You may have noticed over the last ten years that whenever a politician (typically, but not exclusively of the right) is simply wrong on as issue of fact, they retreat to what they think is an unassailable fallback position of ‘that’s your opinion’, the idea being that the issue (whatever it is) is subjective. This application of subjectivity, so they think, creates a situation where one cannot be wrong since there is no ‘correct’ information. They believe such subjectivity allows them to add their objectively incorrect talking points into a ‘debate’ as ‘just another opinion’. Further, they believe this tactic allows them to paint anyone with the temerity to confront them with the facts that expose them as, to say it again, simply wrong, as being intellectual fascists who do not support a marketplace of ideas. This creates a false equivalence between what Bill Maher called ‘the facts and the anti-facts’.
As dishonest and ridiculous as this tactic is, it must be said that it has worked. To this day, there continue to be creation-evolution ‘debates’, climate science ‘debates’ as well as other ‘debates’ on issues where one side is objectively correct and the other side, to quote Maher again ‘is a load of crap’. The incorrect position is just that: incorrect. But it is given equal credence by being put on the same stage with the correct position. This must stop. Let the people holding what is, I say for a third time, the objectively wrong position scream about being excluded from the debate and how the people who are objectively correct not being willing to ‘have an honest debate’ and any other pseudo-arguments they wish to make.
Let them get it out of their system and allow those who are objectively and empirically correct to solve the policy issues of the day: climate science – real, anthropogenic, serious danger which must be acted upon right now. This means a transition away from fossil fuels toward green, renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydro-electric and so on. Evolution – the correct model for explaining life on earth to be taught in all classrooms to the exclusion of everything else. So-called supply-side economics, which hollows out the middle class by distributing all the wealth to the top and generating an oligarchy, set aside in favour of treating the more prosperous members of society like everyone else instead of creating laws to their benefit. Let them contribute according to their means to the society that made them what they are. This will pave the way for the next generation to have similar opportunities to those who came before. Societies are self-perpetuating provided they invest in themselves.
All of the ideas in the aforementioned paragraph are not matters of opinion, despite those on the objectively wrong side creating a false equivalence between their views, which typically resound to their own benefit, and the correct position (or screaming socialism – given what capitalism has become I would keep silent on the use of that word, but I digress).
You may see in the most recent posts on this blog a seeming hardening of the left-wing policies previously expressed. For this there will be no apology: there is no equivalence between the objectively correct left-wing position (which has been there a long time but has been shouted down by the monied interests on the other side) and the increasingly incorrect right-wing position. On the issues of science and the economy (among others) the right-wing is simply incorrect. I therefore reject compromise with those who are not interested in what is objectively correct based on the data.
As humans, we are capable of rejecting views that are simply incorrect; or at least we were. The idea of the earth being the centre of the universe, a stationary focal point about which other heavenly bodies rotated, was once widely held, but once evidence to the contrary came forth, it was rejected, even if the rejection took a while. The original view was held by no less a medieval authority than the catholic church. It was literal heresy to challenge this view, but Galileo did it anyway because that was what the evidence said. He observed the heavens, noted what he saw and formed a new model, going against the church and its orthodoxy (which, it would be noted, was based on a text from the 2nd century AD – there’s up to date science for you). His evidence-based inquiry led to the changing of the European world view.
For all of humanity’s progress since the early modern period, has there actually been intellectual regression?
CA
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