Is it possible to be unconsciously in bad faith?

[fpb]

A well-known conservative writer posted on the recent White House request for information about internet rumours on the healthcare reform plan. His post was profoundly unsubtle, amounting to a reprint of the famous illustration to George Orwell's 1984, "Big Brother is watching you." Now, I could have mocked this or responded in kind - after all, a message of this kind is not calling for subtlety or fair-mindedness. It is a brutal appeal to fear and party allegiance. Instead of which, I chose to respond in the following terms:

I am not quite sure that you (and practically every conservative commentator in the USA) are right. What I read that message to be is a request to be kept up to date with rumours, rather than with people - to try and respond to every novel interpretation of the bill before it goes viral and becomes the received truth for millions. Tony Blair had a very successful operation along those lines in the 1997 election, called a "rapid response unit". The way that internet rumours become accepted facts in modern politics makes this kind of response virtually inevitable. But if you want to feel terrorized by a demonic enemy, of course you will interpret anything your opponent does in that light.

By way of thanks, the response was deleted before another poster had even had the time to answer it.

His excuse for it - whether he was excusing it to himself or to others - was that the closing sentence was an ad hominem attack on him. That is nonsense. It is a statement of universal fact, which in the present struggle applies to both sides (see Nancy Pelosi's grotesque statements about swastikas) and which people ought very much to bear in mind before they take any position. But if he felt that it applied to him particularly - that is what ad hominem means - then I can only say that there is something in it that he felt spoke to his own condition, and that he did not want to listen to.

Comments

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I would not have phrased it that way. The ambiguity between the singular versus collective "you" is always dangerous and is best avoided in something which is likely to be sensitive, particularly if there is a bad history (personal or otherwise). I think it could have been left at something like this without blunting the point:

I am not quite sure that most conservative commentators in the US are right in this regard. In the current political atmosphere, both sides ought to be conscious of the tendency to demonise the opposition, and bear it in mind before taking any position. What I read that message to be is a request to be kept up to date with rumors, rather than with people - to try and respond to every novel interpretation of the bill before it goes viral and becomes the received truth for millions. Tony Blair had a very succcessful operation along those lines in the 1997 election. The way that Internet rumors become accepted facts in modern politics makes this kind of response virtually inevitable.

(Also, although it has nothing to do with John's perception of a personal slight, I would suggest avoiding the phrase "rapid response unit", which to American ears -- at least to mine -- suggests something like a SWAT team and would leave more to explain.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Remember I already had to strain myself just to respond proportionately and politely to that particular post. I have been exposed to conservative hysteria on the subject for weeks, and John's post was a summary of everything that is over the top, exaggerated and unreasonable about the whole thing.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

It was meant more as something to bear in mind for the future.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I also have to say: if you expect him to go out of his way to reply here, psychoanalyzing him at the conclusion of the post you want him to reply to isn't a good start.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

This is to some extent about motivation. Specifically, about why the opposing party, however you want to call them, have this need to interpret everything that everyone who disagrees with them does in the worst possible light. Mr Wright's reaction to my statement was part of this pattern: "Oh, this is an ad hominem attack on me!" Is it out of the question to ask why he should find this the sole, the obvious, the inevitable interpretation of what I said?

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Because such a line as concluded the deleted post can easily be interpreted as a personal insult; while there is an ambiguity of language, it is written in a way which is very emotionally provocative. I have to take your word for it that an insult was not actually intended.

[elise-the-great.livejournal.com]

I learned long ago (from hanging out with reprehensible people) to overuse the pronoun 'one', as in 'one might take such a stance, etc etc'.

And then this one fellow took me to task for sounding like a 'stuck-up fool' and using 'one' to sound smarter than everybody else.

So I gave up, and worked on my shrug and my pitying expression. Some people absolutely will not let you win.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah. I don't recommend using "one" as a substitute for "you" for that reason (and I had to learn the hard way too...) -- but there are much more natural ways to avoid the second person when it is appropriate to do so.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Pelosi and swastikas: this?
http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2009/08/11/4a80fc06b6ecf

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is a fraudulent answer. Nobody, alas, denies that the more aggerssive protesters accuse Obama and the Democrats of Fascism. What I think of this kind of trash I do not even need to say - I know what Fascism is, and I have had serious arguments against American conservatives because of the pathetic recent fad of calling it a left-wing phenomenon. What Pelosi said is the exact opposite - that the protesters were exhibiting, that is, carrying aloft, displaying as badges and symbols, the Nazi insignia. That was a hysterical lie. This newspaper is compounding it by lying about what the conservative opposition is saying. Another demonstration that, in this debate, neither side is being honest, decent or fair.