I was talking with a colleague who exclusively consumes right-wing media, and mentioned a study, and he said, “Is it a good study? A lot of those people are biased.”
I was stunned. He doesn’t mind bias; he consumes nothing but biased media. I mentioned this to him once, and he said, “Oh, so the Communist News Network is better?”
When I’m arguing with someone on the internet, and persuade them that they’ve been repeating something entirely false (and, yes, it is possible to do that), I try to point out that they are getting their information from an unreliable source. If the person is repeating Fox/Limbaugh/Savage talking points, they’ll often say, “Oh, so you think I should watch MSNBC instead?” as though that ends the argument. If they’re repeating a DailyKOS/Mother Jones talking point, they’ll often say, “Well, at least it isn’t Fox News.”
I think their responses are important, and indicate just how far we are from a world in which we argue together. All of these responses above assume that you either get all your news from “conservative” sources or from “liberal” sources, and, however much conservative sources might botch things, they’re better than “liberal” ones (and vice versa). I’m not going to defend liberal sources; I’m going to argue that the underlying assumption (you either get your information from conservative or liberal sources) is the problem.
To make that argument, I’m going to have to set out a hypothetical example about a country whose public discourse is divided into Chesterians and Hubertians
And here’s why I have to use a hypothetical and deliberately silly example. There are a lot of people who believe that politics is entirely a question of whether the good people (their party) or the bad people (THAT party) triumphs, and so every political question turns into which group is better and/or whether a politician is us or them. You trust people who are “us” and you mistrust “them.” The second you smoke someone out as “liberal” or “conservative,” then you can dismiss everything they say. And you spend the whole time reading or listening to someone looking for the cues/clues that would tell you which side they’re on That’s bad for democracy. Very bad.
It’s bad because it’s inaccurate (no issue only has two sides) and it keeps people from thinking about in-group flaws (no side is entirely right).[1] That way of thinking about politics means you never hear criticism of your in-group[2] If I tried to use real examples to talk about our political discourse, most (all?) of my readers would spend all their time trying to figure out if I’m in-group (trustworthy) or out-group (unreliable). That’s how reading works in a polarized public sphere.
Because our current political situation is so polarized, and people are so trained to look for “bias” as “signs of group membership,”[3] I think it’s helpful to talk about two political figures: Chester and Hubert. Chester and Hubert agree that there is a squirrel conspiracy to get to the red ball (because duh), but they disagree as to whether little dogs are reliable allies against the squirrels.[4] Chester argues that all little dogs are evil, and Hubert argues that all dogs are potential allies, and rather likes a lot of little dogs.[5]
These were real dogs I had, huge, both of whom were obsessed with keeping the red ball from squirrels, and they really did have different attitudes to little dogs. Chester’s hostility was confirmed (for him) by some bad experiences. In other words, Chester assumes that every out-group member is hostile, aggressive, and must be handled with aggression (and he had reason to do so), and so he used his larger size to dominate others. Chester assumed a world of conflict, in which opposition had to be crushed even before it showed itself to be opposition. Again, it’s important to emphasize that he came to that conclusion because of experiences.
Hubert assumed that his larger size meant that he was safe, and that, if things got ugly, he would be fine. He came to that conclusion because of experiences—that he had been able to defuse potentially explosive interactions. Interestingly enough, he also had had bad experiences with little dogs, but he didn’t generalize to all little dogs from them (a point pursued elsewhere).
So, assume a world in which the voters are choosing between Hubert and Chester, and therefore we have a world of Hubertians, Chesterians, and the undecided, who sometimes vote one way and sometimes another.
Once you frame it that way, then any one of us can generate all of the political rhetoric while still half asleep: policy arguments reframed as identity arguments; treating bad in-group behavior as incidental but bad out-group behavior as essential; different standards for in-group and out-group; we’re rational, and they’re irrational; we have good motives, and they have bad ones, and so on. I won’t go into all those, but just want to emphasize four connected ones that aren’t always obvious: the explanation of all politics as a zero-sum conflict between good (in-group) and bad (out-group) so that every argument can be settled through evidence that the in-group is better than the out-group (even if in ways completely unrelated to the issue at hand); once that is the stasis for every political argument, then a kind of retroactive fairness can get invoked (more on that below); finally, the in-group = good/out-group = bad means that people choose to live in informational enclaves thinking they’re getting all the information they need (via inoculation); fourth, and finally, that means that the solution is not to try to find the single right source. It means looking for reasonable sources that will critique your views.
1. The explanation of all politics as a zero-sum conflict between good (in-group) and bad (out-group) so that every argument can be settled through evidence that the in-group is better than the out-group (even if in ways completely unrelated to the issue at hand)
The basic assumption is that the entire world can be divided into good and bad people and that all the good people join the good political party. There is also an assumption that good people always make good choices, and therefore support good policies. So, you can end all political arguments by pointing out that the other group supports a bad thing (any bad thing, even if completely unrelated to the policy under discussion). And, if any policy benefits the other side is any way (or is supported by them) it must mean it hurts us, and is therefore bad. Because the out-group members are all the same, anyone not in-group is out-group and so can be used to characterize what the out-group really is.
There are a lot of problems with that view, including that there aren’t two oppositional sides in a zero-sum relation.
In this world—in any world—there are multiple disagreements. There might be, for instance, Chesterians who think little dogs should be expelled from the nation, although that isn’t what Chester thinks or says. There might be Hubertians who think that, since little dogs and squirrels are kind of alike, we shouldn’t be worried about squirrels.
Chesterians will use the existence of squirrel sympathizers to condemn Hubert as a squirrel sympathizer. Chester TV will do nothing but quote squirrel sympathizers when they represent Hubert’s views, and they will give endless publicity to any Hubertian squirrel sympathizer. If they can, they will clip Hubert’s speeches to make him seem like a squirrel sympathizer. They won’t show Hubert disagreeing with sympathizers (or, if they do, they’ll frame it as dishonesty).
Hubertians will use the existence of Chesterian expulsionists to condemn Chester as an expulsionist. Hubert TV will quote Chesterian expulsionists when they represent Chester’s views, and they will give endless publicity to any Chesterian expulsionist. If they can, they will clip Chester’s speeches to make him seem like an expulsionist. They won’t show Chester disagreeing with expulsionists (or, if they do, they’ll frame it as dishonesty).
Chesterians who only watch Chester TV and Hubertians who only watch Hubert TV will be deliberately misinformed about Hubert and Chester, while firmly believing that they aren’t because they have evidence. They can point to Hubertians and Chesterians (or Hubert/Chester quotes), and so they will believe that their position is rational and true.
The moment you believe the lie that there are only two sides is the moment you agree to drink Flavor-Aid. You might choose your flavor, but you’re drinking.
2. Once we agree that all political debates are about which group is better, then a kind of retroactive fairness can get invoked
Imagine that, in this rabidly factional world, Chesterians storm Hubertian rallies with bricks and bats. In response, Hubertians do the same to Chesterians.
Chester TV will cover the later violence of Hubertians as proof that the former violence of Chesterians was justified.
One of the more confusing talking points I ran into on the Michael Brown shooting was that Brown had committed a crime and therefore whatever the police officer did to him was justified.[6] The police officer didn’t know that Brown had committed a crime at the time of the shooting, something people making this argument granted, but didn’t think it was relevant. Their point was that Brown deserved what he got because he was a bad person, as shown by the later revelation of his shoplifting.
Of course, death is not the penalty for shoplifting, and we are supposed to be in a world in which people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but what was done to him was just because of information not known at the time.
This has puzzled me a lot, but I think I now understand it. The Chesterians don’t see their violence as having provoked the counter-violence on the part of Hubertians. They see their violence as a kind of pre-emptive revenge. They were right to have engaged in violence because the Hubertians were going to have engaged in violence someday anyway.
The later violence on the part of Hubertians was proof that they were hostile to Chesterians all along.[7] This explanation will make sense to viewers of Chester TV because Chester TV has presented Hubertians as essentially violent all along. When Chesterian political figures and pundits say, “The best cure for our politics is to shoot a few Hubertians every day!” Chesterians interpret such statements as metaphorical and hyperbolic (regardless of the number of Chesterians who proceed to go out and shoot Hubertians). But, when Hubertians say, “The best cure for our politics is to shoot a few Chesterians every day!” Chesterians interpret such statements as literally calling for violence against them. Thus, they can justify literal violence against Hubertians on the grounds that it is self-defense, regardless of the actual chain of events.
Viewers of Chester TV will have heard an uncountable number of Hubertians calling for violence, so their view of Hubertians as essentially violent will seem to be entirely rational—they can easily recall lots of evidence to support that perception. Their perception of Hubertians will seem to be entirely rational and true.
3. The in-group = good/out-group = bad means that people choose to live in informational enclaves thinking they’re getting all the information they need (via inoculation)
And here I’m back at the beginning: why do people who consume nothing but rabidly factionalized media criticize other media for being biased? Clearly, they have no objection in principle to biased media.
There are, loosely, two reasons: first, they’re naïve realists, who believe that they (and they alone) have unmediated perception of The Truth; second, inoculation.
As to the first, if Hubertians believe that The Truth is always obvious to good people, and, of course, they think Hubertians are good people, then anything on which all Hubertians agree is The Truth. Duh. Hubertians believe that Hubertians are justified in anything they do, and so it is simply a reality and a fact that Hubertians’ values should be the basis of all judgment. So, Hubertians should have free speech to say anything any way they want in any circumstance, because Hubertians are objectively right, by virtue of being Hubertians. Hubertian protests are justified; Chesterian protests are disruptive. Hubertians who destroy property and disrupt processes are freedom fighters; Chesterians who do that are terrorists. Hubertian protestors who wear masks are justified because oppression; Chesterian protestors who do so are villainous. How do you know? You just ask yourself. A viewer of Hubert TV, who had been told that even listening to Chester TV or thinking Chesterians might have a point is ridiculous and disloyal, would be able to recall dozens of examples of the inherent and essential goodness of Hubertians, and therefore know that zir stance on the inherent and essential rightness of what Hubertians are doing is just simply and obviously true to anyone willing to look at the facts. That is naïve realism.
In case it’s unclear, I’m saying that both Chester TV and Hubert TV are propaganda. But, no one willingly consumes propaganda, so why wouldn’t the respective viewers go for a non-propaganda source?
Because really effective propaganda presents itself as giving “both sides.”
Notice the “both sides” move. Propaganda reduces the complexity of available positions to “us” versus “them.” And it then presents itself as being “fair” by claiming to present an accurate version of what “they” think. On the contrary, it presents four views of the “other side:” 1) quotes (sometimes strategically clipped, but not always) of extreme and generally marginalized positions that can be presented as perfectly representative of “the other side;”[8] 2) bad paraphrases, strategically truncated quotes, or humorless repetitions of things major figures have said; 3) broad generalizations about how they hate us; 4) weak versions of “their” criticisms of in-group policies and candidates. The third one is interesting—any criticism of an in-group policy or individual is reframed as an attack on all of “us.” Once an audience is trained (and the whole point of propaganda is to train people), then the audience looks for signs of someone being out-group, and then, if they determine the rhetor is out-group, they don’t even notice what argument that rhetor is actually making, because they believe they already know what any member of the out-group has to say.
So, Chester TV has some “Hubertian” pundits (they probably aren’t), and they’re idiots, and they make stupid arguments. The “debate” between them and the Chesterians has three parts: first, Chesterians making arguments that fit with the claims and values Chester TV always promotes (so, to Chesterians, those speakers would seem to be “objective” and saying “true” things); second, “Hubertians” (they aren’t) making weak arguments ; three, the Chesterians pundits summarizing the Hubertian arguments (thereby creating a kind of vocabulary—here’s how to talk about Hubertian arguments; here are the words that signal a Hubertian). There might be other parts of the show in which marginalized out-group members are shown saying outrageous things (but are identified to the audience as representative of the out-group) and mangled or truncated or willfully misinterpreted quotes of major out-group figures.[9]
This process is called inoculation.[10]
Inoculation works by giving people a weak version of a virus they will later encounter. When they encounter the strong version of the virus, the body, having been prepared by its encounter with the weak version, doesn’t even let that shit in the door.
Rabidly factional Hubertians don’t want Chesterians to get any votes or support, and won’t grant that any of their concerns might be legitimate. But, really, once we’ve divided all possible political positions into two groups, we’ve almost certainly included some positions in the out-group that have some merit.
Chesterians might be wrong about little dogs, but still might have some legitimate concerns about whether little dogs can really effectively protect the red ball from squirrels. And they might be able to make good arguments about those legitimate concerns. A Hubertian committed to democratic deliberation would want those concerns voiced, heard, and interwoven into the public deliberation.
A rabidly factional Hubertian wouldn’t want anyone to think that Chesterians might ever be right, so they’d need to try to train their audience to dismiss unheard, not only any Chesterian argument, but any criticism of Hubertians. And, so, rabidly Hubertian media would engage in the four moves above—they’d inoculate their audience against listening to anything a non-Hubertian might say.
That’s how political inoculation works (when it works). Chester TV and Hubert TV present their viewers with weak versions of the out-group arguments, and some cues as to out-group identity. Thus, when a Hubertian, call her Emma, hears anyone say something that could be interpreted as negative about little dogs, she thinks, “Ha! A Chesterian! They think all little dogs are squirrels, and that’s a stupid argument, so this person is stupid, and I shouldn’t listen to them!”
Emma sincerely believes she’s being fair in that dismissal because she sincerely believes she’s listened (with an open mind) to Chesterian arguments. Hubert TV, after all, has a show that she watches regularly in which Chesterian and Hubertians debate. What she doesn’t know is that she’s only exposed to the stupidest Chesterian arguments.
And she will never figure that out if: 1) she thinks all argument can be reduced to Chesterian and Hubertian, and 2) she doesn’t actively seek out the best Chesterian arguments. Just changing the channel to a Chesterian one won’t work because she’s been inoculated.
4. Fourth, and finally, that means that the solution is not to try to find the single right source. It means looking for reasonable sources that will critique your views.
If Emma decides to see “both sides” for herelf, and tunes in to Chesterian propaganda, she won’t go away with a useful understanding of the realm of possible political views.[11] In fact, it will confirm for her that Chesterians are all idiots since what she’ll see will be stupid versions of Hubertian arguments..
Personally, I think no one should rely entirely on TV for information about politics. And here I should engage in full disclosure. I stopped watching TV news a very, very long time ago. I did the math and realized that 30 minutes of news was 22 minutes (at best) once the ads were taken out. Then take out sports, weather, the cat in a tree (aka human interest), and you’ve got at most eleven minutes of actual news, or around 1500 words, with no sources. In 30 minutes, you can get through between 3750 and 7500 words, depending on your reading speech. Turn off the TV and pick up a newspaper, in other words. Or, better yet, go to an online version that has links to the original sources.[12]
I think a lot of political TV is just the two minutes hate, but I also think that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the two minutes hate, if you know that’s what you’re doing. Political TV is infotainment, and as long as we remember it’s a subset of entertainment, that’s fine. The two minutes hate is about believing that your in-group is entirely right, and therefore you can feel deeply certain that you are entirely right, and you are always and in every way better than the out-group. If you need to spend more than two minutes believing those (very false) things, then there are some very concerning issues, and I’d like to sell you shares in the Brooklyn Bridge, because you’re poised to make a lot of really bad decisions. Basically, all cons appeal to that premise, and so you’re easy to con.
Here’s the important point about making decisions: your decision is wrong. You are wrong. I’ve said a lot of things in this piece that are wrong, but I don’t know it now.
We’re always wrong on little things, because there is no decision that is entirely right, but we’re also necessarily going to be wrong about big things. We have all made bad decisions, wrong assertions, and unjust accusations. It’s just that some of us are willing to admit it, and other aren’t.[13]
Cognitive psychologists emphasize cognitive biases. There is no human who can look at the world without bias or prejudice (there probably isn’t any animal that can do that): you look at this experience in the light of previous experience. You are “biased” by what you have already done, what you believe, and who you are.
There are two biases that are particularly important for the point I’m trying to make: what social psychologists call the fundamental attribution error (the notion that other people are transparent to us) and in-group favoritism.
I’ll start with the second, since it’s actually the cause of the first. We think we’re good people with good motives, so we think that people who are just like us (and who like us) are also good people.[14] When you watch Hubert TV, you’re predisposed to agree with everything if you’re Hubertian, because you believe deep in your soul that you’re getting your information from good people, no matter how much you tell yourself you’re being objective.
However, imagine that the Hubertians fling themselves around about a prominent Chesterian whose wife has appeared in public with bare arms. And then imagine Hubert TV goes on to support a Hubertian whose wife has porn photos. How does Hubert TV manage the cognitive dissonance? They got their base worked into a frenzy about bare arms, and now they have to deal with porn photos?
Inoculation. Hubert TV never shows the photos, and they have sufficiently inoculated their base against any site that says anything about the photos, so that they would never click on the link. Their base can continue to feel moral outrage about Chesterians who had a wife with bare arms while they support a Hubertian who has a wife who actually has porn photos.
And I can say, from experience, that, when confronted with that information, Hubertians will dismiss it on the grounds that Hubertt TV hasn’t shared it. They say, Chester TV is presenting this information because they’re out-group. The source of the information means the information can be dismissed (the genetic fallacy). That’s in-group favoritism.
Imagine a slightly less dramatic example (moral outrage over bare arms versus justifying porn photos),. Imagine two candidates for President who face accusations that they groped women. Imagine that there is plausible evidence that the Chesterian candidate groped women (although there is dispute about consent). Imagine that Hubertians made political hay of this, and tried to get that President impeached. Imagine that they then thoroughly supported a candidate who bragged that he groped women without their consent.
At this point, Hubertians have to admit it’s entirely tribal. There is no logical world in which their outrage is principled: it’s factional.
Hubertians could try to claim a sort of retroactive vengeance (Chesterians said adultery was okay, so it’s okay if our candidate had rapey adultery), but the fundamental attribution error enables a different strategy: give bad motives to the out-group and good motives to in-group members. An out-group member who lies about his adultery is evil, but an in-group member is protecting his family.
And motive is the Bermuda Triangle of argument, where everyone is lost, because it just ends up being a reiteration of in-group=good and out-group=bad.
As long as the question (what rhetoricians call the stasis) of political discourse is: is the person making this argument in-group or out-group, then democracy is gerfucked.
As long as people get all of their information from a source that says that THIS source is all you need, then they are suckers.
As long as people think that political issues are really identity and motive issues, and it’s a good idea to get all their information from in-group sources, they’ll end up drinking someone’s flavor-aid. Instead of trying to pick whose flavor-aid, it would be better for us to try to get away from tribalism and move toward a sense that we are a democracy. All citizens matter, and so genuinely good public policies aren’t grounded in some notion that only in-group members are really citizens—maybe we should all try to find the solutions that, on the whole, honor the needs of all current and future citizens. Maybe, instead of trying to do down the other, we should try to think about what makes the US a city on a hill for how democracy can find good and inclusive solutions.
[1] “In-group” doesn’t mean the group that’s in power—it means the group you’re in. So, for fans of Limbaugh, other fans of Limbaugh are the “in-group;” for fans of Maddows, other fans of Maddow are the “in-group.”
[2] You can think you are. Cunning versions of one-party propaganda include what appears to be criticism of the in-group, and a lot of descriptions of Their criticism of in-group politicians, so people who are completely in an enclave genuinely think they’re not. More on that later. Here I’ll just mention that one of my favorite examples of this is how the Weathermen engaged in a lot of self-criticism, for not being radical enough. That kind of self-criticism made people feel that they were “objective” about their practices.
[3] A practice encouraged by way too many argumentation courses and textbooks. But that’s a different rant.
[4] Yes, I said there aren’t issues with two sides, and then seem to have presented an issue with two sides. Of course, this controversy would have far more than two sides: those who argue that the red ball doesn’t matter, that albino squirrels are allies, that we should distinguish between small dogs and toy dogs, that cats have a role to play, but I put it into two because, in the US, it will come down to two candidates for President who will ask for a vote.
[5] And here I have to explain the origin of this example (since the Chester FAQ—probably the single-most read thing I’ve ever written—has disappeared). Chester was a Great Dane/shepherd mix, built for comfort and joy, who loathed little dogs. And while it’s true that big dogs are astonishingly often attacked by little dogs (especially when the big dogs are on leash), and while it’s also true that the whole experience of the little dog who went under Chester and bit his scrotum would be traumatizing, it’s also true that Chester unfairly assumed that all little dogs had bad intentions. Hubert (a Great Dane), who agreed about squirrels being evil, and who agreed about the importance of the red ball, got along fine with little dogs. He got along well with all dogs, including ones who attacked him. Sure, he got attacked by little dogs a lot (seriously, anyone with a big dog can tell you this is common), and a couple bit him and drew blood, but he always responded by looking at them with a kind of, “Really? You want to do this?” He broke up fights in dog parks by running into the midst of the fight and looking at all the dogs in the fight with that same, “Really? Do you want to go there?”
[6] This was not the argument that Brown had assaulted the police officer. The people I came across making this argument were saying that the officer was justified in shooting him because Brown had shoplifted.
[7] This makes sense if you don’t think of groups as evolving, but as ontologically-grounded and therefore permanent identities–actions as signs of those identities.
[8] Rush Limbaugh gave Andrea Dworkin more attention than she ever got in feminist theory classes; he loved quoting her out of context, as though feminism = Dworkin. I still run across references to her as though all feminists believe everything misogynists think she is supposed to have believed. Lefties regularly quote the “we create reality” as though it means something the speaker clearly didn’t mean. That is a meme that won’t die.
[9] At this point, you’re probably thinking of examples of out-group media doing what I’m describing, and you’re right, it does. But you have liked, shared, retweeted, or believed something that made all these moves, regardless of your political affiliation. If you think you haven’t, you’re just that much more of a sucker. I’m not saying everyone is equally suckered, or “both sides do it just as much” (I keep saying there aren’t two sides, so I’d never endorse any “both sides” argument).
[10] Seriously, I think, second to the notion of philosophical paired terms, it’s the most important rhetorical concept for understanding what’s wrong with our political deliberation.
[11] I think tuning in to opposition propaganda is useful, in that it helps one recognize the current talking points, but it doesn’t help a voter think effectively about policy issues.
[12] It’s also useful to try to find the smartest version of various policy positions—instead of watching Fox News, read The Economist or The Wall Street Journal (or studies published by the Cato Institute or the Heritage Foundation); The Nation is good for social democratic policy advocacy, New York Review of Books for third-way neoliberal. Reason is generally the best source for Libertarian—the list could go on.
[13] Propaganda says your only bad decisions involved not being committed enough to the in-group. Really cunning propaganda invites you to be slightly attracted to an argument they then identify as out-group, so that you then are more fiercely committed to the people who will tell you what to believe (the Weathermen were really masters of this; so is Fox—honestly, it’s kind of breath-taking it’s so skilled).
[14] This is why douchey salespeople will compliment your taste in whatever they’re selling, and will try to find a way to bond with you quickly; they’ll often do it by bonding with you about how much the both of you look down on some other group, but that’s a different post.
[Edited to include the meme I’d seen elsewhere that I couldn’t find at the time I wrote this.]
