Distributed Mind

By coincidence, after what I posted yesterday about media bias and such, I read tonight a post by Fred Clark, "The best lack all conviction" in response to an article in the Washington Post (which I'm inclined to think he was too hard on, but, that's irrelevant to the rest of this discussion). His timing was fortuitous because his post ties in quite well with some anyway of what I was getting at. Basically, in my very rough paraphrase, he claims that (1) while one should always begin by assuming good faith not bad faith (an idea he has addressed in the past) and that (2) the assumption of bad faith can lead to breakdowns in rational discourse, (3) if the assumption of good faith is made and yet the other side seems out of touch with the facts/reality, one might have a basis for questioning motives, and that at any rate, the facts do not cease to matter simply because bias and false assumptions are present. Thus, it must be allowed that persons can be wrong. Just because we know we will assume that as a result of inevitable biases doesn't mean that someone isn't wrong.

Alright, so that's Fred Clark's argument. Even though he doesn't directly deal with media, or even the same type of bias I was talking about yesterday, his argument basically parallels my own: accusations of bias are irrelevant when the facts of the matter are clear. In my case I would also add if the morality of the matter is clear. (In fact, in the case of the war, I'm really not concerned about who knew what when and all that - if preemptive war is wrong, it's wrong, and however nice of a reason you have, if you can't counter that fundamental claim, what basis do we have for discussion? I'm going to stop there before I decide I agree with Alasdair Macintyre in After Virtue.)

Of course, to a certain extent one must be careful about what "clear" means. Perhaps instead of "clear" we should also consider the possibility of "very likely" or "the most likely given the available evidence" with a corresponding weakening of our own right cause in an argument. That is, if the evidence suggests that something is not just somewhat likely, but very likely, but not perhaps certain to the point where we would stake human life on it, or at least the universe's existence, then we might still take that side of the argument, though we need to acknowledge that there is the slight possibility we are wrong/some other side is right - but if some sort of action is required we should take that action, with constant attention to the idea that we could be wrong. This is the sort of end of things where I would consider, say, anthropogenic global warming, as opposed to the immorality of murder which we are all 100% certain of. (And before you become too smug with even that level of certainty, just ask yourself, what would I have done if I was Dietrich Bonhoffer? And I can think of many moral disputes that don't rise to anywhere near that kind of certainty.)

Now, I may be a little more cautious than Fred in that I am, at least at the moment, rather wary of anything that looks too much like ideology. Though, of course, in fact, a lot of my complaints are ideological, but I hope in my case those are usually claims involving morality, in which case ideology is unavoidable. I mean instead, in practical matters. Which isn't to say that I've entirely purged myself of ideological convictions (anti-corporatism?), or even that I necessarily intend to. But where my opion is influend by ideology, I must be aware of that, and I must be even more willing than usual in that case to consider the possibility that my idea is inaccurate or unnecessary.

(And yes, all of this does suggest I would be wise to consider the very remote possibility that opposition to war will bring about some evil world dictatorship ("The City on the Edge of Forever", anyone?) but that doesn't mean, given my disclaimer above about very likely things, that I have to operate under the assumption that possibility is a likelihood. It remains only a possibility, and even less applicable in the case of preemptive wars. And, I have to consider the possibility that for us to base policy on the idea that freedom of movement and freedom of government choice might lead to an overwhelming influx of immigrants that would somehow crush American civilization as we know it thus having the immoral effect of creating additional poverty and suffering. But, that sort of far-fetched outcome with little empirical support is not something that I have to assume will happen, either. It also means that those of us opposed to abortion should be clear on the fact that we don't really know with 100% certainty when "life" begins. And I already mentioned the Bonhoffer dilemma. And so on and so on. )

Okay, so I've strayed very far from my original point, which remains: I don't care what bias any given media entity seems to have, as long as they are correct.