The debate between lumping and splitting has a long history is the epistemology of science, especially in any field with a focus on taxonomy, like anthropology or biology.
Where do we draw out lines and how do those choices effect the way we see the world?
This same issue seems to be important in political discourse and I’ve noticed lumpers are becoming more common as the us vs them tribalism takes over. So many people choose to categorize political groups based on broad affiliation, especially when the group under discussion is not your own.
This has real implications for both how politics is discussed and how we might solves some of the problems we all agree exist.
We are all subject to the same cognitive biases that tend us to lump people into good vs evil type classes. But if we really want to move people closer to our view we need to stop lumping everyone and start splitting.
Not all people on the right are the same type of bad. I think it’s worth our time to more closely examine why people think what they think. Not only will it make our political discourse deeper it will increase the likelihood we may find persuasive arguments that might work on one subclass of people but not another. If everyone on the other side is just “bad” we lose that ability.
Understandably, people get very defensive when this is addressed because they think arguing for nuance is the same as arguing one subclass of people isn’t bad. I suspect that is what bothered pocketchads in our discussion of Rogan vs Maher. The implicit fact that arguing one is more or less bad, means one is more or less good. It seems like defending a bad person.
My goal was not to defend Maher but to point out we are missing the nuance which has value. Of course, this isn’t to say there isn’t still value in broad classes especially to simplify a discussion when the point isn’t the nuance. I’m simply saying there is some value once in a while to stop and recognize the nuance to see if we are missing something valuable or a meaningful distinction.
I want to better understand the issue that you’re tackling ITT. Is your opinion that lumping is becoming more common based upon your observation and perception, or are you basing this on research that you’ve seen?
What is the nuance that you feel others are missing? I can’t really agree/disagree on how much value there is in the nuance between Maher/Rogan, without knowing what it is that you are labeling as nuance.
My comment on the increase of lumping is just my observation but it is also backed up by a lot,of research into the well documented increase in tribalism. It seems to be lumping and tribalism go hand in hand. The more tribal we are acting the more likely we are to reduce the other into stereotypes.
As for Rogan/Maher, in the Biden thread I just pointed out I thought Chris made a false equivalence when comparing the two. I saw it as a jumping off point to this larger discussion. As I said there, both hold odious ideas and both make bizarre leaps of logic, just not to the same degree or in the same way. In fact, several poster followed mine with examples of their very differences.
What nuance? You explicitly said that Maher is not as bad as Rogan. A significant number of people are saying you’re right, he’s worse than Rogan.
The suggestion that Tanden is a hypocrite for being negative towards Rogan but going on Maher’s show does not require nuance. One can simply say that they are both bad enough that it doesn’t matter who is worse for the purpose of that accusation. Why does nuance matter in making that point?
This feels more like you quibbling over small, irrelevant details and not paying attention to the bigger picture of evaluating Tanden as a non-progressive.
And I absolutely think that your intent was to defend Maher. You have in the past.
Is there value in understanding the differences between Rogan and Maher audience? Or fox or Alex Jones? What is value is just calling them all bad? Are there not degrees of bad?
In what way am I lumping a holder of bad ideas, such as you, with other holders of bad ideas?
Someone who murders with a knife is not the same as someone who murders with a gun. Do the differences matter for the purpose of determining whether they are guilty of murder?
If your goal is to simply assign guilt then no it doesn’t matter. That is my whole point. Assigning guilt is both intellectually easy and not very valuable. If your goal is to rehabilitate the murderer it might be useful to differentiate a sniper from a close up throat cutter.
As for Rogan and Maher, I agree they are both “bad” in the broadest sense of the world as in holders of insane right wing ideas. That holds little interest. I want to understand the difference in their badness.
Also, we are having a perfectly interesting and cordial discussion. No idea why you feel that need to toss an off handed insult in.
It was a very brief derail. Guilty as charged. Peoples frustration had nothing to do with that though. Nobody even mentioned a derail until you did. Pocketchads was angry because he thought I was saying Maher is good.
I was just using the existing topic to pivot to a different point. This is something that happens hundreds of times a day here. Perhaps I should have been clearer in that aim.
I feel like “I’d like to talk about Bill Maher, especially the times when he gets criticized unfairly” is a better thread title. The framework of lumping vs. splitting isn’t going to give you any answers about specific cases.
Hypothetical person agrees with you on every single political issue on earth but also believes gay people choose to be gay and shouldn’t be allowed to be married? Is this person good or bad?
I’m just not convinced that you think Maher is even bad. Says some bad things, sure, but I don’t get the impression that you think he is a net negative.
The basic point is that some people believe that Maher is bad enough that a true progressive should be resistant to effectively endorsing him by going on his show. That is independent of whatever nuance there is between Maher and Rogan.
If you meant for this to be a jumping off point for a larger discussion of lumping vs splitting, you did a piss-poor job of it.
Hypothetical person agrees with you on every single political issue on earth but also believes black people should be enslaved? Is this person good or bad?
You want to believe I think Maher is great because it feeds into your preconceived idea. No matter what I say you bring it back to all that matters is we label Maher bad. After that there is nothing left to discuss.
In that case, I’m mostly skeptical about these kinds of conceptual frameworks offering much insight. Obviously, some people are going to be very close together and it’s appropriate to lump them together. Then some people are going to be too far a part and it’s obviously not appropriate to lump them together. So now you’d be off to find demarcation conditions for when it’s appropriate to lump and when it’s not. If you ever find those conditions (good luck), you will not have solved that much really, as you will just end up with two categories of people, and you’ll then be lumping and not lumping according to those. Meanwhile the substantive issues are just what are the bad beliefs, what are the bright-line disqualifying beliefs in contemporary political discourse, etc…
You don’t seem to distinguish between “bad enough to not want to go on his show” and “BAD!”. Lots of people have said the former, I don’t think anyone has said the latter as (as you keep saying) it’s a pretty damn silly judgement. I think most people’s position is that the former does not imply the latter, and it’s misrepresenting them to say it does.
Except is does matter. How we categorize the world has direct influence on how we operate within it.
There is difference between “all trump voters are awful people who should be ignored” and “some trump voters are likely low information people voting out of party affiliation alone”. The former would mean there is no value in outreach to this group and the latter would suggest there might be value.
To head off the trump voter derail this is just an example.
Another example.
One could say all people who use racist language are awful people. This would mean the grandma who uses an old and racist terms of liquorice candy is the same as David Duke. The former is changeable. The latter is not. This is obviously a silly example meant to show the extremes to frame the debate.