Debating people with horrible ideas legitimizes them
August 22, 2023
By NZB3
Vincent Geloso, Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University, said an interesting thing 4 hours ago about debate and legitimisation. Ref. Facebook (22/8/23)
“I dislike the argument that debating people with horrible ideas legitimizes them.” he said. Leaving to one side that he put his argument in the form of what he “likes” or “dislikes” (as if we should care about his feelings) and that he makes that face (left, image left) let’s check out the full quote.
This is not a call to engage in debate unless Vincent Geloso is very naive. Oh. But, wait. He’s a Public Choice economist at George Mason so….’naive’ might not be strong enough of a term. But let’s take him seriously for just a moment anyway.
It’s really a call to do away with posturing and signalling itself. To, in fact, re-write the human condition itself.
Most people think by proxy not by reasoning. The Conformity is decided by primate aggression games not by fair debate. Who wears the lab coat and has a title like ‘doctor’? Who has the better hair and makeup and body and projects confidence? Who has a machine that goes “Ping!” or Black friends or is doing The Curent Thing? This also explains why people care what celebrity entertainers think and would like them to rule us. William Shatner tried to warn us.
“I have saved the world in the moviesSo naturally there’s folks who think I must know what to knowBut just because you’ve seen me on your TVDoesn’t mean I’m any more enlightened than you” – Ref. William Shatner – Real
In these games a ‘debate’ is a theatre sport and players get oxygen and notice simply by being recognised by another player. The point of the game is to dehumanise and unperson people. To ‘debate’ someone is to recognise their legitimacy and then work toward deligitimising them. The most efficient way to do this work is to not recognise someone is even in the arena unless there is no choice.
To get into the arena in the first place, Vincent, is not simply a matter of having something to say. Or like or “dislike.” Everyone watching politics or sport at home on TV can do that and many new wannabe intellectuals or politicians would love to get into the Big Game. They’d love to be recognised by a major celebrity and their views considered because this in itself, not the content of their ideas, would signal their status. This status is a commodity of value and not simply given away as of right. Gaining it in the first place generally needs to be purchased from someone who already has a seat at the game who recognises you. And then you need to keep it.
How true, or better, or horrible, these ideas are doesn’t matter at all here. Never has. Consider the Maori Party at the last election, or Labour 6.0 in the 2023 one, promoting the nonsense idea of selective tax on “fresh food. Every intellectual knows it’s brain dead so why does it keep being used? It’s because the idea has legitimacy to people who think by proxy not those who reason. The former is more powerful and the decider of election results.
Vincent’s idea, if carried ahead, would destroy the entire Robert K. Merton social typology (image, left.)
Innovation and Rebellion groups are constantly trying to become the new Conformity Group, pushing out everyone else from the mainstream Conformity that has the power and makes the decisions in a given society. It’s a life and death game. Losers in this game become jibbering Ritualists or near-outlaw Retreativism communities who unconventional lives.
For example, before 2020 we had a Conformity that didn’t mask-up or insist on experimental gene therapy medicine jabs. Then, we did. The Old Conformity were pushed out into the Retreativism box and will probably stay there for life. They were kicked out of their old jobs, old social networks, found new ones, and will never return.
For another example, there are some people in the Ritualism box who will go on wearing masks and demanding control and authority and Jacinda Ardern’s rule for the rest of their lives. They were once the Conformity but now they’re out. The world has shifted under their feat and now they’re the deviants. They must feel quite let down that public figures who once sang from their same songsheet have transitioned into the new Conformity and left them behind.
Soon yet another new Innovation group will prevail and take over the new Conformity. Politicians who wish to keep their power will need to re-invent themselves or be flushed out. They will need to repudiate the old Conformity even if their fingerprints are all over the architectural plans of it. Ref. “Yesterday, Chris Hipkins..said he now regrets the 2021 lockdown length for Aucklanders.”, NewstalkZB
By not debating, by enforcing the boundaries of these Typology boxes, you “allow those with whom you disagree to cement their following,” wrote Geloso.
Yes, that’s one of the main side-effects. An Innovation or Rebellion typology will, eventually, always, cement their following and become the new Conformity. But this isn’t because the Conformity “allows” itself to be predated. It’s going to happen anyway. It’s a force of nature. It’s how human culture got to where it is today and it, this machine, might not even be able to be improved upon as an engine for the most successful species the world has ever seen. Do you know a better way to live and adapt and carry billions of people in relative peace by recycling and retiring and renewing them on the fly?
Non-debate is the Conformity’s way of slowing down the inevitable Innovation take-over. Keep them out of the arena a bit longer and enjoy your power. As soon as the new Innovation gets to have a voice it becomes an avalanche that is sure to claim the power. So, they’d love to debate just as much as the Conformity hates it.
Innovative groups can debate freely because they have no power to lose. But nobody wants to debate people in Ritualistic (NPC) or Retreativism typologies. If their ideas had any chance at all of relevance then those catagories simply would not exist.
We debate or don’t as a way of legitimising and de-legitimising each other. Back in social evolution, in a tribal society, this was a matter of survival. To not be seen or heard or cooperated with by a tribe led to certain death. In our more civilised world the mechanism is the same. Life expectancy and wealth depend on staying in the Conformity box as long as you can. Those who do well enforce the boxes by debating only the ‘right’ people and by never being seen with or speaking to the ‘wrong’ people. Enforce the boxes. Stay in the Conformity. Hold no principles. When today’s cherished opinions float out of the Conformity box you abandon them and jump onto some others. Yesterday’s devience is your new life raft, the new normal. Don’t declare your position too strongly in public so that you can’t flip-flop or people will notice and not let you make the essential hypocracy jump required to stay on the Conformity treadmill.
We debate and implicitly say “You are a person. You are worthy of reasoning with.” Doesn’t Vincent Geloso know that? This would destroy society as we know it and even the majority of Family Systems that make it up. Do you want Anarchy?
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Image ref. Vincent and a friend making monkey faces. Facebook (April 2023)
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