October 1, 2004
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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.