Christ this is becoming a pain to respond to.
With ‘politics of envy’.
Yes, you’ve told me ‘oh it’s propaganda’ at every instance – this is not an argument.
What’s the mechanism by which a person would hate the poor? Aside from the standard in-group out-group, you don’t have a reason to hate people who have less than you.
You might not care about them but then, that’s an omission, anybody’s sphere of concern is – practically speaking – very small and necessarily discriminating. It’s far from akin to ‘hate’. This is silly.
Yet with Corbyn it is pretty clear that an envy of the wealthy is a motivation. How can this even be debated? ‘Envy’, misplaced or not is a basic political motivation. ‘They’re taking our jobs’, ‘They’re on welfare, they have it easier than us’, ‘They have too much money, I want some.’
‘whatever you think is 'incredibly unlikely' about my what's formulated my political views, that again just says more about how you think’ – you know that repetition is not a valid form of argument? That is what I think, you’re right – I think that motivated your political views and most everyone else’s and I expressed why. I’m trying to encourage some healthy reflection and re-examination. I don’t expect people to do it though: but again, human nature.
With ‘Judgement of Johnson’. Boris wasn’t the decision maker. Party members are supposed to agree with the leadership, that’s how parties function.
Why would he suddenly (deviate from austerity) now? He literally describes ‘the end of austerity’ – that’s his campaign. Austerity is not some cultish conspiracy, it was an idea that was tried and proven unpopular: it would be bizarre for him to go back on his promise, there’s no motivation.
Pledges often go amiss, we’re only judging the Tories so much because … they’re who’ve been in power recently. And again, Boris is as likely to commit as any other party leader.
I don’t see what media bias has to do with what we’re discussing.
Corbyn had an advantage in the debate because he wasn’t being held accountable for the last decade of unpopular governing, he had the offensive.
You're transposing the results of group 'research' pertaining to political socialisation onto an individual who is telling you their experience is otherwise, then gaslighting them by saying they don't know their own motivations for their beliefs
It’s a generalisation. You examine the group to understand the average individual. This is not some exotic concept, it’s a fundament of Sociology, Psychology and Biology. I’m telling him, as I would anyone else, it’s ‘very likely’ that your stated motivations are contrary to your actual motivations. So likely that I’m not entirely sure that a counter example even exists as anything more than an extreme anomaly. It encourages reflection – which is probably the best produce of an argument.
You then use a half-baked concept like 'human nature' to argue against the power of economic arguments to change minds, projecting your own indifference onto the rest of humanity.
You think ‘human nature’ is a half-baked concept? Evolution determines basic psychology, probably to an overwhelming extent: human nature is inherited psychology. Some people like to think that we’re so intelligent that our constructed ideas rule us, but it’s pretty clear that these ideas are entirely subservient to inherited psychology, human nature.
Calling this my ‘projection’ is the same kind of irrational argument style that you’ve implied my naughty ‘gaslighting’ was. ‘Oh shit, I guess my reasoning was flawed because someone else is telling me how I think … if the source is wrong, the argument must be wrong.’
Socialisation doesn't inform economic predilection in an absolute sense. People don't undergo total suspension of critical faculties or a complete loss of objectivity just because of their life experiences.
A problem here conflating ‘complete’ with ‘substantive’. It isn’t largely a question of socialisation either, it’s really just a question of how our brains work. To ‘care’ about something is emotional. It needs a fundamental root: empathy works, basic inherited morality works, and deeply ingrained moral norms (social) work too. Where does economics fit into this? Aside from the basic ideas of ‘helping the poor is good’, ‘equality is good’ etc. there isn’t a basis for concern. Maybe concern comes into it when you can draw a line in the sand somewhere – I don’t like x (person), x believes y (concept), therefore I don’t like y.
These decisions are a complex intersection of socialisation, logic, education, personality types, financial circumstances, etc, with each individual giving more weight to certain variables than others.
Yes sure, the only difference between what you’re saying and what I am is that I am putting far more weight on inherited aspects, then socialisation, with the remainder being very subservient.
Therefore it's perfectly possible for an individual to take a more logical approach and come to the conclusion that an economic argument contrary to their self-interest is in the right interests of society
.
Sure, it’s possible – though probably due to a more obscure association with those basic drives – it’s very unlikely. People need the emotive aspect to ‘care’, they don’t care about the produce of their logic. The logical (albeit within a non-absolute and perhaps inconsistent logic) analysis succeeds the emotional decision, and it’s dependant on it.
There's nothing in their 'nature' stopping them from doing that. To suggest otherwise is condescending in the extreme.
Oh, but there is, and it’s not condescending because I am also human?
I’d also like to add that this argument is contradictory on its own merits- to argue that an objectivist approach should be taken to economic arguments and that people argue based primarily on “human nature”, only to also throw out spurious claims concerning Labour’s main motivations and alleged lack of knowledge on economic models based on no statistical evidence whatsoever is hypocritical by design. What is remotely “intellectual” or objective about that?
Only I did not argue that, I was only discussing what motivates political decision making.
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