October 1, 2004

  • Isn’t it interesting how the United States presidential election
    coverage is centering so excessively on where the candidates stand on
    the scale of certainty?

    Now certainty is an interesting thing, it is not quite the same as
    honesty or integrity or sincerity. Certainty unlike those others is a
    judgement about some form of information you are receiving. 
    Generally when you receive a continual consistent set of  good
    solid information and are a well reasoning individual then you tend to
    be more certain about it, less waivering, less likely to shift in
    beliefs unless you receive different reliable informaiton to the
    contrary. Good information tends to make you more likely stick to a
    course of actions based on that information.  In contrast if you
    receive information of varying degrees of quality, sometimes receive
    bad information and sometimes receive good information you are not
    going to be as certain. You’re going to switch positions sometimes
    provided you are a rational consistent being.

    The strange thing about this election is that the candidates are
    treating “certainty” as if it were an individual trait but what they
    are really talking about are the extremes of irrational behavior.
    President Bush’s side accusses Senator Kerry of being a “flip-flop”.
    They say he doesn’t take a consistent opinion on anything and doesn’t
    seem to know what he is doing.  The message is pretty clear. Kerry
    is a person who would change his opinion regardless of the information
    or circumstances according to the Bush campaign. He just is never
    certain about anything.

    In contrast on the other side the Kerry campaign wants to complain that
    Bush is just too certain about one set of beliefs. The assert that Bush
    is stubborn, doesn’t admit mistakes, never changes his mind, and
    ignores all information and data to the contrary.

    Now obviously both assertions are absurd when taken in the extreme. You
    would have to think that President Bush and Senator Kerry are beings
    without the most basic capacity for reason to believe that they fit
    into these absurd models. But really that’s the point.  You see
    politicians have learned that people respond very well to being given
    reasons to have no respect whatsoever for the other candidate. It seems
    that we’ve learned to enjoy hating the enemy, despising our opponents
    and thus pumping our favorites in direct contrast. People don’t easily
    get excited about a candidate on the basis of nuanced differences in
    specific policies. But they do get excited about a candidate if they
    think the other candidate is a utter moron that will lead our country
    to its doom.

    That’s really messed up and sad but in truth… it could be a lot
    worse. Certainty at least is foundationally about how the candidate
    reasons about issues. Sure nobody is this extremely stubborn being who
    doesn’t ever change their mind and sure nobody really is this crazy
    flip flop who never holds a consistent opinion, but at least a person
    can make a rational decision on the degree to which the candidates
    manifest those qualities.  That is you can maybe think that Bush
    is closer to being the stubborn extreme than Kerry is to being the
    flip-flop extreme but you might also think that conviction to a few
    ideals is more important (right now) than being flexible. Thus you
    might vote for Bush. And of course the opposite is equally likely. You
    might think that it is much more important that a person be willing to
    change their opinion in the face of evidence and hold nuanced opinions
    about things than mere consistency with ideals. Such a person might
    vote for Kerry even though they think Kerry is more flip-floppish than
    Bush is over stubborn.

    So yeah its pretty messed up that politics has become a game of paint
    your opponent as a mindless symbolic manifestion of an irrational
    ideal, but it isn’t quite so bad as it could be. Reason can still
    triumph in the face of such spin provided voters use it rather than
    give into the fear, distrust, and dislike that the campaigns want you
    to feel for the opponent.

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