The more I learn, and the more versed I become with society, the harder and harder it becomes to see what is "good" and what is "bad".
The most confident I ever was that I was "obviously correct" was when I was 20.
The most confident I ever was that I was "obviously correct" was when I was 20.
“Unions can be corrupt” or “You don’t need unions to get your voice heard” is the kind of rhetoric that leads to disinterest in unions over the years.
> The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy.
Empathy, yes. Simplicity doesn't normally lead to empathy; complexity does.
Racism never was (and still isn’t) simple. There were entire scientific fields developed to justify racial hierarchy. Nazism was similar.
> you cannot make that argument without backing it with a bunch of convoluted nonsense (complexity).
Unfortunately, the one listening is the one that determines how much complexity you need. Some people are convinced more easily than others. In the end, people tend to believe what they want.
Agreed. My point about complexity vs. simplicity does not apply to people who are coming in with strong, preconceived notions. Because how would a simple argument convince them of a generalization otherwise?
Expanding on this, the point I was making is that Complexity is dangerous for those who are genuinely interested in trying to understand a topic or are simply on the fence. Just muddy the water until they lose interest and you’re golden.
The antidote to that is simplicity and empathy: start with the core issue and frame it in terms the audience will empathize with. In fact, I think this is also how you deal with the aforementioned group who are easy to fall into the trap of oversimplification; you just have to find a way to simplify things differently :)
If it covers enough ground and they're prone to lose interest with more complex explanations, that can convince them... They can justify it with Occam's razor.
You're talking about coming in with strong, preconceived notions, but I think those notions start with simplistic race/DNA explanations. It's precisely because the explanation is simple that it's appealing. Even just pointing at the pattern may suffice.
In my experience, the left tends to like simple stories ("we are poor and the capitalists are rich, so just take their money and give it to us", "if people love each other, they should be able to marry, no matter the gender"). The right tends to like complex explanations ("taking money from the rich destroys the incentive structure required for effective resource allocation", "gay marriage makes gay people happy, but destroy the Christian values on which the western society was build, and therefore may have unpredictable consequences").
Neither approach is right or wrong. The left tends to oversimplify and prioritize surface compassion above all else (the communism case), but sometimes the simple argument really is the right argument (the gay marriage case). The right tries to show off how smart and sophisticated their arguments are, and how "it's not that simple". Sometimes they get it right (such as in the communism case), but they very often try to find a "but actually" explanation where one is not warranted (the gay marriage case).
A leftist can equally say that a rightist likes simple stories ("if the poor want to be rich, they should just apply themselves", "less developed countries are such because their race (DNA) results in inferior IQ"). The left tends to like complex explanations ("we don't live in a perfect meritocracy for one to just apply themselves. There's various complex societal issues preventing that stemming from racism, sexism, inherited trauma, classism, differing values from working-class cultures, etc. Some of it can be seen as maybe unintended but real covert oppression by the upper classes, which leads to a sense of societal responsibility instead of just simple surface compassion.", "Countries may be less developed because of a plethora of reasons, including historical events that lead to different issues and compounding effects, cultures that value other things over those that lead to personal economic growth (e.g. people that couldn't imagine leaving their aging parents to care for themselves or be left with strangers instead of personally becoming their caregivers), etc. Intelligence doesn't exist on a one-dimensional spectrum as measured by IQ. IQ itself probably doesn't only depend on DNA. It's possible your environment and personal history also influence it. If the belief comes from statistical reports on the average IQ by country, it's also possible it's due to brain drain from emigration.")
"Capital" is a big honking book. It has substantially more to it than "take their money and give it to us," and contemporary leftist thought has a huge number of different intellectual takes on how to right the world, from syndicalism to libertarian socialism, and the debates are vigorous (sometimes too vigorous, if you ask me).
I could just as easily characterize (eg) the Christian right as fundamentally only making one argument: "God wants it to be this way." That would be dumb. I've read CS Lewis and Chesterton, Ivan Illich. I happen to think that, fundamentally, there isn't anything like the Christian god out there, but I can see that its not just as simple as the cartoon I sketched above.
This is an extremely dangerous idea without being counterbalanced by fact that reality is often complex and good actors want to be honest about it.
Bad actors desire confusion is closer to being accurate. But bad actors also often oversimplify to rouse people to some politically beneficial but ultimately harmful action.
Peer Cyph0n is on the ball, save in the instances of the rarer and more extreme terminally corrupt unions - and even those mostly hold worker safety dear (albeit little else).
Also, it's not about not being able to see any bad, but some things that obviously seemed correct, stop seeming so obvious.
Reminds me of that clip where a man in some TV show gets slapped by the woman host and he slaps her back. Then a bunch of men from the audience come to beat him up. It's one thing to have the moral "never hit a woman" and "protect women", but if women abuse these views to mistreat and humiliate others without consequence, that doesn't seem right either.
It doesn't seem right for the men to have beat him up for defending himself. They thought they were being moral, but they weren't.
Sometimes moral views can require nuance.
Now for all we know the woman was physically stronger than the man in the instance you're speaking of (doubtful) and hitting her back wasn't that big a deal or even deserved. But as a societal norm we should be dissuading men from hitting women even if they're hit first otherwise you might often get a major injury in exchange for a minor sting. And it's a FAFO situation when you break these norms.
But I find it hard to see the nuance in much of the political nonsense going on right now (which is what I thought you were speaking of). Mass surveillance that doesn't seem to offer any security in return? Obviously bad. Things like measles, the screwworm, and cyclospora coming back due to political posturing or just plain ignorance? Obviously bad. Again I don't see how you could possibly be on the fence about a lot of the politics going on right now unless it's benefiting you in some way.
Not all politics mind you, I'm sure you can find some nuggets of good in there somewhere too. But if you're having a tough time determining the bad things currently as prices for everything are rising and the world is in constant turmoil I want whatever drugs you're taking.
On the other hand, physical abuse of women by men is much more common and dangerous, and there's a utilitarian argument that society should treat it more harshly. Not saying the guys beating up the other guy were moral, but it's easy to argue they were closer.