Sunday, December 2, 2007

Virtually Everyone is Sincere, but They Still Can't Agree

Over at EconLog, Bryan Caplan makes a discovery:

Since the publication of my book, I've been meeting a much wider range of people.
...
What have I learned? Primarily, I'm more convinced than ever that virtually everyone is sincere.
This is not terribly surprising to me. Robert Heinlein said it a long time ago: "Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend," and he doubtless ripped that off from somewhere else much older. So, if we're all sincere, why do we disagree so vehemently, particularly about issues of politics? Caplan continues:
Even when you've got undeniable facts on your side, your opponents probably think that those facts don't matter...
I think Caplan is on to something here, but I think he doesn't go far enough. Often you won't even be able to get your opponents to agree on the facts in question. What fraction of taxes are paid by "the rich"? Does the Canadian health care system make people wait a long time for treatment or doesn't it? These are strictly positive questions that should have answers that everyone can agree on. Yet, when you listen to people argue about the issues surrounding these questions, often their versions of the facts are so different that if you didn't know better you'd conclude that they must live in two very different countries.

Even if we could agree on the facts, there would still be plenty of room for disagreement over the normative aspects of the problem, but if you can't agree with your opponent over the basic facts surrounding the problem, then the argument probably isn't worth having in the first place.

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