Ta-Nehisi Coates’ discussion of confronting Civil War ‘Comfortable History’ from such ‘sound Historians’ as Ron Paul makes interesting reading. About the asymmetric nature of this conflict, Coates concludes:
The problem debating this sort of thing is the side of dishonesty and intellectual laziness is at an advantage. It will likely take more effort for me to compose this post, then it took for Ron Paul to stand before the Confederate Flag and offer his thin gruel of history. Those attempting to practice history need not only gather facts, but seek out facts that might contradict the facts they like, and then gather more facts of context to see what it all means.
But Comfortable History is asymmetrical warfare it needs only a smattering of facts, and need not guard against a lack of context, presentism, or other facts that might undermine its arguments. Instead it breezily proceeds through hypotheticals and abstract thought experiments which somehow satisfy our desire to be in possession of a dissident intellect. Comfortable History is like the computer virus that poses as the shield—it positions the espouser as a brave truth-teller, even as it infects us with lies. […]
Reading this struck a nerve … a direct nerve … that goes beyond the challenges in “Thinking in Time” but to a dominant element in 21st century American political, media, and general culture:
The truthiness-laden soundbyte and tweet are heard round the world … and the truthtellers are relegating to chasing after truthiness …
It is far, far, more ‘energy-efficient’ in terms of time (and intellectual horsepower and other resources) to run from glib half-truth to well-phrase misrepresentation to outright fabricated lies than to remain faithful to truthful engagement. And, it is far easier to promulgate such untruthful thinking than to chase after the falsehoods, in a perpetual whack-a-mole game, as a white knight debunker.
Across the spectrum, in American politics, the half-truths and falsehoods seem too often to have rein. From “Obama is a Socialist” to “taxes are evil” to “Global Warming is a scam run by a world-wide conspiracy of scientists who are after funding”, too much of the American public (and too much of our political debate) is impregnated with such truthiness and falsehoods and it undermines our ability to have a healthily functioning civil society.
Let us be clear, there are interests — serious interests — behind much of this truthiness.
Coates is looking at “Comfortable History” and how distortions of mid-19th century American society leads to a ‘comfortable’ counter-factual concept of American history that fits right into Nixonian ‘southern strategy’.
History is ‘social science’.
Considering Coates’ work suggests that ‘Comfortable History’ is a soft-science element of “sound science”.
“Sound Science” sounds so good … after all, who wouldn’t want science to be sound?
The challenge is that the answer is that those promoting “Sound Science” are those seeking to undermine the scientific method and most people’s understanding of what science is / should be …
:
Sound science is a phrase often used by corporate public relations and government agency spokesmen to describe the scientific research used to justify a claim or position. Sound science, however, has no specific scientific definition itself, so the phrase is used subjectively. “Sound science” is not a synonym of “good science” practices, but rather it is an ideological policy statement more about the criteria for the use of science in policy making. It is invoked mostly to call into question the validity of a given study or scientific statement.
Lack of “sound science” is a common critique used against public health and consumer activists in an attempt to discredit their concerns about public safety and environmental risk. Junk science is often presented as the opposite of “sound science,” usually for propagandistic purposes that favor industry.
According to Chris Mooney in his book, The Republican War on Science. “sound science”, especially in conjunction with the Data Quality Act, often means “requiring a higher burden of proof before action can be taken to protect public health and the environment.” He also states that, “the sound science movement also confuses the quality of scientific analysis with the degree of scientific certainty that has been achieved on a given question” and manufactures uncertainty by “relying on scientific outliers to sow doubt about mainstream findings”
Think about “Comfortable History” within the context of “sound science”. The parallels seem striking. Those seeking, purposefully, to come off as ‘expert’ while misrepresenting. And, the ease of misrepresentations compared to the energy / resources required to “debunk“.
Whether it is on history or economics or sociology or land planning or climate science, we see the ‘talking points’ and ‘sound bites’ that spew out of the Gingriches, Hannitys, Becks, etc getting played around and around and becoming part of ‘reality’ for too many even as what is being spewed into the public discourse are
all too often (at best) truthiness distorting reality.
Two items to consider:
1. The Debunking Handbook provides cogent guidance on how to engage / respond to such truthiness / falsehoods. It is a highly readable and short (seven page) piece that anyone who ever (EVER) engages in conversations / debates / etc with people confidently spouting incorrect information (and such) should read.
2. In addition to Chris Mooney’s excellent work, I would recommend Shawn Lewis Otto’s Fool Me Twice and its searing look at “America’s relationship with science.”
Finally, it does look like the President will take up the Sledgehammer tomorrow night to pound wedges to remind the American public that, among many other things, This is an election about science!