The Principle of Charity

Charity is an attempt to reach out in respect

In rhetoric and philosophy, the Principle of Charity holds that one should be charitable when interpreting the statements and arguments of another person. One should try to see the most rational and strongest way reasonably to interpret what is said by another person. Thus, for an argument one disagrees with, one should try to interpret it in the strongest or most logical way they can.

This make a lot of sense on several levels. First, it tends to reduce or eliminate petty bickering based on unreasonable interpretations of what another person is trying to say. In my experience with online politics, that happens quite a lot. Second, being charitable reduces the time wasted, and diversion of discussions away from what is most important. Third, and most importantly, it shows respect for what the other person is trying to say. That reduces frustration and anger that can attach when someone in disagreement interprets what is said to them in a way that doesn't really address the main issue. Finally, when one applies the Principle of Charity, it will reduce logical fallacies or non-sequiturs such as straw man fallacies, whataboutism (the tu quoque fallacy) and appeals to ignorance (the ad ignorantiam fallacy).

One observer commented on the practical effects of the Principle of Charity like this: “it constrains the interpreter to maximize the truth or rationality in the subject's sayings.”

Thus, the Principle of Charity is important to at least try to apply because it shows respect and tends to nudge arguments away from muddled irrationality in favor of somewhat clearer rationality.

One way to bring this concern to people's attention is to say that you are trying to interpret the statements and arguments of another in the best light, or something like that. This makes it explicit that you are respecting what the other person is trying to say. That ought to cut down on reason-dampening emotion, thereby allowing conscious reason to play a bigger role in the discussion.

The “I would like you to do us a favor, though” heard ‘round the world...

Due to a courageous government official whistleblower, Donald Trump, in his believed defense, felt compelled to release a copy of the now infamous July 25th phone call transcript  between himself and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.  In what Trump referred to as “a perfect call,” the W.H. disseminated a copy of the call memo that was not a verbatim likeness (see memo footnote), and with three curious ellipses of missing, possibly relevant context.  When the W.H. was asked for the originally transcribed memo, members of the media were told it had been “mistakenly” locked away in the super secret W.H. server, reserved for only the most classified of material.  To our knowledge, that original memo remains there, in that server, to this day.

Though only a “reproduction” rather than an “exact” copy, the contents of that incomplete memo has led to the House of Representatives successful impeachment of Trump, to wit the following articles were forwarded to the US Senate for their consideration...

The articles of impeachment against Trump are two:

I … Abuse of Power

II … Obstruction of Congress

Re: Article 1

It is a fact that Trump overtly sought personal assistance from a foreign government, Ukraine, in the form of an announcement of an investigation into, not just some random person, but in particular Trump’s political rival, Joseph R. Biden, in exchange for Trump’s releasing of $391million of bipartisan-approved military support against Ukraine’s war with Russia, along with a much-coveted W.H. visit by Zelenskyy.

Re: Article II

It is a fact that not one requested W.H. document was handed over to the House Managers *and* several relevant witnesses were instructed, by Trump, to not comply with House subpoenas, though some conscientious witnesses defied Trump’s instructions and came forth with their sworn, albeit somewhat damning, testimony.

Regarding Article I, the suspicious part to most people is, rather than using the full force and powers of the greater U.S. Intelligence Communities, Trump used his private/personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani and associates, to persuade Ukraine to undertake Trump's request of these investigations.  That's highly unheard of and takes on a reasonable appearance of "abuse of power," per the constitution.

In spite of what damning evidence against Trump has come forth thus far, and is sure to come out as this year proceeds toward the November, 2020 U.S. elections, Mitch McConnell strives to keep his Senate caucus together in an acquittal of Trump. As of today, so far, so good, for Mitch.  Things are looking promising that this trial will end before Super Bowl Sunday, and the president's Tuesday SOTU address. 

 

*          *          *

Here are the questions for your consideration:

1. If Trump is acquitted, has our constitution been weakened for all time by Trump's behavior, and a new precedent has been established, allowing any future POTUS to ask for foreign interference in U.S. elections, without the threat of recrimination?

2. If acquitted, how will the history books look back on this moment in time? Will it be that the U.S. Constitution, and those who promote it, indeed swear to uphold its values, have failed to live up to its supposed/believed idealism, and as something to hold up for all struggling democracies to aspire to?

3. If a POTUS can’t be impeached and removed for this specific behavior, what exactly can a POTUS be impeached and removed for?  What does it take? Give some examples. 

4. Do you think that, if Trump is acquitted, he will try this kind of thing again?

5. Will Trump’s acquittal help or hurt his re-election chances?  Give your predictions.

Thanks for posting and recommending.

A Brief Rant about the Behavioral Health Model

I'm one of those caught up in the system, one of the crazies looking for support and relief from the madness from time to time.

In an attempt to combat my agoraphobia I've been looking for public places I can go where my madness will be accommodated and I can leave any time without it getting awkward for everyone.

There are community programs for the crazies like myself where I can go and find a supportive environment to just get out and not overburden myself with feeling like I have to try to be too normal. And they have yoga.

However, in recent years in an attempt to expand these programs it seems, they've rolled them in with drug counseling programs and such.


That's okay, or so I thought, except in practice I've been uncomfortable with it and I had to reflect on why.

Well, drugs come up in conversation among people in recovery, and my flavor of crazy tends to drive its host toward drug use, so being around a lot of people, a plurality of whom have been in a recent state of relapse or will relapse again is not necessarily the greatest place for me to be in. Recidivism is so high among this group.

I appreciate the extra community programs that wouldn't otherwise be there. Schizoaffective disorder only impacts about .3% of the population, so without the addicts there would be no community programs for those like me at all.

I mean, the official line is that treatment for both groups is largely the same, and maybe there's truth to that but I can't help but feel like this is a band aid over a larger issue, and that is that our society doesn't take mental illness seriously enough in general. It's a public health issue**, not an issue for prisons, where the bulk of us go. I'm fortunate I'm not one of them.

** It is for drug abuse too, and yet that's a different topic, which is rather the point of this topic.

How Anger Spreads Online

This discussion is an adaptation of a part of an excellent discussion, The Story of Us, written and posted by Kristen Solindas on Snowflake’s Forum. The 6-minute video makes a clear, understandable analogy between how and why emotions spread online, including anger, and how a virus spreads. This analogy would probably resonate with most people. The video refers to the virus as bypassing the mental immune system. The mental immune system is conscious reason. Conscious reason can easily be tricked into switching off in favor of letting unconscious emotional reactions run free and wild.

This issue, the spread of reason-killing emotions online, exemplifies why the phrase “unwarranted emotional manipulation”[1] has appeared on this blog dozens or maybe hundreds of times. It is why I criticize unwarranted emotional manipulation (UEM) as a possible existential threat to various things including liberal democracy, the rule of law, civilization and maybe even the survival of the human species.





The data the video is based on is from a 2012 research paper by Jonah Berger and Katherine L Milkman at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. The data summary is shown below. According to this research, anger is the most contagious online emotion and sadness is the least contagious.

Berger and Milkman write in their paper:

“Why are certain pieces of online content more viral than others? This article takes a psychological approach to understanding diffusion. Using a unique dataset of all the New York Times articles published over a three month period, the authors examine how emotion shapes virality. Results indicate that positive content is more viral than negative content, but that the relationship between emotion and social transmission is more complex than valence alone. Virality is driven, in part, by physiological arousal. Content that evokes high-arousal positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions is more viral. Content that evokes low arousal, or deactivating emotions (e.g., sadness) is less viral. These results hold even controlling for how surprising, interesting, or practically useful content is (all of which are positively linked to virality), as well as external drivers of attention (e.g., how prominently content was featured).”

For me, the surprising thing here is the researcher’s data showing that positive emotions tend to be more viral than negative emotion, apparently other than anger. The caveat here is that Berger and Milkman are marketers looking for ways to make online advertising more effective. It isn’t clear if other researchers looking for politically effective online content would see the same results. From what I can tell, fear, anger and disgust are among the most effectively manipulated emotions in online partisan political content.

Regardless, the main point of this research is clear: Political partisans who rely on dark free speech that foments anger as an UEM tool are trying to build an irrational tribalism by exploiting an innate human weakness. Anger tends to suppress or completely block conscious reasoning or logic, which is precisely what emotional manipulators want. Humans evolved this way. To at least try to mount a defense against UEM, people need to be aware of this human trait in themselves.


Footnote:
1. Unwarranted emotional manipulation usually appears as part of my conception of dark free speech, which I define as follows: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), and (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism. (my label, my definition)