opinions-political-deliberation

On the low quality of political deliberation, and the reasons for it

Please see this excellent essay by Michael Huemer: Why People Are Irrational about Politics.

I had gone in believing in what he calls The Miscalculation Theory and The Ignorance Theory, but he has convinced me that, sadly, The Irrationality Theory is a large part of the reason for political disagreement.

What to be done about it

If irrationality is the basic reason for political disagreements, then I think our chances are pretty bleak. Many of Huemer's suggestions amount to, "Now that you know you might be irrational: be more rational!", which I think is unlikely to work.

I still hold out hope though that if we can make it very very clear to everyone when they are being ignorant or irrational, maybe they will be less so. My current favorite idea is creating online databases for deliberation that collect arguments and counterarguments over time, allowing those who care about researching the issues, but don't have enough time to do it very often, to collaborate over a long period of time on finding out if this or that line of argument holds water.

Yes, books already exist, but I'm hoping that a good online database would allow you to see an overview of the chain of arguments and rebuttals relating to a given proposition in 5 minutes, which is a lot quicker than going to the library.