One thing that has bothered me about composition textbooks for years is how many of them endorse the genetic fallacy (and motivism). A lot of research advice tells students to find “objective” sources, and then proceed to a muddled definition of “objective” (usually meaning true, non-controversial, expert, universally-accepted, and from a non-perspectival epistemological position—so conflating ontology, audience reaction, and an indefensible epistemology).
Humans have biases. All humans. All sources. It isn’t possible to be unbiased. There are two thoroughly useless ways to respond to that fact: declare that every in-group source (that tells you what you already believe to be true is true) is unbiased and everyone else is biased (so you can dismiss disconfirming evidence on the grounds that it is disconfirming); decide everyone is biased and so everyone can believe whatever they want.
The first of those is the common response of dismissing every piece of uncomfortable information on the grounds that it’s from a biased source. It’s often a consequence of inoculation, and it means you only trust information that confirms what you believe. It’s toxic. It means you shouldn’t listen to anyone who might tell you that your in-group sources of information are wrong.[1]
The second is also toxic to democratic deliberation since it means that there is no need to listen to anyone who disagrees. If everyone’s position is irrational, then there’s no reason to worry about whether yours is.
There are two useful ways to respond: 1) admit your own biases, and try to account for them (if you’re biased in favor of thinking guns are evil, try to look more fairly at arguments for gun ownership); 2) try to find really smart sources of out-group arguments.
Inoculation works by telling people that they are being presented both sides (but they aren’t being presented the smartest version of other positions).
A source being “biased” isn’t a reason to dismiss it.
Good sources give their sources, represent the oppositions fairly, and are internally logically consistent. A “biased” argument that did all those things is still a good source—it’s a good argument for what that group believes.
As teachers of argument, we need to stop talking as though being biased and being bad arguments are the same. They aren’t.
We need to teach about citing sources, representing the opposition fairly, and having internally consistent arguments.
This isn’t a new argument. Dismissing an argument because it has bad origins is known as the genetic fallacy. And assuming that an argument can be dismissed because it’s presented by an out-group rhetor (and therefore on the part of someone with bad motives) is the fallacy of motivism.
Refusing to look at disconfirming information because the source is biased is fallacious. But that doesn’t mean all sources are equally valid, nor that you should never give up on a source.
I gave up on Mother Jones, Blue State, and DailyKos (unless I’m willing to click on all the links) because too often I found them to have misrepresented data and/or their opposition. Giving up on a source because it doesn’t give sources, misrepresents its opposition, and/or is internally inconsistent is perfectly reasonable, but that judgment isn’t about the “bias” of the source—it’s about that source being shitty at argument.
[1] Really cunning media engage in a kind of double inoculation by appearing to present criticism of an in-group political figure—but it’s trivial, or stupid. Thus, consumers of that media think they’ve been given “both” sides since they heard something “negative” about the in-group. They’ve been presented weak versions of the opposition, and that’s what makes it inoculation. Yet, at the same time, they sincerely believe they’ve listened to both sides, and so aren’t in a bubble.