Why Political Discourse Seems So Stupid

In the run up to India’s Elections 2024, I had many heated arguments with people. While I’ve grown indifferent to these debates lately, I occasionally respond when I think the opposing argument is glaringly wrong.?

Not that my opinions have changed. On the contrary, most views have solidified; most reasoning crystallized. In the interim, I have tried to understand why political discourse is set up this way.?

In this newsletter, I would like to discuss a few reasons why I think this happens. You’re welcome to make additions.?

Final Vocabulary

Did you ever feel this way: that based on a person’s first few arguments, you could reasonably decipher where the train of thoughts is heading.?

It’s in that instant you decide it’s pointless to debate any further.?

American philosopher Richard Rorty calls this a person’s “final vocabulary”.

“All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes. They are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a person's "final vocabulary."?

It is "final" in the sense that if doubt is cast on the worth of these words, their user has no noncircular argumentative recourse. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them there is only helpless passivity or a resort to force.”? ~ “Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity”?

Lack of Purva Paksha

Ever experienced this?

Someone misrepresents your stance and criticizes a point you never made in the first place.?

This happens because of lack of purva paksha. From Rajiv Malhotra’s “Being Different”:?

“The purva paksha tradition required any debater first to argue from the perspective of his opponent to test the validity of his understanding of the opposing position, and from there to realize his own shortcomings. Only after perfecting his understanding of opposing views would he be qualified to refute them. Such debates encourage individuals to maintain flexibility of perspective and honesty rather than seek victory egotistically. In this way, the dialectical process ensures a genuine and far-reaching shift in the individual.”

Instead of attacking a strawman, we first need to understand the opponent’s view in its “most plausible and persuasive form”.

As Vivek Ramaswamy once tweeted: “If you can’t make the best argument for the other side, then you don’t really know what you actually believe.”?

Ideological Turing Test

In continuation to purva paksha, we also have an “ideological Turing test” advanced by economist Bryan Caplan.?

It’s a thought experiment where you’re with people holding a different ideology. If you’ve successfully convinced these people you’re one of them, you’ve passed this test.?

You think argument #A is what this group believes. However, from the group’s perspective, argument #A is a strawman.?

Once we’re done snarking at people we disagree with, we realize there’s a lot we actually agree on. The true bone of contention is buried deep inside name-calling tactics and never sees the light of the day.?

Pigeonholing?

Most of us would like to think, in Walt Whitman’s words, we contain multitudes. We rarely extend the same courtesy to other people.

As Morgan Housel argues in “The Psychology of Money”, nobody is irrational. To their mind, it all makes perfect sense.?

People don’t think in terms of left and right. It's true that once you do identify with a side, you’re more likely to resonate with the group of ideas that come along. But that’s not always the case.

In the US, many people who call themselves conservatives are broadly in favor of universal healthcare and education (typically associated with the liberal side). Likewise, many self-labeled liberals may only criticize a form of economic model they consider as crony capitalism; they may not think Soviet-style communism is the alternative.?

Conclusion

Broadly, I think the solution is to get comfortable with complexity inherent in every human. And, discuss ideas; not people. To this end, we must also allow ourselves the luxury of nothing having one, unified philosophy that explains everything under the sun.?

In my newsletter, “Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?”, I wrote:?

“It’s alluring, even seductive, to entertain the thought of one theory that explains it all. To my mind, it’s not always possible to tie up disparate elements into a common thread. It’s okay to be comfortable with contradictions.”

“Hedgehogs, at their best, may be transformational leaders. But the downside is equally extreme: they can turn into dogmatic fanatics. At least in this score, foxes are better; they may be humans struggling with contradictions, i.e. simply humans.”