Argue to Win

[wiggin]

They propose an interesting distinction but I think it's a false one. Arguments about policy are almost always relativist, and should be. Arguments about reality are generally objective. Political arguments, in a perfect world, should revolve around policy. There shouldn't be a fundamental debate in our society about verifiable facts - say, that HIV causes AIDS, or that anthropogenic climate change is a reality, or that leggings are not pants. The debate should revolve around how to project forward the best policy that appropriately balances all of the competing priorities. That's somewhat objective (i.e. you can get better projections of the effects of a policy through detailed modeling and retrospective studies), but mostly subjective (how do you weigh the relative importance of competing priorities?). Policy exists as a dialectic, where the ideal outcome exists in tension between multiple opposing viewpoints.

When people resort to arguing about facts, they're really saying that they are unable to marshal a coherent policy argument. Sure, it's entirely valid to argue about semantic overlays on facts (when does a 'human' life begin? Do jeggings count?), but the underlying truth is undeniable. As such, it's almost never worth engaging in a dispute with someone about facts unless they genuinely appear to be mistaken and open to correction (or, conversely, if you are not certain that your handle on the facts of a given situation is complete).

I personally think the problem is that people think they're arguing about facts (and that they're right), when in fact they're arguing about some sort of semantic overlay. If two political opponents are using similar terminology in fundamentally different ways, or interpreting the same data set to mean wildly different things, they think they're arguing about facts, when in fact they're just arguing about language and meaning. This means they have the cognitive challenges associated with 'arguing to win' in an objectivist mold but don't actually achieve anything because they don't understand what their opponent is saying.

Sometimes, all you need in order to at least understand one's political opponents is to agree on a set of common definitions. You won't necessarily have the same policy positions, but at least you won't argue with them over what is literally semantics. Most of the debates on Facebook - and, indeed, here - are at their core definitional in nature.

[EyeKhan]

They propose an interesting distinction but I think it's a false one. Arguments about policy are almost always relativist, <snip> Policy exists as a dialectic, where the ideal outcome exists in tension between multiple opposing viewpoints.

I think you may be talking here about how things ought to work, or how they work in your own approach to political discussion, instead of the widespread dysfunction in casual political debate the article is talking about. People commonly argue for or against policy in objective, no wiggle-room terms, with no intention at all to compromise or understand the opposing point of view.

When people resort to arguing about facts, they're really saying that they are unable to marshal a coherent policy argument.

Shouldn't any discussion of opposing policy views at some point involve fact-based support to "prove" the legitimacy of one position over another? I understood the article to be saying that when we argue to win, we are more willing to ignore, or maybe accept distortions of, facts to avoid losing points in the game.

Maybe you are talking about argument for particular policy goals? I've experienced that opposing sides may not even value the same outcome, so facts supporting the policy to achieve that outcome are irrelevant. As example, I might argue that NASA needs more funding for xyz research so people can go to Mars, and support that with facts about science, NASA's budget, and the potential benefits of Mars exploration, etc. But the opposing view might be that government has no business operating or even promoting any kind of space program at all.

. This means they have the cognitive challenges associated with 'arguing to win' in an objectivist mold but don't actually achieve anything because they don't understand what their opponent is saying.

This is a problem probably fundamental to language itself. But it isn't new or increasing in and of itself, is it? Fact-ignoring discussion, in favor of a hard objectivist stake in the ground, has to exacerbate it for sure, though, and I think this is the issue the article is referring to. The process of understanding what your opponent is saying is fundamental to "argument to learn," I would think.

[Loki]

I personally think the problem is that people think they're arguing about facts (and that they're right), when in fact they're arguing about some sort of semantic overlay. If two political opponents are using similar terminology in fundamentally different ways, or interpreting the same data set to mean wildly different things, they think they're arguing about facts, when in fact they're just arguing about language and meaning. This means they have the cognitive challenges associated with 'arguing to win' in an objectivist mold but don't actually achieve anything because they don't understand what their opponent is saying.

I'd agree with you if you said this 5 years ago. But the main disagreement now is over what constitutes facts. While there's nothing new about ignoring inconvenient facts, it's pretty obvious that one side of the political spectrum has simply decided any organization that produces facts not to their liking is engaging in partisanship and therefore should be ignored. Instead, these people live in a warped reality where facts are created by people entirely unqualified to produce them who have no interest in anything resembling truth. Thus Obama is a Muslim. Climate change doesn't exist. Any study demonstrating the effect of widespread gun ownership is fake news. Tax cuts pay for themselves. Etc. These aren't distributional disagreements. They're a reliance on unambiguous lies as the basis for reality.