert is considered the tool of evil. Even known Democrats (e.g. Matthews) are Republicans deep down inside.

Nobody thinks that the MSM is populated by the sharpest tools in the shed. (Neither, of course, is the blogosphere.) I think it's fairly clear that they're insufficiently critical of our out-of-control administration, an administration that is probably worse than either the Nixon or Reagan administrations, and which threatens not only our Democracy but much of the rest of the world. I try--but often fail--to be relatively restrained on this site when I talk about George W. Bush. It's not like I'm not angry about this situation. If you want to compare anti-Bush credentials, I can virtually guarantee that mine are all in order, probably stronger than yours. I probably put in more work on the Gore campaign than you did. I became so vociferously anti-Bush during the quasi-theft of the 2000 election than even my liberal friends began to question whether I'd gone off the deep end. My point here is not to try to out-anger anyone, I'm just trying to give the skeptical some idea of where I'm coming from on this.

But there are strong signs that prominent elements of the blogospheric left are in danger of spinning out of control. I say this not because I think that anger at the administration is irrational, because--as I noted above--I don't. I say this because the manifestations of this anger are making less and less sense. I think there should be mass protests against the administration virtually every week. If there were, I'd go. (Not anti-war protests; anti-administration protests.) I think these guys are dangerous. Very, very dangerous. As I've said before, I sometimes think they may be more dangerous than al Qaeda. After all, it's this administration that chose to undertake courses of action that strengthened al Qaeda rather than stamping it out. Without this administration, al Qaeda would be nothing by now.

But the elements of the blogospheric left about which I'm concerned are not organizing protests. They're not even analyzing serious issues. Instead, they are fulminating about the performance of a comedian. Worse, they're vilifying anyone who doesn't think the guys was funny, and spinning out conspiracy theories about why a comedy routine was not featured prominently on CNN. They're generating ideological litmus tests so fast that no one with an ounce of intellectual integrity can possibly pass them all. They're treating those who disagree with them as idiots and traitors to the cause.

Now, this may be o.k. with you, but it's not o.k. with me. These are the actions of (in Eric Hoffer's phrase) true believers. It's not o.k. with me because its conterproductive and gives ammunition to a criminal administration and their lackies, but that reason is only secondary in my book. The primary reasons that it's not o.k. in my book is that it's irrational, stupid, and intellectually irresponsible. Influential forces on the leftosphere have become Limbaugh-like.

Now, some people may dislike Limbaugh because they don't like his conclusions, but that's not why I dislike him. I dislike him because his reasoning--such as it is--is patently fallacious. In fact he doesn't even reason at all. Rather, he rationalizes. He starts with a proposition he prefers, and then he emits a stream of babble masquerading as an argument in favor the the proposition. The end-point is always already fixed. He'll take any route, no matter how foolish, that gets him there, and if no route is available he'll just free-associate until his audience--willing co-conspirators, all--can overcome any latent qualms about accepting the "conclusion" they passionately wanted to accept all along. It's easy to mislead those who are willing to be mislead.

Now, in response to this many point out that the Colbert incident is stupid and unworthy of our attention, but that's just my point. But I didn't turn it into a whole big thing, others did. Here we see another perennial feature of political discourse: the variable standard. There' s a kind of person out there who will nod in approval when, say, Atrios goes on about the unjustness of the Colbert affair, but then object that it's frivolous and unworthy of discussion when some of us react to Atrios's claims. It's stupid and unimportant and not worthy of our attention. But, paradoxically, that's part of what makes it important. The fact that something so insignificant has become the focus of such attention is itself important. The fact that this has been made into an ideological litmus test is chilling.

Now, this is the part where my leftist friends ridicule me mercilessly for this, that, or the other thing. Well, as always, I could be wrong. I'm just calling it like I see it. This is, as always, supposed to be the next word in a discussion, not the last one.

Trivial as this case is, I write about it because it's not an isolated incident. It's one of many incidents that could be tips of an iceberg. I've seen similar patterns before, and we see them now in other ways. The pattern goes like this: there's a dispute, and Side A is really, really bad. Side B reacts to the actions of Side A...and then begins to over-react. Driven mad by the badness of Side A, Side B begins to become irrational itself. When elements of Side B sound the alarm, they are denounced as traitors to the cause.

We've seen this pattern writ large (where al Qaeda = Side A; U.S. = Side B), then we saw it writ smaller (where Bush administration = Side A; Liberals = Side B), and now it is writ smallest (where some liberals = Side A; other liberals = Side B). Al Qaeda does something awful, U.S. responds. U.S. overreacts, responding irrationally. Liberals point this out. They are accused of treason. Liberals react to the badness of this overreaction, then begin to overreact themselves. Some liberals point this out, they are denounced as traitors...

Of course, I'll be denounced as an idiot or a traitor to the cause for writing any of this, but that's the nature of these things. (Of course no one's just mistaken anymore...) Sadly, that's what my hypothesis predicts will happen. (Note: reasoned objections do not count as confirmation.)

It's not too late for us to react against the over-reacters. They're not the majority, and the blogosphere is fairly insignificant. But cyberbalkanization, incestuous amplification and groupthink are, I fear, driving elements of the blogospheric left farther and farther from the kind of dispassionate objectivity required to prevent politics from becoming absurd and tragic. That is, these things are making them more like the right has been for the past thirteen-or-so years. The fact that so many in the leftosphere now openly ridicule the very idea of civility in political discourse is a very, very bad sign.

Alright, so there're my hunches and worries about what's going on for what they're worth. They're vague, impressionistic, and tentative, but that's the nature of the beast.