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Why Don’t Facts Matter to Narratives?
Recently, Professor Wilfred Reilly came out with a new book discussing a few things, but he mostly discusses racial differences and disparities. What he finds is not surprising to anyone who has done any meaningful research into the statistics.
Blacks with similar IQs and similar backgrounds do the same as whites in life outcomes with regard to education and crime. Cops are not much more likely to shoot a black person as opposed to a white person. In fact, in almost every racial disparity, factors other than racism do a better job of explaining them than racism. (This is not to say that racism doesn’t exist and that it isn’t a problem and it is an evil. But rather that it is not the biggest evil in America today.)
Charles Murray fans will debate with silently disagree with Professor Reilly about whether or not the IQ gap between whites and blacks is genetic or societal, but besides that, his book is entirely noncontroversial to people moved by empiricism and evidence.
I doubt his book will move debate at all.
Now I haven’t read his book, he did a great job selling it in a Quillette podcast. But my entire experience says that facts don’t matter to the left. They often don’t matter to the right either but that’s another essay.
Why don’t these plain and easily researched and (mostly) easily understood facts mean anything to our debate? Recently, Trump mused about new treatments for the Coronavirus and the left convinced themselves (or lied, I’m never sure which) that Trump urged people to drink bleach.
The 30-second clip that proved that Trump was just musing aloud and asking doctors about new treatments failed to move debate, or at least, it failed to inform media narratives.
There are a whole host of superstitions and fallacies that I could go into but ultimately my one question is, “Why don’t facts matter to narratives?”
Published in General
Why don’t facts matter? My theory is because we have send generations of kids to schools that teach them what to think, not how to think.
You know, Thomas Sowell alone could do the “Quote of the Day” for years . . .
When I was young and dumb I used to resonate with Spock from Star Trek. All logic, little emotion as possible. I thought that was the way of the world or the future or something. It was not until later that I sorted it out. Life is about the messiness, the mushiness of our insides the fragility and innocence of babies, the love of a other, the stories we tell ourselves. Life is about passion, fiction, illusions and lies. Facts matter little, maybe not at all to our day to day lives.
Facts don’t matter with narratives for some people because over the past 50-plus years they’ve gotten used to never being called on their version of the ‘facts’. It’s far easier to feel you can push the envelope on trying to convince people what is and what isn’t real, if due to your overall political position, your statements and claims are taken at face value, with no authentication required, and in the past 25 or so years, it’s been even easier for Democrat partisans, because not only has the media not been holding them accountable, but they’ve been fabricating claims themselves to help push The Narrative.
In the current situation, the ADD nature of the media, and the fact that so many of the big outlets have niched themselves into relying on just a core group of middle and upper-middle class progressives for their ratings and circulation, means that they can’t wait for Trump to make an actual mistake to push the storyline they want to push. If he doesn’t do something every 36-48 hours or so, they simply make up a new outrage to satisfy their base of viewers and readers who want to be outraged. That’s in larger part how you get the hyperbole about the bleach comments or the claim Trump caused a guy to drink fish tank cleaner and die, with the other important aspect being the hope that the claim will get past their progressive base and out to the swing voters, and will hopefully shape The Narrative come Election Day six months from now.
Some of the best episodes were Spock struggling with emotion (not showing it). In the episode Amok Time, it was cool seeing Spock erupt in joy when he found out Kirk wasn’t dead (“Jim!”). Great stuff . . .
One great quote deserves another – which illuminates the first:
It ain’t no mystery if it’s politics or history.
The thing you’ve got to know is everything is showbiz!
(Lyric from The Producers, by Mel Brooks)
Well noted, though I’d say it’s for the same reasons. Iow identical theme, superficially different plots.
Henry,
When you are already heavily invested in a particular narrative, you don’t want “facts” screwing things up for you. Of course, a deep belief that you are perfectly justified in ignoring the facts, requires first a lack of integrity, then a corrupt attitude to your responsibility to your fellow human beings, and finally complete self-delusion.
The left has grasped after power in exactly this manner for the last 30 years. It started in the universities, infected the media, infected the entertainment industry, and is now rampant even in K thru 12. Good strong UV sunlight will surely kill the coronavirus. Hopefully, if we shine some intense light on this corruption it will also be killed.
Regards,
Jim
“It’s because I’m talking to you in English but you’re listening to me in Dingbat!”
I don’t think that this adequately describes the problem. I think that it identifies part of the problem. I think that schools should be teaching both what to think and how to think. They should be teaching a coherent world view, with the supporting evidence and argument.
It is tricky. I think that many people believe, erroneously, that they follow a moral code based on reason. I do not think that this is possible, as reason does not tell you what you should value. Reason can be used to logically argue from certain premises, but it does not tell you which premises are true.
I do not think that there is any intellectually satisfactory solution to this problem. You must found a moral code in something. It can be religion, or it can be a more general respect for history and tradition, or it can be some arbitrarily selected set of moral postulates.
Teaching both what to think, and how to think, was much easier when we had a broad societal consensus about morality. In this country, that consensus was based on Protestant Christianity. We no longer have such a consensus, and nothing has yet taken its place. The result is our current multi-polar polarization.
I do think that the problem is exacerbated by the Leftism that has taken over most educational institutions, which I find to be a more irrational and self-contradictory system of belief than most others. It must actively suppress truth, in several areas, in order to promote its conclusions.
Another of Sowell’s great explanations is the distinction between the constrained and the unconstrained vision. I wish that I had a handy quote for this one — perhaps someone else knows a good one.
I wonder, though, if it had been Joe Biden who had suggested that maybe doctors should look into injecting people with disinfectants, would conservatives cut him the break they are cutting Trump? I suspect the left would be saying he didn’t really mean it and the right would be saying here is more proof that Biden is a doddering old fool. We like to imagine that we conservatives are into hard-nosed objective reality and it’s just the left that tells themselves nonsense. Both sides want to put their champions on a pedestal and ridicule the other side, it’s not just the left.
Ten minutes on exactly that.
Probably so. I think the problem with Biden and his verbal gaffes isn’t so much that he makes a mistake as that he’s been making so many of them so often lately it points to a possible cognitive problem (where being off the campaign trail was supposed to have helped, in terms of not forgetting things as much due to simple exhaustion, but doesn’t seem to have caused the trouble to abate based on his recent TV appearances, including a few not involving Mika, where T-ball level questions were served up).
When it comes to Trump, for example, people on the other side have their own facts that have little to do with the truth.
“Trump said that white supremacists are fine people.”
“Trump thinks people should drink bleach”.
“Trump highballed the COVID death predictions so he can take credit when they come in less than that.”
“Trump’s White House is in chaos.”
“COVID is Trump’s fault.”
“Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election.”
“Trump abused his authority to get dirt on Biden.”
Are but a few. Their entire view of Trump is based on falsehoods, and they won’t acknowledge anything to the contrary.
Taking as fact any dirty thing some disgruntled contractor or employee said about Trump is the beginning of a lot of it. Much of it is just making up facts to fit preconceptions. There’s a whole, large category of “facts” about Trump that depends entirely on the ability of his critics to read his mind, which I’m pretty sure they can’t really do. “Trump lied” usually means that Trump had an opinion they didn’t like, exaggerated, used hyperbole, or was mistaken.
I believe that most of us are better able to deal in facts when we have an intimate connection with the problem at hand. Despite the constant stoking of fear in our current situation, people who can’t feed their kids are pretty clear-headed, I find. There must be some liberal barbers and hairdressers and restaurant owners somewhere, but right now they seem to get it. But the Left has too often succeeded in breaking even that personal connection. I think of those multitudes arrested by Stalin who were sure that it was someone else who had made this terrible mistake, that if Stalin knew he would put a stop to the injustice. I’ve reluctantly concluded that the indoctrinated would not recognize karma if it slapped them across the face.
I remember reading about German citizens who were practically enslaved by their government who wrote letters to Hitler, because they believed Hitler wouldn’t put up with it if he only knew it was happening.
I have sometimes had similar thoughts about Trump and the idiots who work for him.
Why don’t facts matter? Because many on the left (some on the right as well) don’t believe that truth exists! Claims to facts or truth are just assertions of your power and an attempt to impose your views on me! How often have you heard “this is my truth”- how can you have “your” truth? I have always loved the self refuting claim “the truth is there is no truth”.
On my old radio show I used to have a feature called “One word Star Trek Challenge” – I’d day one word and listeners would have to ID the episode. That was one of them.
The shows always had a bias. But they always valued honesty and logic. Also, ‘There are four lights’ is Cardassian term that means, ‘central planning always fails.’
<ACKSHUALLY> The spoonheads were very much into central planning. </ACKSHUALLY> Great as that two-parter was, it’s really a retread of the last part of 1984 – which reminds me to rewatch that movie when the mood improves. Burton is really quite something as O’Brien.
I apologize for hijacking the thread and will now shut up.
<ACKSHUALLY> I made a joke referring to both 1984 and central planning. Picard shouted that there were four lights to reject the Cardassian/1984 notion of power over Truth. Instead of writing, “Four lights means what is true is true no matter what people believe.” I made a joke about socialism in order to refer to 1984. I knew that Mr. Orwell loved central planning so maybe I should have made a joke about freedom of speech. However, I went to central planning as I was talking about evidence.
I am grateful that I read 1984 before watching that two-parter. But I am more grateful that the show stole from 1984 in order to popularize the idea of Truth of political power.
Fear makes it easy to cling to a narrative. It’s one of the reasons why people cling to their narratives so dearly, when challenged. Fear emerges if some light starts dawning on the head – fear of being wrong, fear that your worldview has been incorrect, fear of judgment.
It’s normal. It’s not desirable, but it’s normal. When you see spittle flying from the lips of those who have anointed themselves in Truth, once you challenge them, you’re witnessing Fear.
What you wrote is very wise.
I’m not sure putting up a picture of a minor with Aspergers Syndrome, no matter how public a figure she has made herself, is a good illustration. Maybe high road?
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You can’t have it both ways Zafar. If we are to take people seriously, we get the right to make fun of them. In a similar fashion, you can’t go from believe all women to not believing women when it’s politically inconvenient. Either Saint Greta is too much of a victim to be taken seriously or she is an important public figure.
You can’t expect conservatives to fight using the Marquis of Queensbury rules while the other side does MMA with dirty tricks.
Greta was simply CINDY-19, in that she was a vessel the left decided to use for their narrative and was given Absolute Moral Authority, just as Cindy Sheehan was in the 2005-07 period when the left was attempting to take down Bush 43 and the GOP in general.
Cindy’s moral authority card was revoked not because she broke with the left, but because she was too into leftism over power in 2008, and challenged Nancy Pelosi for her House seat because she had failed to follow through on what she had promised Sheehan. Given all the economic limitations and lower quality-of-life people have experienced over the past eight or so weeks, which has been tied to lower consumption of fossil fuels, I wouldn’t be shocked when the coronavirus restrictions are all over if Greta suffers the same loss of her AbMoAu card, if she’s hectoring people they need to keep living like they did during the lockdowns to Save the Planet, and progressive pols and the media see the public getting angry at that, now that they’ve experienced what life in a Thunberg paradise would actually be like.
You absolutely do not take Greta Thunberg seriously.
tragic vision vs the utopian vision
there are no solutions, only tradeoffs