OK - I'll give it another try - once more, into the breech
Diest TKO wrote:
That's fine and all ob1, but I'm not arguing that people don't vote based on their perceptions, I'm just saying that it's dumb. I'm saying that we should have a higher standard.
It's true that people vote this way, but it's not because it is superior, it's because it's easier. Anyone can just look at the cover of a book. I reject outright the notion that those who make judgements on the cover are on a equal playing field as those who take the time to read the book.
Well, there are some important concessions or clarifications here, and I appreciate your making them. I can now see what you are getting at, and do accept that (1) we should seek as much objective information as we can get about candidates in an election; (2) that too many people don't do that, and are too easily swayed by advertising, propaganda and their equivalents; and (3) that superficial judgements about important issues are often wrong. On all this, we agree.
However, I believe you are ignoring other equally or more important questions that bear on the problem, and that in doing so, inadvertently put yourself in the position of those above who themselves make superficial judgements.
I believe I have already amply illustrated the fact that, during election campaigns (or in any form of struggle for power), politicians generally say what they believe they need to say, and advocate policies that they believe they need to advocate, in order to win, and that this is particularly true of presidents and heads of government. Examples of this abound - history is filled with them. They are the rule, not the exception. One might lament this observable fact, but only a fool would ignore it.
I'm not saying that everything said or advocated is a lie, or that careful evaluation of policies advocated and rejected is not worthwhile. Rather, I am asserting that, based on what we know about human nature and the observations of history, one cannot reliably base his judgement exclusively on an evaluation of the policies advocated by a candidate for high office. To do so is, itself, one way to make a superficial judgement -- to use your analogy, it is equivalent to judging a book by evaluating only the two page preface on its opening pages.
Other factors, like character, come into play, and do so for many reasons.
In the first place, life is not predictable. None of us - not even the candidates themselves - knows for sure what will be the key issues confronting our President in the years ahead. I doubt that George Bush, or any of the other candidates in 2000, expected that a major terrorist attack would so shape our national policy in the years after 2000.
Even in the case of known important issues, such as medical care, economic matters, or the politics of the Middle East and Persian Gulf, new developments can occur that profoundly alter the expectations of all the candidates, rendering their carefully-crafted analysis and policy obsolete and meaningless.
How does (or should) one make judgements about the character of others, particularly when they are physically remote from those making the judgement? We all of course frequently make such judgements in our daily lives - who to do business with; who to avoid; who to rely on in difficult times, etc. There is almost never enough information available, and what we have is often of questionable reliability - key pieces of the puzzles are usually missing, but nonetheless life forces us to chose and move on - and that is what we do.
We face all of these problems in deciding on the relative merits of candidates for political office, and we do make judgements about their characters - often even without much awareness that we have done so.
You imply that there should be some systematic way to make these and other judgements, and, in particular the choice of candidates, --- and do so without resorting to something so unreliable as human intuition. Here too I think you are wrong.
Most problems in life, including the physical sciences, do not lend themselves to analytical, closed-form solutions: indeed they defy them. Mathematicians call them "non-linear" problems, based on the dynamic coupling of independent variables, or the presence of feedback loops whose parameters vary with the value of the dependent variable, in the dynamic equations that describe their operation. In general neither analytical solutions nor even numerical ones can be found for such problems. We confront the same limitations in dealing with innumerable other problems in life, some we encounter frequently. Intuition is simply the word we use to describe the ability of the neural networks of the human mind to make the associations (over wide ranges of information elements) needed to estimate an answer based on analytically insufficient data. It has its limitations and its advantages: often it is the best thing we've got to solve problems that confront us. Indeed it is a pillar of both applied and basic physical science.
With this in mind, I believe your apparent insistence on an entirely objective & analytical methodology for choosing a candidate is itself unattainable. Further, it appears that, in the pursuit of it, you are simply throwing important issues, such as character, out of the process, simply because you can't find an objective way to deal with them. Think about it.
In making a needed intuitive judgement about character (or specifically the character of a candidate) we use use all the information available, including past statements, policies, actions and associations. No particular element always dominates, but none is excluded. That's how we do it.
Diest TKO wrote:
You seem to critisize Obama supporters as if they are irrational in their support, yet you simultaneously through out some idea that you can't be critisized for your view on making choices? If you think it's okay to make a choice on your intuition, then you wouldn't be attacking Obama supporters like you are.
I have criticized some Obama supporters for what appears to me to be excesses in their support of him, not for any supposed irrationality in their choice of him. By this I mean that some appear (indeed assert that they are ) impervious to any new information about him or reevaluation of his merits based on it. That, in my view is irrational. I don't object to their choice of him, only their refusal to even reconsider it.
Diest TKO wrote:
I assure you, my intuition lines up nicely with my views on Obama based on his platform and his history. So even if you were to convince me to abandon my "meaningless" method to vote, and adapt yours, there would be no change.
I'm sure it does, and that is, perhaps the key point here. Despite your flat-out denial that character is a relevant issue, or that some intuitive leaps involving a wide range of information elements are required to judge the character matter, I am quite sure that you have done exactly that.
I'm not trying to convince you to alter your choice of candidate, or even to personally abandon the meaningless methodology you advocate (because I don't believe you really used it either). Instead, I'm simply rejecting your foolish and bullying insistence that I adopt that methodology and use only it to justify my beliefs to you.
Even her near certainty that I would one day burn in hell had little effect on our mutual love and respect. Her preacher was pretty sure America had it all wrong as well. Was I supposed to give a rat's ass? Why?
