BS: Truth Is The First Casualty

Subject: BS: Must Truth Be The First Casualty?
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 05:41 PM

In reading some of the threads in MC BS section I'm constantly reminded of the saying "The first casualty in war is the truth". This is a statement I suspect all of us are familiar with and most of us accept. The first utterance is attributed to an American Congressman or maybe Aeschylus, but I haven't seen a citation. Wikiquotes assigns it to Philip Snowden in 1916.

We are experiencing such a snowballing of online falsehood that entire websites are collecting adherents with no evidence. There are items called 'facts' and 'evidence' but there is no way to verify the so-called elements of truth. In fact, there is much laying of false information trails going on both by State and individual actors.

Are we facing a crisis of definition? Stephen Colbert in his wonderful Report came up with the word 'truthyness'.
In the wonderful series "The Good Wife", there is a plot point about the validity of a certain email which could have legal implications. The computer expert explains that there are background computer records for each email incorporating address of sender, time of sending, etc. that are called 'metadata' in order to verify the email, whereupon someone immediately attempts to forge the metadata.
So, when we make our arguments to each other how do we justify our facts? Or do we merely insist on their Truthyness?

When you, Mudcat denizen, insist on (or present) your facts, are you secure in them by a source unaligned to your prejudices, or do you require an emotional validity in the first place? Does your estimation of another member's point of view affect your perception of their facts?

The reason I'm bringing this up in its own thread is because I'm wading through some other threads that contain considerably heated back and forth arguments by people whose writing I regard, and I'm finding both sides interesting and comprehensible, but unyielding. What does it take to be influenced by another's argument? Are we reluctant to accept it for emotional reasons, or is there a way for logic to trump emotion?

I'm looking for input devoid of invective, and maybe even, without emotion. Can we talk about emotion without being emotional?

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 08:21 PM

Well, I suppose we must be mad. All I can tell you is that, while I get a bit too involved/bogged down at times, I never, ever heat up inside. The day I do that is the day I disappear from online forums. Not real life here. A good stretch for my poor brain at times and a good way of seeing the bigotry that I know is rife in this world crystallised in words. I actually find that very disappointing in a folkie forum, frankly, as almost every folkie I've ever encountered in real life has been a bit leftie. You do have to wonder about some people. At least one of my so-called adversaries here, one of the most aggressively right-wing people on this board, hardly ever posts above the line. A little while ago, when a similar point was made (not about him, though he must have felt the warm breath on the back of his neck) he suddenly started to pay above-line lip service. I haven't looked recently, and why would I. To use one of the more attractive and succinct of all Americanisms, go figure. Finally, you allude to our sometimes being unyielding. Well, when it comes to bigotry, we have the choice of being unyielding and fighting back, or saying yeah wottevah, or shutting up. You might think that fighting back is just stupid testosterone stuff. But one or two of us here have had a history of making ourselves bloody unpopular in the workplace and unions by taking the road less travelled and compromising our careers, fighting for things such as workers' rights and opposing racism almost to the point of putting ourselves in harm's way (my good friend Blair Peach did exactly that and paid the ultimate sacrifice). Why, after all that, if we value this website, should we let a few racists and bigots hold sway here? If the mods won't do it...

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: bobad
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 08:35 PM

Har, har, as if some self-identified "lefties" aren't some of the biggest bigots on Mudcat - passive-agressive posts from one of the biggest not withstanding.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 08:49 PM

It is of course possible to fight back without getting overheated and hostile, but few people seem to be able to do that for long. Generally I think it is better to avoid thinking in terms of fighting at all in this kind of thing. It's only a metaphor anyway, and not a helpful one.

It's a bit absurd to think of an online exchage as being a fight, where the aim is to win, and avoid losing. Thinking that way makes for dishonesty - we make debating points, emphasize the weak points of our opponent, and avoid our own weaker points. And it's a waste of an opportunity to get a better understanding both of ourselves and of ways of thinking which are widely different from ours.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 09:32 PM

What you say in your last sentence can be quietly achieved even when we are being all bolshie upfront. And I think It would be pretty dishonest to try to claim, or think, that we can change anything. Better to see the exchanges here as an education, if you're receptive enough. I'm far too proud to tell you what I've learned here. But, then, I'm a bloke with several bollocks pumping out testosterone.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 10:05 PM

Testosterone is handy stuff in its proper context, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse for losing control. Nor should oestrogen for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Nov 16 - 04:19 AM

:0)....you are an absolute expert Mr McGrath. Exceedingly well put.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Nov 16 - 04:25 AM

Well oestrogen does not have the equal and opposite effect to testosterone. More likely to be testosterone in all genders.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Nov 16 - 12:55 PM

Another T-word comes to mind, besides Truth, with a careful look at discussions that become quarrels. That word is territory. As in, defending one's territory, or venturing/trespassing upon territory outside one's own.

And how do you talk about territory, without being territorial?
That is not a trick question.
But it is a question for arbitrators and mediators, to whom I take off my metaphorical hat. I don't know how they have the courage to get between two opposing sides, especially with adversarial passions roused.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 16 - 01:23 PM

Let's not get into pharmacology. My point was that hormone levels get used in various ways to explain or dismiss how people behave. With women it tends to be that their views get dismissed as arising from the time of month, with men testosterone gets seen similarly.

There can be something in that, at least in face to face situations. The advantage of a forum set-up like the Mudcat is that we always have the opportunity to consider before responding. We are far more free agents than can be the case in other situations.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Nov 16 - 01:55 PM

Okay, we've got three Ts: Truth, Territory, and Testosterone. It has been man's (as in male gender) pre-historical prerogative to establish and protect territory, and perhaps it is historical man (either gender)who has extended the concept to include intellectual territoriality. This has entered the language in swathes of vocabulary: The lawyer does not want to hear the doctor talking torts.
But cannot we have respect for external truth. Most of us can distinguish sunrise from sunset and agree on what a common clock reads.
We can hopefully agree on what words a commentator uses while we disagree over the import, and do this in a way which promotes understanding if not agreement.
Orwell was a master of this. In his epilogue to "1984" he showed explicitly how the Party was controlling thought by controlling language (Newspeak). I hope that by being aware of this we can avoid pitfalls to successful communication.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Nov 16 - 01:24 PM

Last night I was listening to the AM band and the fables ran over the brim of the cup of fantasy. Not just focused on Hillary, but about anyone with any stature in our public life. Stuff like organized stables of kids for the sexual delectation of the elite, and the elite were not just Libs/Cons Dems/Reps but all over the map.

I think the media is at an inflection point where we are encouraged to believe nothing because everything possible is being reported.

I remember in one of Robert Heinlein's science fiction novels "Stranger in a Strange Land" there was a profession of 'Fair Witness' where someone's ability to relate reality was given professional status. We're already there with web sites such as Snopes and the concept of factchecking which has been used during the recent Presidential debates. There is undoubtedly a competitive profession which I'd call factoid snowballing. Which is to bury the truth in irrelevancy.

We're also going to have to do some kind of digital chain of custody when we pass along information in order to guarantee that a given message isn't 'telephoned' into something it didn't start out to be.

I predict that we're gonna have to teach epistemology to second graders right quick.

Subject: RE: BS: Truth Is The First Casualty
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Nov 16 - 06:04 PM

My mantra is "There is always someone who knows something you don't"

by corollary is "they are sure, but are you?"

There was a certain thread on the origin and use of the word bodhran and I found a book by a cereologist (grain) who found that riddles & sieves were originally made from skin with burnt holes. Without the holes you have the "Dorset Riddle Drum" (Peter & Douglas Kennedy found references to 1870). She couldn't find any reference before about 1900.
A knowitall of this parish insisted I was wrong, vicariously we must assume. Because Bodrhan is in an Irish Dictionary. Yea? 1785?
Turns out it is in a word list. No description.
FWIW Seán Ó Riada popularised in it the late 40's. Which is where the discussion came in.

That's the problem with facts, all too often they are hard to pin down.

Wrapped in politics - facts are made to not be pinned down, but believed. Not in Rouge Towers if I can help it!