February 24, 2005
From the desk of Jane Galt:More on Chait
Canned Platypus offers a rebuttal to Will Wilkinson's piece on Chait. I'm not generally a fan of the "fisking" format, but the rebuttal isn't wrong in one easy-to-categorise way; it's wrong in lot's of small ways. For example, Mr Darcy, the blog's author, quotes Mr Wilkinson:
Liberalism is not a list. It’s just not. And it is not a list that has incoherence as a natural byproduct of being a list that rejects ideological certainty. Green, Hobhouse, Dewey, Rawls, et al did not see themselves as championing incoherent lists of things people might happen to want. They championed a particular conception of the relationship between the citizen and the state based on what they took to be compelling general normative principles.
. . . and responds thusly:
…which naturally lead to lists of more concrete policies and actions which would shape the real world according to those principles. As soon as we try to apply any principle, instead of just leaving it on the shelf to admire, we end up with a list. Conservatives, libertarians, and so on have their lists too, which anybody can look up in a manifesto or party platform. Rawls et al might not have championed the list itself, but they did not preclude its existence either. In fact, their works are full of examples which could be items on such a list. The fact that people express their interpretation of a principle as a list of consequences is not a failing; it’s a sign that people have actually made the connection between principle and reality. By and large, it’s a good thing.
This is true in some trivial sense, but irrelevant in the context of the argument. Yes, of course conservatives and liberals all have principles that result in lists of practical things. This is exactly what Mr Wilkinson is saying--that neither conservatives nor liberals are simply in the business of trying to figure out the positive "best" mechanisms by which to maximise some normative priorities we all agree on. Both groups have a different set of normative principles, which generate different "lists", so to claim that liberals somehow have a lock on empiricism because they are solely interested in figuring out the best way to maximise their list is to make the enormous unempirical blunder of failing to observe what's actually going on in political debates.
It is a mistake that liberal bloggers and columnists are fond of making (and undoubtedly conservatives are prone to the same sorts of errors); one often sees them proclaim that the things they want, like more spending on health care, poll well, and that therefore America is with them. But lot's of things poll well, including many things that are incompatible, like higher spending and lower taxes. The fact that people agree that it would be nice if everyone had more health care does not mean that they agree that it would be nice if the government took 5% more of their income to provide it, and instituted rationing to control costs. These value judgements are the heart of the political debate today--how has Mr Chait not noticed?
Mr Darcy presents the idea that conservatives have lists as somehow refuting Mr Wilkinson's argument. But that was the whole point of the argument, which is: conservatives have different lists, rather than some sort of ideological blinkers that prevent them from understanding the best way to get the items on the liberals' lists. His point would only be relevant to the question of whether liberals were more empirical than conservatives if he were somehow arguing that conservatives, while having lists, are empirically challenged as to how to execute them. But I've seen no evidence that social conservatives are, say, unusually untalented at promoting policy goals like more praying, or that libertarians are promoting policies that actually reduce economic freedom because they don't study the empirical evidence. What Chait really seems to be saying is that conservatives aren't interested in following the inevitable logical conclusion from the observation that national health care systems make sure everyone has access to some minimal level of health care, when of course conservatives have a whole different set of normative goals, like innovation and choice, that aren't met very well by national health care systems. Calling the former "empirical" and the latter "ideological" begs the question.
The next exchange is really . . . odd. Mr Wilkinson says
If God came down and told conservatives that free-markets and smaller government aren’t the best way to get the things on the list kept in the offices of the New Republic ("And I know,” God said, “for it is I who made Nature’s Laws") and the conservatives said, “Oh, that’s OK God, we’ve got a different list in the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, but then you knew that,” that’s not a failure of empiricism.
Prompting this:
Actually it is, and there’s something a bit slippery about Wilkinson’s criticism. When we mention God we think of faith, so we interpret belief in what God says as a matter of faith. Wilinson is trying to make us think that those who disagree with God are the champions of empiricism. However, this God in Chait’s example is a God whose existence has presumably been validated as empirical fact, not a matter of faith. If this God tells us something different than what we already believe, it sets two sets of empirical observations against one another, not empiricism against faith. The correct thing to do when such a contradiction occurs is to attempt a resolution, all within an empirical framework. Accepting either conclusion without making such an attempt would indeed be a failure of empiricism (or, more correctly, of the scientific method) as Chait claims.
Tarzan confused. It seems very clear to me that Wilkinson is not talking about empiricism v. faith; his use of God mirror's Mr Chait's. All he is saying is that even if one had final, absolute, unquestionable confirmation that the free market was not the best way to achieve Mr Chait's goals, this would tell you nothing about whether or not we should achieve them. The free market may not, for example, be the best way to go about executing all children under three, but even if God came down from on high and confirmed that infant executions are always most efficiently performed by a government agency, this wouldn't make me more interested in setting up a Department of Reckless Slaughter.
Then there's this from Mr Wilkinson:
is Michael Kinsley Jonathan Chait’s main source of economic theorizing? I swear that just two weeks ago I heard the 2004 Nobel winner say that a system of social security personal accounts would have a monumental effect on the supply of labor, and thus on growth, and national wealth. So what’s an empiricist to do? Throw in one’s lot with Michael Kinsley or Edward Prescott?
To which Mr Darcy responds:
This is an ad hominem attack with a red herring. How messy. Kinsley’s beliefs on social security are not relevant to this discussion, and bringing them up is a low attempt to paint Chait as inconsistent (when in fact he might be able to explain the apparent contradiction if given the chance) and thus discredit him instead of the argument he’s making.
First of all, Michael Kinsley's beliefs are directly relevant, since Jonathan Chait presents Mr Kinsley's beliefs that social security privatisation won't work as proof about how much more empirical liberals are then those dogmatic ideologues on the conservative side. There is more than a whiff of argument from authority to this, which is about as un-empirical as you can get. Furthermore, Mr Wilkinson is not attacking Mr Kinsley; he's simply pointing out that other, even more august authorities disagree with him. Posted by Jane Galt at February 24, 2005 6:44 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
Probably more accurate to entitle it "More on Wilkinson." Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Wow, I didn't think that confused bit of fluff deserved a reply, let alone one this detailed. Bit of a sledgehammer-for-a-flyswatter post.
I'm not generally a fan of the "fisking" format...which you use frequently, most notably in this very post, and applauded from Wilkinson.
Mr Darcy presents the idea that conservatives have lists as somehow refuting Mr Wilkinson's argumentHow interesting. Wilkinson mentions that liberals have lists and it's brilliant; I mention that conservatives do and it's silly. My point, actually, is that people having lists signifies nothing. If you can wade through the "not a list...by being a list..." mishmash, Wilkinson is trying to make a big deal of the fact that liberals have lists when that's really about as meaningful as the fact that they have noses. You should be aiming that "irrelevance" cannon at Wilkinson, not at me.
It seems very clear to me that Wilkinson is not talking about empiricism v. faith; his use of God mirror's Mr Chait's.
No, not really. Chait specifically posits that his "God presented these conclusions so convincingly--if his stature alone did not suffice--that everybody immediately accepted them as truth" which clearly refers to an empirical God. Wilkinson's God simply appears and makes a statement without proof - that's the God of faith. Disagreeing with the former would, as I said, be a failure of empiricism, but conveniently omitting an essential part of Chait's thought experiment to get the latter allows Wilkinson to deny it.
Michael Kinsley's beliefs are directly relevantI'm sorry, I should have been more specific. Kinsley's beliefs about the labor supply (what Wilkinson refers to) are irrelevant, since Chait only cited Kinsley's beliefs about increasing national wealth. Chait even foreshadows Wilkinson's attempted counter when he refers to "some possible second- and third-order benefits" cited by the selective-reading crowd. In any case, red herring or not, that paragraph of Wilkinson's remains ad hominem. Inconsistency (especially apparent inconsistency which might in fact be explainable) somewhere else in Chait's writings or beliefs has no bearing on the chain of reasoning (which might have other flaws) in the particular essay Wilkinson sought to address.
What really moved me to write my response was not that Wilkinson took a shot at Chait, who did indeed drift rather far astray in his essay. It's not that Wilkinson's response was so half-assed, either. It was the fact that this is what passes for "brilliant" and "stinging" in today's climate, while Chait's article was characterized as unreadable and self-refuting (by you as well as by Wilkinson). I see little difference between the two, quality-wise. In my opinion only someone who was predisposed to condemn Chait and praise Wilkinson would place one above the other. Yet again the charge of anti-empiricism seems to have inspired fresh evidence of itself in your response.
Julian, some might think Wilkinson's bit of fluff, or yours, are the ones undeserving of a reply. That kind of sneering in lieu of argument is very much a part of the problem we're discussing; thank you for giving us yet another example to strengthen the case that it's a characteristic anti-left behavior.
Lefty empiricism in action. (Link via Scott Burgess.)
Jeff: The line about God clearly meant nothing more than that even if a person knew with absolute certainty the effects of a particular policy, we have to know something about the person's ideology and policy preferences to know what policies they would support. This is equally true of liberals and conservatives. Your discussion of the God of faith versus the God of empiricism completely misses the point. In both cases, God is nothing more than a rhetorical device for absolute empirical certianty.
I disagree with the rest of your post, but that paragraph was the most absurd. No wait, it was the second most absurd. You also accuse Will of not providing any concrete evidence for his arguments in his opening paragraph. That's especially amusing since you didn't provide any real evidence for your arguments in your opening paragraph either.
Jeff Darcy--
It's silly because Will Wilkinson DOESN'T DENY THAT CONSERVATIVES HAVE LISTS. HE AGREES WITH THAT.
Chait argues that conservatives have lists, but liberals are pure pragmatists. Hogwash, as Wilkinson points out. Wilkinson freely admits that conservatives (and libertarians, and everyone else) have lists, but points out that liberals do as well. Everybody has goals, and then nearly everyone (and everyone with any success) attempts to use pragmatic methods to achieve their goals. Chait is confusing people who are pragmatic about different goals with people not being pragmatics. Perhaps because he either has difficulty imagining people who have different goals that he does, or because he doesn't realize what his own goals are because he hasn't sat down and thought about them carefully. I don't know.
Wilkinson merely points out that liberals have lists-- LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. It's not a slam on liberals to point out that they have lists, and I can't understand how you could read his piece to say that. It is a slam on the muddle-headed idea that one can be a "pure pragmatist" without a list of goals that your pragmatism is in service of.
In fact, Mr. Darcy, note that in Mr. Wilkinson's very post he completely concedes and agrees that Milton Friedman, as emblematics of many conservative and libertarians, HAS A LIST OF PRINCIPLES. He concedes that point eagerly. Chait was foolishly trying to argue that conservatives were the only ones who had principles, whereas liberals don't and are pure pragmatists. Did you miss that about his post?
Of course liberals have a list of principles; it would be frightening if they didn't. What Chait is implicitly arguing is that the goals of liberals are so self-evidently true as to be "common sense" and require neither stating nor justification. They are the universal goals of all, and to agree with them and work for them is merely to be rational.
Oddly enough, that's an argument I'm more used to hearing (in a slightly different form) from conservative (though not libertarian) thinkers like Burke and especially Oakeshott.
"How interesting. Wilkinson mentions that liberals have lists and it's brilliant; I mention that conservatives do and it's silly. My point, actually, is that people having lists signifies nothing."
Funny, I thought that was Wilkinson's point.
"If you can wade through the "not a list...by being a list..." mishmash, Wilkinson is trying to make a big deal of the fact that liberals have lists when that's really about as meaningful as the fact that they have noses. You should be aiming that "irrelevance" cannon at Wilkinson, not at me."
Ummm.. okay, that's not what I read. Chait made a big deal about liberalism as an "incoherent list". Wilkinson's point was that philosophy + data + (other factors) => list of goals, and goals + evidence => policy proscriptions *and that people with different philosophies (eg conservative vs. liberal) will not necessarily have the same lists of goals (nor policy proscriptions)*.
"It seems very clear to me that Wilkinson is not talking about empiricism v. faith; his use of God mirror's Mr Chait's.
No, not really. Chait specifically posits that his "God presented these conclusions so convincingly--if his stature alone did not suffice--that everybody immediately accepted them as truth" which clearly refers to an empirical God. Wilkinson's God simply appears and makes a statement without proof - that's the God of faith. Disagreeing with the former would, as I said, be a failure of empiricism, but conveniently omitting an essential part of Chait's thought experiment to get the latter allows Wilkinson to deny it."
As Xavier mentioned, this is a useless distinction. The point is that even if it were absolutely certain that policy proscription X would produce goal Y from the 'liberal' list of goals, the conservatives would not support it (unless it also appeared on their list).
"Michael Kinsley's beliefs are directly relevant
I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. Kinsley's beliefs about the labor supply (what Wilkinson refers to) are irrelevant, since Chait only cited Kinsley's beliefs about increasing national wealth. Chait even foreshadows Wilkinson's attempted counter when he refers to "some possible second- and third-order benefits" cited by the selective-reading crowd. In any case, red herring or not, that paragraph of Wilkinson's remains ad hominem. Inconsistency (especially apparent inconsistency which might in fact be explainable) somewhere else in Chait's writings or beliefs has no bearing on the chain of reasoning (which might have other flaws) in the particular essay Wilkinson sought to address."
Not ad hominem. Dissection of argument from authority by presentation of alternate argument from authority. Later in his piece, Wilkinson expresses his doubt that *either* is correct.
"What really moved me to write my response was not that Wilkinson took a shot at Chait, who did indeed drift rather far astray in his essay. It's not that Wilkinson's response was so half-assed, either. It was the fact that this is what passes for "brilliant" and "stinging" in today's climate, while Chait's article was characterized as unreadable and self-refuting (by you as well as by Wilkinson). I see little difference between the two, quality-wise. In my opinion only someone who was predisposed to condemn Chait and praise Wilkinson would place one above the other. Yet again the charge of anti-empiricism seems to have inspired fresh evidence of itself in your response."
This whole kerfuffle has very little to do with empiricism. Chait made an assertion with very little evidence that liberals are empirical *and* that conservatives are not. Wilkinson shows that there is little empirical evidence (at least, that Chait has *provided* little evidence) to believe that. It seems that you respond by misunderstanding Wilkinson entirely.
John
Every so often I run across an argument that makes me think that reading David Hume should be made mandatory for entering civilized discussion. It seems Mr. Chait was absent that day.
Maybe the answer is to try give examples of where one side is non-empirical (as opposed to having different values). My nominees for the right-wing would be
1) Tax cuts paying for themselves
2) Evolution
3) To the Republican voters, a special salute on WMD in Iraq and global support for our efforts there
For the left, I offer
1) Iraqi war about oil
2) Free trade destroys jobs
3) There are no innate differences btw men and women.
That's off the top of my head. Other candidates?
Tom
Tom G. - Empiricism does not prevent you from being wrong. For example, it was based on empirical evidence that many believed that Iraq had an active WMD program. (It was based on this evidence that most of the world's intelligence agencies -- including those of France and Germany -- believed Iraq was actively trying to be in a position to manufacture WMDs.) Now, to continue to hold this belief after the war, despite the lack our finding any evidence of a material WMD program, would demonstrate a lack of reliance on empirical evidence. The exact opposite was true before the war.
David,
My reference was to polls showing the majority of Republican voters in November believed that WMD had been found and the war in Iraq enjoyed global popular support.
I think we would agree those voters did not place great weight either finding out or listening to evidence.
Tom
"My reference was to polls showing the majority of Republican voters in November believed that WMD had been found and the war in Iraq enjoyed global popular support."
Cite please
While there's nothing wrong with the idea that persistent, obvious error betokens a lack of interest in the facts, I think most of us have been assuming that the debate is over whose policymakers and commentators are more guilty of this. If we go by what the general public believes then the debate is over before it starts; public ignorance is so pervasive across the entire political spectrum that no one can argue with a straight face that his own side bases its beliefs on the facts. Unless of course his ideology tells him that his own side is "reality-based" no matter how much ignorance the polls reveal.
Observer,
I am sorry - I have a tendency to assume everyone knows something because I do: http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html
Paul,
I certainly agree about most voter's level of knowledge. The WMD issue seemed so spectacularly bad though that I think it is worthy of special consideration. I would also argue that Bush and team deliberately sought to create that public confusion ... which is distinct but related to the subject at hand.
Tom
Tom,
The PIPA article is certainly interesting, not least in giving the proportion of Bush supporters who believe certain things, but not the proportion of Kerry supporters who do. We read that "Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points"; that "[h]ere again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions"; but no numbers. Why ever not?
The only place there are numbers imputed to Kerry supporters, interestingly, is where the article brings up whether the Administration seems to have said that WMDs were found, or that Iraq had substantial ties to Al Qaeda. The numbers — which unsurprisingly show large fractions of Kerry voters saying, yes, Bush did seem to say these things — are given here, but nowhere else. Frankly, I'd like to see what fraction of Kerry voters this study found believing that there were WMDs or a direct Al Qaeda link. It's certainly a little peculiar that the article's authors aren't anxious to tell us.
Or maybe not so peculiar, once you read on:
Despite an abundance of evidence--including polls conducted by Gallup International in 38 countries, and more recently by a consortium of leading newspapers in 10 major countries--only 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the US having gone to war with Iraq.
I'd wager my (nonexistent) life savings that "the majority of people in the world" haven't so much as heard that the US went to war with Iraq, let alone formed an opinion on whether we'd done the right thing or not. I suspect that there are a billion-plus human beings who have never heard of Iraq, period.
Can we applaud the 69% of Bush supporters who refused to "recognize" something that's almost certainly untrue?
If the WMD belief is going to go into the record book it should be with an asterisk next to it owing to the fact that the poll was taken last November-- shortly after the Kerry campaign spent a couple of weeks intentionally or unintentionally fostering the impression that we'd allowed large amounts of WMD to be carried off from Al Qaqaa. You had to read the fine print to realize that the missing stuff was not itself WMD but only a potential component thereof. I think we're all agreed that few members of the general public read the fine print.
Paul,
Your position is that it is Kerry's fault?!?!?
Normally, that's not the kind of argument I would engage in, but in this case your position is actually falsifiable.
Public views on the issue have not changed significantly since November. Nor is it clear why Kerry would have his primary impact on Republican voters. On the other hand though, your argument does allow you to blame a Democrat.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/02-18-2005/0003030433&EDATE=
Tom G.
Michelle,
Is your point is that they are trying to make Bush supporters look bad and are misleading the public to do so? It certainly sounds like it, although perhaps you were merely commenting on the aesthetics of the report.
You might consider scrolling all the way to the bottom of the webpage and clicking on the link labelled 'Report of Findings.'
I find it amusing that in an argument about who's empirical, I get two convoluted theories that could be easily tested and disproved if their writers had chosen to do so.
An interesting question to me is whether Michelle and Paul's theories just happen to line up with their political preferences?
Please note, I am not saying that left wing voters are uninformed - I started this with my take of each side's illusions.
Tom
My apologizes for the tone above. I was more sarcastic/accusatory than I should been.
Tom
True believers outnumber rational skeptics 9 to 1, regardless of what end of the political spectrum you choose to examine.
I am constantly amazed that anyone wastes energy defending these entrenched but empty positions.
TG, you need to cite more objective sources to be taken seriously.
Tom G,
Oh, I did read the "Findings." I was just, er, amused that the summarizing article was so anxious to give exact percentages for the views of Bush supporters and not of Kerry supporters. Almost as though the authors were trying to make them as eye-catching as possible for the benefit of editorialists, letter-to-the-editor writers, blog commenters ;-) . . .
You can call that "aesthetics," if you like.
But the bit about "the majority of people in the world" isn't "aesthetics," just idiocy. The "majority of people in the world" have no opinion on this subject.
The actual "Findings" refers more realistically to "world public opinion," which is a term of art meaning, roughly, "what people who have time to talk to pollsters say in places pollsters go." Since most of the world's population lives in places pollsters never go, it's just silly to consider worldwide poll results, even conducted in 38 countries or 10 "major" countries (heh) representative. I repeat that I doubt that a majority of the world's people even know that there was an Iraq war, let alone have an opinion about it.
BTW did anyone else check out the list of PIPA sponsors who bankrolled this “study”?
http://www.pipa.org/about.html#sponsors
It does explain some of the results and how they were portrayed.
Tom G:
Curious what you mean by "Evolution" as evidence of Republican nonempiricism. Are you assuming that all Republicans are also fundamentalist Christians or followers of other sects that believe in an alternative origin story? Or do you have a cite for the percentage of Republicans who don't "believe in" evolution?
Quotes there because "believe in" is a phrase that oughtn't to be applied to a theory... Maybe "accept that evolutionary theory is sufficiently supported to be considered fact" would be better, but I never hear anybody say that. And, too, I'm (a Republican and) a strong proponent of evolution/natural selection as a mechanism for both speciation and change within a species, but I don't necessarily believe that evolution is an open-ended and unguided process; intelligent design isn't actually antithetical to the various speciation modes posited in evolution, but instead speaks only to whether a "designer" has a goal in mind concerning evolutionary change.
The distinction I'd draw, if a pollster asked me whether I "believe in" evolution, is that as a student of paleontology etc., I believe the evidence I've seen supports the evolutionary mechanism, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that it's so utterly random as to rule out the existence of a G*d who's interested in the universe and the critters therein. The two are not mutually exclusive to me. Does that make me a hick?
Arbeiten,
What is wrong with the sources I cited? No one arguing with me has cited any sources. Which point of mine is wrong? I think you need to answer those questions in order to "to be taken seriously"
Tom
Michelle,
If their words accurately reflect their results I do not see the problem.
I think we would agree with the following points:
1. Many people know very little about the world.
2. Among those that do, all available evidence suggests that the majority strongly disapprove of the war in Iraq (which I supported)
3. When asked Bush supporters thought:
26%: Majority of the world favors war
42% World is evenly divided
31% Majority opposes
So from this you draw that 69% of Bush supporters believe that a majority of the world does not have an opinion (your argument would also work with a large minority to be fair).
It seems pretty obvious to me that most people responding to that question were thinking do more people support or oppose the war. Not well there lots of people out there who don't even know Iraq exists. At a minimum the 26% who believe a majority favored the war don't think along those lines. And yes this does make me think you did not read the findings.
Do you have any evidence to support your theory?
Tom
TW,
I first read the results a while back after reading this at that hotbed of left-wing media bias: the Volokh Conspiracy
"I just ran across a poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland (a group that calls itself nonpartisan, that apparently is regarded as nonpartisan, and whose board contains both Republicans and Democrats)."
You say the sponsors explain the results and how they were presented. Can you cite what was wrong with results and how they were presented? Or it is simply enough to know that the Rockefeller Foundation is involved to reject it? Would you describe such an approach as empirical?
Tom
The PIPA report was an exercise in cherry-picking and ignoring differing assignments of significance Bush and Kerry supports would give to various facts.
The first is because the PIPA study followed prior polls that showed the difference in beliefs between Bush and Kerry supporters on the questions PIPA asked. There were/are other unasked questions that would likely have the Kerry supporters showing the greater disconnect from reality: 1. T/F, the Bush administration wants to increase the arsenic levels in tap water. 2. The Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group Ansar Al-Islam was based in a) Kurdish controlled Iraq b) Hussein controlled Iraq c) Iranian controlled Iraq.
The second comes from such things as the nature of WMD programs. Delivery vehicles generally count. (The reports of the UN weapons inspectors and IAEA from the '90s show they divided Iraq's nuclear program into three critical areas: weapon design, production of fissile material, and ballistic missile development). It is a fact that Iraq was working on delivery systems (missiles and UAVs) that exceeded the range allowed under the UNSC resolutions. Bush supporters were going to be more inclined to count those programs as WMD programs than Kerry supporters. The same for every item left over from the pre-91 programs and later dug up in a flowerbed.
Jamie,
For what my opinion is worth, no I would not consider you a hick.
While I am not a believer, there are types of religious belief that are fundamentally untestable and so are completely safe from disproof. Your description of your views would fall (to me) in that cateogry and so I don't regard them as anti-empirical.
I am glad that there are many Republicans who accept evolution,reject creationism. The polling data I have seen suggest theat creationism is stronger among Republicans than Democrats, but heavily present in both groups. (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6948092/)
At the senior level, conservative political leaders seem to be the strong supporters of creationism. Bush for example: (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/08/27/president.2000/evolution.create/)
And I believe that the local efforts to put creationism/inteligent design into science classes has been led by Republican politicians (http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/8903803.htm?1c)
That was what drove my comment. Let me know if I did not answer your question.
Tom
Tom G.,
The statement in the article (and in the "Findings") was that only 31% of Bush voters "recognize" that a "majority of the people in the world" oppose US actions in Iraq. My point was only that that's transparent nonsense. They can "recognize" no such thing, because very likely "the majority of the people in the world" don't know that there ever was a Gulf War II.
You're quite right that most people answering the PIPA survey would have been thinking "do more people in other countries support or oppose the war?" And quite right as well that Bush supporters overestimate international support for the war. That's obvious. But if the survey question is about "how all the people in the world" feel about the Iraq war, is it quite correct to say that Americans should "recognize" that "the majority of the people in the world" opposed it when that just isn't so?
Lynxx Pherrett,
True as to the cherry-picking. The arsenic example is a good one; personally, I'd like to see the poll results to "If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will be illegal in the United States: true or false?"
“And quite right as well that Bush supporters overestimate international support for the war.”
No, I just don’t give a damn. The United States must do what is necessary. The hell with the rest of the “world.” Waiting around for these buffoons endangers us all.
Lynxx,
I don't recall every making the claim that I had evidence the left wing voters were better informed. My limited understanding is that is in fact not true in broad surveys over time.
I simply made a statement about some common illusions on both sides. For this, I face an variety of strange and defensive arguments seem to struggle to deny the existance of a significant important popular right wing illusion. I would welcome an acknowledgement that yes there is a serious problem here and hey look here is some _evidence_ for other serious voter disconnects. Evidence of course being a key topic on this thread. Assertion unfortunately being the primary activity.
Tom
Michelle,
I am glad to see we are not so far apart. If you are happy to agree that "Bush supporters overestimate international support for the war," then I am happy to agree that one could interpret the question in different ways.
Even under your interpretation though it is not fair though to describe 69% of Bush supporters as being right. The 26% who believed the majority supported the US are equally wrong (page 11 of the PDF).
I really don't know anything about media penetration in China and India, so I can only guess about your belief that most of the world did not know of the war.
Tom
Tom G.,
My comments were solely about the PIPA study, and not meant as general response to your wider argument. If your wider argument is that both sides inaccurate beliefs get reinforced by confirmation bias (as could be indicated by your first comment) then I would agree with you.
[BTW, looking at the comments that wound up preceeding mine before I got around to clicking "POST," I can see where you would get the impression you were being swarmed.]
If there are not in fact polls taken in November showing the majority of Bush supporters believing Iraq had WMD, I withdraw my speculation about why that might be so. I'd already seen the PIPA study, which was based on surveys taken in September and October and did not show a majority of Bush supporters believing Iraq had WMD. (I admit that the belief that Iraq had a major program is only a bit more respectable, and I don't think I would have had any objection to lumping these believers in with those who still believed in WMD had I know that that was what was being done.)
Unlike some here I have no problem with the meat of the study, given its limited scope. I could have done without the flight into airy armchair analysis at the end.
Lynxx,
I appreciate your reply and I think I overestimated the actual factual disagreements here.
I became somewhat defensive when every other commenters found something negative to say about the results (even when they believed them to true). To me the important topic here is how did such important, inaccurate beliefs become commonplace.
I would be interested in the details behind your charge of cherry-picking. You provided what sounded like hypothetical counter examples. Is there any study packing them up? How do you think they compare in importance with the WMD/Iraq/Al Quaeda mistakes?
Tom
I am amazed at how well the Iraqi elections turned out. Bush seems almost prescient in his pursuit of the middle eastern "domino theory."
Freedom loving middle easterners in other countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are suddenly finding their voices. Islam seems compatible with a large degree of personal freedom. Of course, Islam is compatible with totalitarian hellholes as well. Islam seems infinitely malleable, to tell the truth.
Perhaps if at least one muslim nation can achieve a modicum of freedom and tolerance, it will serve as a beacon to some of the others.
Tom G:
I was addressing the point that a whole lot of people who post from the Left, here and elsewhere, seem to think that Republicans are as monolithic in thought as, say, the African American community or senior citizens are supposed to be (but likewise aren't). I'm sorry about my irritated tone - I get tired of the assumption's being made that because I'm a Republican and call myself a Christian I stand foursquare on every piece of the Christian Right's platform. I respect the Christian Right for taking a principled approach to politics; I don't subscribe to their views wholeheartedly. (I also respect the ACLU for the purpose for which it exists, while disagreeing with its clients' stances with depressing regularity.)
Man, that was a stupid post I just put up. Useless waste of space. Sorry, all.
Jamie,
Your tone did not strike me as irritated. I am never sure where to strike the balance in generalizing about the points of views of groups.
Tom
a whole lot of people who post from the Left, here and elsewhere, seem to think that Republicans are as monolithic in thought as, say, the African American community or senior citizens are supposed to beWell, many on the right do take pride in their ability to stay "on message" and present a unified front. Long before Chait, there have been people like Norquist and Luntz unabashedly ensuring that the message remains consistent not just as to content but also as to phrasing. You can read about "incoherent democrats" on Free Republic (quoting Rush Limbaugh) or Blogs for Bush, and another two minutes of Googling will find plenty more.
In the practical world of people's public thoughts and actions, as opposed to the invisible world of their private thoughts, the right is more monolithic than the left.
Platypus:
I don't think I can agree, outside the national-public sphere. And it strikes me that speech codes (surely a way of ensuring consistent phrasing as well as - in at least some cases - an implicit cultural-equivalence argument?) are the province of the Left.
I will concede an effort at the national party level to speak consistently on certain issues (but don't talk to Specter or Schwartzenegger, for instance), but I don't see a difference there between Dems and Pubs - think about abortion rhetoric, for instance. I'm sure there's a whole range of thought among Dems both public and private about what abortion is, what it means for individuals and society, how forcefully unlimited access to abortion should be defended... just as there is among Pubs. But the Dem position is reflexively pro-choice while the Pub position is (IMO not quite as, given that you can be a pro-choice Pub in public life w/o being disowned by the party, whereas it seems harder to go the other way) reflexively pro-life.
Your post sounds as if it echoes a column I read recently somewhere... somewhere... drawing a blank where, about how if the DNC wants to regain its political footing, it has to learn from the GOP's massive and stunningly effective message machine. (Existence of the machine was news to me.) Could you be thinking of this article too, or is this idea gaining prominence on its own?
Tom G, thanks for your indulgence. I have the same problem - obviously. I try not to stereotype, but I know I'm as guilty as the next guy.
Your post sounds as if it echoes a column I read recently somewhere... somewhere... drawing a blank where, about how if the DNC wants to regain its political footing, it has to learn from the GOP's massive and stunningly effective message machine. (Existence of the machine was news to me.) Could you be thinking of this article too, or is this idea gaining prominence on its own?It seems to be a very common theme, which I've seen repeated in at least a dozen articles, so I can't really guess which one you might be referring to. I think there's even a grain of truth to it. The right does have a more effective message machine, complaints about liberal professors notwithstanding. The left does need to figure out how to match the right's dominance in think tanks and weblogs. Where I think many such articles have gone astray is in suggesting that the left also has to match the right in the "dirty tricks" department, whether that be by trying to hide conflicts of interest or planting "Trojan Horse" stories or selective quoting and conflation and strawmen as demonstrated by Mr. Wilkinson.
Those stupid right wing think tanks! And you know most of those jokers are would-be academics who've been blacklisted from academia because of their right wingism. Good riddance.
But for us on the left to match the right in think tanks, won't we have to start rejecting leftist thinkers from academia too? Fat chance! We've got the academy so wrapped up it'll take rightists a century to get it back, if ever. You might even say our think tanks are the universities! Hey! I never thought of that. Maybe I can get a column in the New York Times pressing exactly that point. Thanks, plateypus!
ROCK: When Bush got into office he had a surplus of money. Now there's like a $70 trillion dollar deficit. Now, just imagine you worked at the Gap.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
ROCK: You're closing out your register, and there's $70 trillion dollars short.
AUDIENCE: (Laughter)
CHAIT: $70 trillion? These people must all be conservatives.
Platypus:
OK, I'll expand the ol' reading list and look for more examples of this message-machine idea. I disagree on two points: First, the implication (don't know whether this is part of the idea or not, but it is implied) that the "machine" grew from a plan that encompassed its creation to the wonder we see today - I think that, such as it is, it's more organic, less manufactured. Second, as to its efficacy, I'd never even heard of PNAC until I read about it on, I don't know, Michael Moore's site or somewhere like that. Nor was I familiar with its tenets, and I went out of my way in the days after 9/11 to try to be informed. On the other hand, standard Democrat pieces like speech codes (sometimes by other names like political correctness), the need for affirmative action, that abortion is primarily an issue of a woman's privacy and freedom of choice, that Social Security was, is, and shall be to come and touching it will kill the president who tries, that the US is a good idea gone bad because its leadership is in thrall to Evil Corporations and Mid-East Oil... these are pretty much part of the American zeitgeist. Look at the way ordinary Republicans/conservatives (including me) (is that "including I"?? Strange grammar) argue against these ideas: not first by denying their essential correctness, but by accepting the premise and taking it from there. Example: "A woman's right to privacy is important, but it has to be balanced by an unborn child's right to be born" instead of "There's no Constitutional right to privacy; the issue of abortion AND privacy/choice as it relates to abortion is a matter for the states to decide." Yes, there are prominent people who argue that the premises are wrong, but ordinary Joes tend not to in my experience. That's indicative to me that the Democratic "message" is being disseminated everywhere, virtually all the time, often so subtly that it goes unnoticed.
If you're referring to having a mechanism in place to disseminate information from AND FOR a single point in time, hmm, okaaaaayyy, I might be willing to say that Limbaugh plus (eye roll) Hannitty can catch a lot of eyes and ears. But that's a far cry from having a generation of young adults who believe the Iraq war is "about oil."
Wow, I've seen a lot of pointless blather in my time, but this really takes the cake. From Will Wilkinson absurdly taking offense at things that Chait never said to Jane Galt agreeing with Chait and not even realizing it.
JG: All he is saying is that even if one had final, absolute, unquestionable confirmation that the free market was not the best way to achieve Mr Chait's goals, this would tell you nothing about whether or not we should achieve them.
Hello? That was Chait's point to begin with. Conservatives and, even more accurately, libertarians do not share goals with liberals and argue over how to achieve them. They disagree over the goals. That was Chait's point.
And Chait NEVER said that liberals are more empirical than conservatives/libertarians. He said that liberals were more interested in empirical data on *particular economic issues*. Sure, there are plenty of issues where many liberals do not look to empirical data to determine their positions. And their are many issues where neither side looks at empirical data. Take the death penalty. Many people support it or oppose it on principle. A study showing that the death penalty is or is not an effective deterrent of crime is going to have NO IMPACT on the positions of either liberals or or conservatives whose view on the issue is based on the fundamental morality of the act. They do not care.
This is not an indictment of those positions. It is simply an observation. Just as Chait correctly observes that many conservatives take positions with regard to tax and social spending issues that are not actually informed by the efficacy of their preferred policies to effect claimed economic benefits.
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