Michael Mitchell: Archive

With most, but not with everyone.

This IS a philosophical statement, though. It's a (false) abstract principle drawn from an unlimited number of concretes. It doesn't say transparency increases credibility and accountability -- sometimes. It says transparency increases credibility and accountability. When I look around I see us doing this less and less -- asserting our basic, fundamental philosophical beliefs -- and I want to encourage everyone to do this more and more.

The reason we don't assert our true beliefs or consciously live by principles anymore is we don't believe in them, and the reason we don't believe in them is the ones we know are false like this one. We say shit like this, but we don't mean it, even act contrary to it, but we still say it and preach it and use it against others when it's convenient or whatever.

It's easy to refute this principle, too. If you can think of a single instance when transparency decreases credibility and/or accountability, then you'll reject it as a guide for making choices, but then what will you use in its place? If we don't actually believe what we say we believe, then what do we believe? We believe we shouldn't say what we believe, that we should not be transparent, that the less transparent we are about our beliefs, the more credible and accountable we are to those who share them. But who doesn't share the belief transparency should be demanded from others while faking it in return?

The solution to the moral divide in politics, however, is right here. It's irrelevant that I've probably taken this out of context, that I've applied it to morality or over-generalized it, when it's really intended more narrowly, to be applied to teamwork or leadership or whatever. It IS a principle, whether you agree with it or not, whether it's true or false. It's one thing to say you disagree with something, but it's another thing to say it's not what it is. I can easily show how philosophy is inescapable, that even if the principles you say you live by are false, there are true principles you really live by but simply haven't fully identified yet, or that there is merely another false one underneath that one or whatever. It's not when we're wrong or merely can't say something accurately that we become divided. It's when we're not allowed to be wrong or say something inaccurately, when we draw a line as if we're never wrong and close the dialogue required to correct mistakes and resolve disagreements, and the main way we do that is by rejecting the beliefs of others as not merely false, but not beliefs at all.

Most of us don't even know what principles are anymore. This shit just goes in one ear and out the other. How can anyone expect to convince anyone else their world view is right or best or whatever if no one understands anymore what a world view is? What the fuck are we even arguing about? What is actually causing the divide? It's all pretense.