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04/15/2003 Entry: "So, what? If I disagree with you it means I don't know all the facts?"

Me again.

Back to my recent exchange with Mark Byron.

After what looked like an apology (I'm certainly taking it as one, anyway), he wrote about "idiotarians", these people being, as far as I can make out, people who write stuff Conservative Americans disagree with (psh. And they wonder why they get so little love).

Dr Byron wrote this:

"I have a standard line when I start my classes-there's no such thing as a dumb question. There are ignorant questions. Dumb means you can't learn; ignorant means you haven't yet learned. Ignorance is curable. Our "idiotarians" aren't dumb, just either ignorant and/or misguided."

This is what I posted in reply to him on this site; If I may be so bold, I think it bears repeating, so... I'm repeating it here, edited slightly for grammar.

It's the "ignorant and misguided" part that intrigues me. You see, I think the biggest mistake both Liberals and Conservatives (using the American definitions of the words) make again and again is to assume that

"If Liberals/Conservatives (delete as applicable) really knew all the facts and had a grasp of the meanings behind it, they wouldn't be Liberals/Conservatives (delete as applicable)."

But the thing is, there are both Liberals and Conservatives who aren't ignorant. And in fact they have exactly the same information and grasp of things... they just come to a different conclusion.

This, I've found, is exacerbated by people from different countries. We have assumptions and ideals which are very, very different to each other. People don't realise just how utterly different in outlook people are on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Having an accurate grasp of the facts does not guarantee the holding of any one particular opinion. Upbringing and cultural background play a huge part, too.

Now I'm sure you, as someone who knows about this sort of thing for a living, do know a whole lot more about this than I, a humble journo, do.. But it's arrogance to assume that knowing and understanding the facts is going to mean that only one opinion can be held.

Posted by dan @ 04/16/2003 02:56 AM CST

Liked your thoughts about some of the disagreement, if only because I see something of myself in that reaction - my gut instinct is that people who disagree with me must not understand the true facts.

Posted by dan @ 04/16/2003 02:02 AM CST

I'm just about to retire the word idiotarian and its derivatives as unfairly critical of liberals and paleos, putting it into the dumpster that I put Euroweenie and EUnich into. The people who wind up getting that pejorative are generally as intelligent as the bloggers labeling them. However, their backgrounds give them a slant that differs from the small-l liberalism that is the native ideology of the Blogosphere. They'll view things from a different perspective and weight the pros and cons of a topic differently and add in factors that we might ignore or discount.

That wasn't me. That's Mark Byron

Posted by Richard @ 04/15/2003 04:41 PM CST

Fair enough.

It's not conducive to getting the people you're arguing with to be civil, though, is it now?

Posted by Wood @ 04/15/2003 04:27 PM CST

No, "anti-idiotarian" is not a phrase of conservative Americans, nor do I think it's evident of their "little love." It is more often a phrase of libertarian Americans, although I'm sure just as many liberals consider them "anti-idiotarian" as well.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn @ 04/15/2003 03:39 PM CST