Politics and empiricism
I've been obsessing over this election for over a year now. In the last couple of months, I've been driven to my highest frenzy by Sarah Palin and those who defend and support her. Not only is she a right wing extremist on social issues, but she has indescribably ignorant beliefs (witchcraft exists, dinosaurs and humans co-existed, etc [the examples get even worse if you believe the McCain campaign staffers, but I didn't believe them during the campaign and don't plan on starting now just because it would corraborate my position]). Further, when it comes to the economy and foreign policy, she doesn't even know what the issues are. She probably wouldn't pass a citizenship test (since she is fundamentally wrong about the relationship between the VP and congress, and she doesn't know how the bill of rights works [it protects the press and the people from the government, not the other way around]).
However, what truly drove me insane about here was her constant denial of reality. I think the most illustraitive instance is when she was found guilty of abusing power and breaking Alaskan law, and in response she said that she was glad that the investigation found her completely innocent of all wrong doing and that she had not broken any laws or abused power (for the definitive collection of all such instances see Andrew Sullivan). Actually, what drove me crazy wasn't her lying/delusion but the fact that she got away with it. The media was too spineless to point out the indisputable facts. They were happy enough to call out Senator Clinton on her bizzare claims of Bosnia sniper fire. Sarah Palin is like that worst moment of Clinton all the time. Palin lies in the face of public record several times a week. McCain had a few lies he liked to repeat as well. Obama exadgerated and told lies of ommision on numerous occasions, but he didn't even come close to the Orwellian stance of the McCain Palin ticket, and he retracted false statements when called on it. McCain-Palin never retracted anything and continued to use the same lies, no matter how thoroughly they were disproved.
When Obama won I though of it as a victory for empiricism, that politicians would have to limit themselves to statements that can at least plausibly match up with our sensory perceptions. Then I remembered: I don't believe that empiricism is justified, or that there is an objective reality. This happens to me all the time. My value system is still thoroughly founded upon the idea of objective truth, and Palin and Foux News anger me to my core even though they are just embracing a view of the universe that I came to reluctantly: truth is just what our community assents to. Someday, maybe my values and beliefs will cease to be contradictory, or maybe I'll stop caring about the inconsistancy...
3 comments:
As for Palin, let us not forget Katie Couric's remarkable interview. It really shouldn't have been remarkable - wouldn't have been if it had been with someone else. But I think it should be required viewing for any news pundit, as a lesson in how to ask basic, non-threatening follow-up questions.
I don't think that Palin is embracing your view. (As for Fox News, they are a whole other story). In fact, I think you are pretty much polar opposites, which is why she drove you up the wall. Palin believes her ideology so thoroughly that she will deny anything that contradicts it. She is so confident in her own view of the world that she doesn't need to ask questions. Faith provides.
That's not the same thing as being such a skeptic you cannot find truth in anything, which is a bit closer to where I believe you fall.
I completely agree about the Couric interview being the minimum standard for real journalism, and hopefully a lesson to the news media that real journalism isn't that hard and is incredibly important.
I never thought that Palin embraced my view, I think that she is a prime example of why my view of the world drives me a bit crazy. I want to say she is wrong, but there is no objective way to make that case (because there is no such thing as objectivity). Thus instead of being able to say that she has a total disconnect from (the one, objective) reality, I have to simply say that our subjective realities are different and leave the matter at that
So you don't consider your subjective reality to have its own "objective" reality. That is, an idea of what is true within your own subjective reality?
That's how I view it at least. And that gives me the ability to criticize ideas I don't like on an "objective" basis, even if its not innately objective.
Post a Comment