Yesterday, I was listening to a new podcast, “The Surpassing Value”, from a leader in my church, James Hong, and was struck by a point he made. In his second episode, he was focusing mostly on the issue of truth – what it means, why it’s so important to recognize objective truth, etc. But then he got to talking about how our culture is shifting away from honest debate on big issues; often, conversations we ought to have instead are viewed as being as “just politics” and then we dodge the underlying issues.

Hong went on to note that many of us no longer want to honestly, carefully deal with the major issues facing our society and engage in sincere discussion and debate (Episode 2, around 18 minutes in). He said:

It is much easier to deal with straw men. It is much easier to caricature another’s position as opposed to thinking honestly, thinking critically. Many just want to remain willfully ignorant because in your willful ignorance you can feel morally superior and our culture has equated outrage as a moral virtue. And so for that reason a lot of people engage in being outraged because they like the perspective that they think they are getting from others…

Here, Hong is saying a couple of things that are really important, I think:

  • Sometimes, people deliberately (though perhaps not always consciously) reduce opposing viewpoints to “straw men”; views that are obviously so incorrect that they are not even worthy of discussion. This can be described as a type of willful ignorance.
  • This straw man approach can be due laziness, because it’s easier – but it also can be a way we use to feel morally superior.
  • We live in a time where social media rewards outrage , and we can get lots of attention for being outraged about perceived wrongs; it’s even seen as virtuous to be outraged about the “right” causes.

So many of the political and social memes I see today suffer from these issues – oversimplifying a complex issue to mock those who hold the opposing viewpoint, presumably so that we can feel superior. I previously wrote:

While I hate [oversimplified political memes], though, I have to admit that there’s a small part of me that sees memes that support positions I agree with which I want to agree with. Part of me wants to be proud of my political views, and wants to look down on others who don’t agree. Memes make such a nice, easy way to look down on others.

I gave a concrete example of such memes previously, looking at a pro-choice meme that says pro-lifers only care about life before birth but not after. In that context, I noted this:

The ones that bother me the most are the ones that paint one political party/one view as completely villainous, when the issue is debatable and well-meaning people on both sides disagree.

Painting someone as completely villainous – that’s the straw man James Hong is talking about. Now, there may be a few cases we could identify where the people on one side of an issue are completely villainous, but that’s not usually the case. Usually, when we paint someone that way or believe they are that way, we’re just not fully understanding the issue and their viewpoint. Most of us care about helping people, though we disagree about how to do it, for example. When we paint reduce problems our society ought to be debating and discussing into a battle between good and evil, right and wrong, and paint our opponents as evil or moronic, well, we’re attacking exactly the type of straw men Hong points out. Perhaps we ought to use this as a type of test before posting or re-sharing, asking ourselves “Is this really a fair statement of the opposing viewpoint?” and “Do I see those holding this opposing view as well-intentioned and reasonable, though perhaps misguided?” and only share if the answer is “yes”.

These trends concern me, because they are part of how our society restricts debate. Some ideas are seen as too dangerous to discuss and so we contemplate speech restrictions or at least try to ensure these ideas are never published, whereas others are mocked as being so foolish as to not even be worth discussing. These prevent the open dialogue which is foundational to our democracy, but even more importantly, essential for recognizing and spreading the truth. An article I previously quoted said

The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.

and I added

We benefit far more by open discussion and debate than by restricting the exchange of ideas. Our society was founded on these ideas, and I believe they are critical to its continued health.

Overall, Hong’s message reminds me to be even more careful when criticizing/summarizing opposing views – but also, to be eager, earnest and honest in fighting for the truth. (I listened to it right after listening to Episode 106 of the Just Thinking podcast which has somewhat similar themes, which I also highly recommend.)