Intellectual Honesty
One of the greatest barriers to discussing and disseminating ideas—having a dialectic, if you will—is the fear of error. It can be embarrassing to be mistaken, humiliating to be corrected in front of others, and frustrating to have to update one’s thinking or behavior. The variety of discomforting emotions stemming from error often leads people to a variety of avoidances. I’d argue this is due to both the nature of humans as well as the manner in which they’re raised.
Two of the most common ways ideas are discussed in early life, and for many these ways extend beyond youth, are pedagogy and gossip. Education is typically didactic, whether it’s parents handing down life lessons or teachers imparting algebraic functions. Sir Ken Robinson nailed quite a few problems with the way education turns people away from creativity, and in turn honesty, which he evokes rather neatly in a single sentence: “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” This tends to be why people are wary of the dissemination of ideas; when they’re being discussed, there’s a presumption of someone being the teacher and someone being the student; as such, humans having the predisposition of hominoids alongside the wider animal kingdom to categorize things in hierarchies, we tacitly conceptualize the dynamic with one of us being “greater” and one of us being “lesser.” Because pedagogical or didactic teaching is widespread, there can be the misconception that ideas may only be disseminated with a “one-up, one-down” relationship. People naturally vie for that superior position, and thus vie to be right (i.e., the one who teaches).
Pedagogy can overlap with gossip, as there may typically be that one person in a friend group who seems to have tabs on most everything going on. However, gossip involves less of an understood imbalance between people as the nature of gossip is casual and unconstrained—there won’t be a follow-up test that cross-checks whether Mary flirted with Bobby while she was dating Ricky. People are more free to voice their opinions on matters, particularly about other people (particularly when said other people aren’t around). While formal verification isn’t typical, gossip generally has a knack for sussing out errors even when it gets things wrong (which, as I’m sure we’re all aware, is par for the course). Gossip paradoxically flows unaccountably while instating a sense in people to act morally and accountably lest the rumor mill negatively target them. The major downside of gossip, as aforementioned, is that the ideas are typically indirect and secondhand—Mary may only later discover that news got out when Ricky decides to break up with her (and he may never be forthcoming as to why he did so).
So, both pedagogy and gossip have significant downsides—the former involves a presumed hierarchy and the latter involves indirect communication. If both are our typical ways of discussing ideas, with a “greater” individual who has the power and may not be challenged or with a source of gossip who is nebulous and may not be challenged, how can one reliably practice intellectual honesty? How can a dialectic ever occur?
Before getting to instances of intellectual honesty, it’s necessary to provide a brief of what constitutes intellectual dishonesty. While there is significant overlap, there is a difference between flawed reasoning—using fallacies—and disingenuousness. People can fully believe the emperor’s new clothes are innovative and very real without requiring the compulsion of the emperor’s authority, the compulsion of a crowd, or the compulsion of internal defenses to say as much. Actual dishonesty is when known (or believed) information is intentionally disregarded or misrepresented. In the case of the emperor’s new clothes, perhaps the onlookers couldn’t know whether the clothes were real or not and believed they were mysteriously translucent—however, if they truly doubted the clothes’ existence, then marveling along with everyone else would be dishonest.
Not to be tedious about it, but the example of the emperor’s new clothes parallels the aforementioned phenomena regarding pedagogy and gossip: thinking, whether honest or dishonest, can be compelled by an authority or a crowd. If the emperor is telling you his clothes are real, who better than he would know? If a lot of people are telling you the clothes are real, who are you to dissent? Both authority and popularity are markers for accuracy, so it is more probable than not that what either the authority or majority say about a matter is the truth. Furthermore, being a dissenting voice to an authority or crowd comes with many risks (the most extreme of which includes ostracization or capital punishment). There are plenty of implications of what this manner of human categorization entails (e.g., us(es)-vs-them(s) or in-groups and out-groups, the stereotype content model), but to remain brief I’ll reductively paraphrase what a scientist remarked about human reactions to such categories: disgust serves as an out-group marker. So, mark when people express disgust (or outrage or incredulity or any such extreme emotion), as it likely indicates out-group bias.
Okay, I promise this is the final tangent before getting to instances of intellectual honesty, but I feel the need to expand on examples of fallacies and faulty reasoning due to their tendency to co-occur with disingenuousness. The prior paragraphs more or less already addressed the fallacies of authority and popularity.
Those familiar with argumentation or social media engagement have likely heard of a straw man or a misrepresentation of what someone else thinks/says. Example: Person A says that discrimination is wrong in the context of segregating drinking fountains by race, Person B then takes what Person A said to claim that person A is against discrimination in the context of segregating sports by age.
Another familiar fallacy is a non sequitur or a conclusion that does not logically follow from a premise. Example: From the premise that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, I conclude that having an apple with you will make you invulnerable.
Yet another fallacy (and one that relates more directly to human categorization of people) is an association fallacy or attribution of an unshared quality of one person to another person based on both sharing a separate quality. Example: Person A and Person B are both athletes while Person A swims and Person B sprints, Person C then concludes that Person B wears swim gear like Person A.
The equivocation fallacy involves the use of a key term or phrase in an ambiguous way so that it may be interpreted in more than one way. Example: “I aim to be rich in life.” “Rich” can refer to money from the perspective of someone in poverty or companionship from the perspective of someone lonely.
Closely related to equivocation is the motte-and-bailey fallacy, which involves the use of two separate ideas that seem similar but are not the same. One idea tends to be easy to defend, a generally agreeable truth; the other idea tends to be controversial, flawed, or disagreeable. Example: “Reduce, reuse, and recycle.” In an argument about minimizing waste, the phrase (i.e., the agreeable motte) is generally true as a good means of doing as much; in the context of telling someone who lives several hours from work to only ever bike (i.e., the disagreeable bailey), the phrase is less true, applicable, or realistic.
And, as a last example that isn’t a fallacy but is flawed reasoning, there is the belief in “my truth” or a subjective opinion/experience that supersedes objective truth. Example: I feel angry that someone disagrees with me, and based on my experience of anger I conclude that I am right.
All right, rewind to the aforementioned question: given all these pitfalls, how can a dialectic ever occur?
There are cases “dialectics” occur, though they are fairly contrived and more so designed for the purpose of entertainment and playing to a crowd rather than really assessing ideas. Jubilee Media features debate-style videos such as Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists, 25 Liberal College Kids vs. 1 Conservative, and 1 Sports Analyst vs. 25 NBA/NFL Fans where there’s a catchy hook of one person debating many people on a certain topic. Colleges sometimes host speakers who open up discussions either in Q & A segments or in one-on-one debates like Steven Crowder’s Change My Mind series. During election cycles, you may find various debates between politicians in the running. Notably, for most if not all of these examples you’ll find some frustrating gimmick or constraint that disallows straightforward addressal of an idea and a follow-up or response opportunity: a moderator may prompt two people separately to get each’s stance and then move on without allowing either to address the other directly, without exploring where common ground or disagreement can be found and why, or without allowing either of them sufficient time to flesh out their ideas. This is to say nothing of the struggles of debate itself: a debater may rampantly interrupt and talk over another, obfuscate the topic by shifting the focus onto an opponent’s character, or partake of the conversation for only as long as their piece may be said before shutting down or withdrawing. There are a multitude of problems that arise when an opportunity for a dialectic arrives, and I’ll chalk them all up to what I referred to earlier regarding the discomfort of emotions leading to various avoidances. (An aside: I neglected to reference other public relaying of ideas like The View and other talk shows due to such examples involving one-sidedness and thus not really being true grounds for a dialectic where more than one idea is shared.)
A popular exception to the poor opportunities for intellectual honesty is the Joe Rogan Experience—a podcast that features hours-long discussions between the host Joe Rogan and various guests such as Quentin Tarantino, Louis CK, and Bart Sibrel. The beauty of this podcast is that it defies just about all aforementioned problems with idea dissemination: the host Joe Rogan is casual and humble (i.e., the relationship dynamic involves no hierarchical power struggle), exploratory and challenging (i.e., the discussion is direct yet non-combative); and the guests have extensive time to talk uninterrupted. While some may scorn such unconstrained discussions either due to their length or lack of holding someone’s feet to the fire, I think the podcast is successful due to it being so refreshing in having the freedom to discuss any and all ideas (even if such ideas involve entertaining conspiracies like the flat Earth theory or the Moon landing). Plus, I think the probability of dishonesty declines significantly in such a setting—genuinely being asked questions and prompted for your own genuine opinion is unlikely to trigger a defense mechanism of avoidance, and even if it did it would be difficult to remain avoidant over the course of several hours.
One last aside, returning back to the tactics of intellectual dishonesty and disingenuousness: people can expertly feign ignorance or confusion; they can obfuscate ideas, play word games, and contradict themselves in an effort to spread such confusion; and they can faithlessly proffer a stance in one breath that, once challenged, miraculously vanishes in the next breath (and it may even reemerge later at their convenience). It is next to impossible to pin an idea to someone in a debate or dialectic, and trying to do so is a hard-fought method of “winning” a debate. When it comes to disingenuousness (particularly word games) in argumentation, defining terms clearly is a method that you may not get a straight answer using; in such cases, rather than defining ideas (e.g., “What do you mean by ____?”), testing their application may better help clarify their meaning (e.g., “What do you want to actually, physically happen because of your argument?”). Disingenuousness may also occur as false framing of what someone else does: another’s act of disagreement may be mislabeled as “gaslighting,” “violence,” “ignorance,” or some other exaggeration or assumption; another’s logical questioning of an idea may be mislabeled as a “gotcha question” (i.e., an accusation phrased as a question (this term is often misapplied to a question that leads toward a disliked answer)). Sometimes, logic is irrelevant—many often use emotional reasoning to determine their beliefs and ideas (recall the rationality of “my truth”). To argue with people who rely on emotional reasoning is to resign yourself to the inevitability that the argument may only end when they feel satisfied or one of you disengages. An overall decent method of argumentation that is exceptionally challenging to practice is to regard your opponent as a friend rather than the epitome of the thing you hate. In doing so, you may recognize a few important things: to be understood, you have to be understanding; and kindness is a catalyst for productive change. In some way you want to change their mind, but before that, more important than that, you want to communicate with them. And, after all, if one of you is mistaken, wouldn’t it be nice to be forgiven?
“When a friend makes a mistake, the friend remains a friend, and the mistake remains a mistake.”
-Shimon Peres
As nice as it is to take note of the external obstacles that trigger our internal obstacles of emotional discomfort and behavioral avoidance, it is reasonable to question why any of this matters. Why should I care about intellectual honesty? Anyone without antisocial tendencies would reasonably find an answer—honesty is a prosocial trait. With that primary question out of the way, there comes natural secondary questions that may fit into the cognitive (i.e., thinking) paradigm that enables our emotional and behavioral patterns of avoidance. I’ll reductively conglomerate such questions into one: Why should I be open-minded when I think I’m right? That earlier Sir Ken Robinson quote should be echoing in your mind right about now. The capacity to learn is a human’s greatest feat. Don’t squander it.
