House of Eratosthenes

We could think of disagreement as merely the opposite of agreement, and if we accept that then we could perceive one of these opposites to be a nothing, merely the opposite of the other. Just as cold and darkness technically don’t really exist, they are merely deficiencies of heat and light, respectively. The dictionary says that to agree is:

1. to have the same views, emotions, etc.; harmonize in opinion or feeling…
2. to give consent; assent…
3. to live in concord or without contention; get along together.
4. to come to one opinion or mind; come to an arrangement or understanding; arrive at a settlement…
5. to be consistent; harmonize

As we inspect the meaning to figure out why people are so contentious lately, I think — you may not agree — all five of these might have some connection to what we’re trying to find out, but as we try to root-cause it we’re going to be shying away from definitions #2, #3, #4 and #5, and concentrating more on #1. The four are consequences of the one. This creates a problem for us because #1 isn’t too specific. So let’s look at how these “views, opinions, etc.” are formed.

There is a pattern that holds up when we make decisions, particularly when we make decisions to challenge someone else about something, or decisions that are likely to be so challenged by others. First, we collect information somehow, either observing things ourselves or relying on some trusted source to bring us news, measurements, or summaries of measurements. Secondly, we figure out from this information a sense of what is happening. Finally, we reconcile that sense of what is happening, with our objectives and from that we form a strategy of what should be done.

“I saw Bob take a sticky-note pad out of the supply room and take it home.” “Bob is stealing from our company.” “Fire Bob.”

You’ll note that each of those three might be open to reasonable challenge. Furthermore, such reasonable challenges may be entered at any stage of the game. Once it’s proven that Bob did indeed take the supply home, you may disagree with the last two; or you can agree with the first two and offer an alternative to that final step. So there are three definable ways people might end up with disagreements.

Abortion would be a disagreement about the first, the fact-finding. “It’s a life.” Global warming, or climate change, whatever ya wanna call it today, would be a disagreement about the second: “The Earth is heating up and the humans, Americans in particular, are making it happen.” Many other issues would be issues because of the final step, the action-decision. Recognize gay marriage. Cut defense. No borders. Equality of income.

Lately though, there are many disagreements popping up which seem to fall into a fourth category of disagreement. In fact, you could make a reasonable argument that they all do lately, including the ones I categorized above. This would be: Disagreements that come about because one side wants to define something, and the other side doesn’t. There are those who would object to my merely breaking down the decision-events. And they’d have a good point, wouldn’t they. Abortion, climate change, pretending marijuana-smoking and illegal immigration are legal, pretending gay marriage is marriage, pretending defense is unnecessary because we can merely legislate wars out of existence. You may notice, on each one of these, there is always a side that is keen on defining things and another side that works to stop the definition from taking place.

Interestingly, you’ll notice the two sides don’t change seats too often. The people who see an easy victory for themselves on the one issue, if only the information flow can be restricted and others can be bullied away from getting the facts and deciding for themselves what those facts might mean — they pretty much handle all the other issues that way. “Pro-choice” advocates, for example, see something good & right happening if only they can pressure, bully, and intimidate their fellow citizens to “stop watching Faux News.” They’re not too pleased when pictures get out showing how a baby develops, before birth, and they don’t like people talking about when the heart starts beating, when the fingernails start growing. That stuff is all “above my pay grade,” they say. What they really mean to say is that it’s above yours too. They don’t want anyone talking about it.

Issue after issue, we see one faction valuing information exchange and working toward it, and the other one working against it. Oh, we can rationalize against our noticing this, soothing our consciousnesses with the observation that new information often looks like problematic confusion when you’re not familiar with it and have some learning to do. But, so many among the people who bring this “new information” so obviously consider the job to be done when the confusion has set in. They’re not really working to educate anyone.

Now with the climate change and what we might think of as the “No Such Thing As God” thing, the darkness-workers have put on a good show and gotten a narrative going that they have some sort of monopoly on “science.” You only have to question them a little bit to find out that isn’t true. Their “science” is nothing more than a messy mosaic of labels. “Peer review,” for example. They speak so loftily of it, but when you point out the problems with it you find they don’t want to engage the argument by providing a proper rebuttal. All the rebuttals they have amount to some kind of credo that nobody should be noticing such things, and peer-review is simply a magical incantation to make inconvenient information go away. If you take it literally, you’re immediately confronted with the problem that some peer-reviewed work poses problems for their “science,” and suddenly they’re not too fond of it.

Truth and Hate With the what-to-do stage of making decisions, the advocates of darkness put their efforts into trivializing the whole process, making it seem like it’s what-to-do and nothing more. I earlier offered the examples of gay marriage and getting rid of borders. The supporters of these positions will oppose the spelling-out of any arguments, because their agendas don’t stand up to argument. Illegal immigration — why should we argue about whether or not that’s legal? It’s right there in the name.

This is, perhaps, a new chapter in human history. I’m just finishing out my fifth decade on the planet so I’m not in a position to say that for sure. But right now, we have the sophistication to break these different arguments down into their component parts, to figure out which part may be faulty, and we also have a new widespread recalcitrance against doing exactly that. Biggest lie in the modern world is that we need to “sit down and talk out our differences with our enemies.” That is a slogan uttered often, and for many years now, by those who labor toward darkness and confusion. They don’t say, you’ll notice, what will be talked-out. They just wish for the “sit down,” and stop their wishing right there. We don’t even know what to call these people. They used to be progressives, then they wore out the label and started going by liberals. Now they’ve worn that out and they’re going back to being progressives.

If this is indeed something new, it’s not good. Because we lately seem to have morphed into a new stage of development, in which by merely taking steps to start measuring something, you’re already walking in to some conflict and in fact there is a better-than-even chance that you’ll end up with some blame headed your way for having starting it. That would be a good thing for everyone to work on helping to change, if they feel so inclined. Reasonable people can certainly disagree on whether Bob really took the sticky notes home, or whether he’s actually stealing from the company, or whether or not he should be fired; they can agree on what was measured, what is to be inferred from it, and what to do about it. But we shouldn’t be having disagreements about whether or not to do the measurements, whether or not the measurements should be thrown out solely on the basis of some political agenda, or whether our fellows should be bullied into forgetting about things or not-talking about things. If we really are an information-age society, then we should have complete…ya know…agreement about that. Give a fair hearing to the measurements and statistics offered up by both sides. And to what someone thinks that means, and why they think it must mean that. The details. What we’re hoping is going to happen when we say something should be done. How we’re going to know, at the end of it, that it worked.

But I suppose, politically, that wouldn’t work out too well for one of the sides. The side that tends to do most of the talking. Getting lots and lots of syllables and words out there, but saying very little apart from “don’t talk about that” and “don’t listen to that guy.”

Yeah, I remember the brain-washing attempts in science courses in college in the ’90s. Global warming is happening, and it’s all America’s fault. I remember the large satellite pollution maps, and I remember making the mistake of …repeatedly…pointing out that the poison blanket was almost non-existent in our wasteful country, especially when compared to that industrial up-and-comer that starts with a “C” and ends with an “hina” and it stands for “pool! (ution)”
The argument always devolved into this poor student being told that, when comparing populations, we were much, MUCH worse…something that couldn’t be determined by noticing a perfectly clear America and an opaque China on the maps.
I would always bring up the fact that PRODUCTION…and not population, should be the defining factor. This caused no end of consternation, as global economics would invariably support my side of the argument, showing that for the AMOUNT of product we produced at the time we were always the least polluting nation on Earth. That was usually when I was told to shut up or risk a failing grade. Somehow I managed to squeak by with an overall passing grade. Methinks that most of the T.A.s in the Freshman and Sophomore level required classes simply did not want my opinions to return.
- P_Ang | 03/03/2014 @ 11:10

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We DisagreeSaturday, March 1st, 2014

We Disagree
Saturday, March 1st, 2014