This Friday afternoon a video came up on my YouTube feed called "The Card Says Moops", always a sucker for a Seinfeld reference I gave it a watch. What it turned out to be was part of a series on rhetorical techniques popular among the Alt-Right...and before I knew it I had finished the entire playlist. I've linked to the video below. Watching it isn't necessary to understand this post but it is well done IMHO.
While I rarely show much interest in politics . This video provided a plausible explanation for a question I often ask myself when talking with vaccine critics: Why don't they argue with each other?
...and just to be clear by "critics" I'm not talking about everyone who has a less-than-grounded-in-reality view on vaccination (the MMR is the cause of autism, etc..) but rather the argumentative people who either inhabit a specific group of online communities or actively go out looking for said places to disagree with people who hold beliefs of a more science-based variety. They post prolifically often scouring a message board for anyone with a contrary opinion on the subject of vaccines.
The Big Question
These people are quick to disagree with just about anyone on the subject of vaccines but are all but incapable of disagreeing with each other. Even when their positions are mutually exclusive. Hence my big question: Why exactly is that?Some might be quick to claim that people who have a pro-science view of vaccines do the same thing. Such a position would be objectively false. Perhaps we are more polite about disagreeing with each other than the population of crazytown is when disagreeing with us but anyone who's willing to go through even my own post history can see me disagree with other pro-vaccine folks. Some of these exchanges show me displaying considerably less than Standard Canadian Politeness too. I'd say that this also goes for most of the frequent pro-science posters I see on Disqus.
But no matter how much we agree with each other, it really isn't the same as the weird détente that exists between vaccine critics. Seriously. How does person A - who believes that germs do not cause disease not just happily fight alongside person B who believes they do but never, ever ends up disagreeing on this subject?
I suppose one could tell themselves that vaccines are the "bigger problem" However that would be a significant self-deception. Overuse of antimicrobials is a real problem and if bacteria can't cause disease then these people who think antibiotics work should really be considered "merchants of death" as much as people who think vaccines do.
Similarly the person who believes in homeopathy is fundamentally at odds with the person who advocates vitamins over vaccines...and that's not even touching those with more..uh... elaborate fantasies such as CDC agents spying on them or hacking into their machines.
So how do we explain this?
Shillary and sockpuppetry are both possible explanations. However I have strong reservations about jumping to the former. In fact, I'd love to do a post demonstrating just how ridiculous paid comment posting in online communities is for pharmaceutical interests and only marginally useful to the vaccine critics...and the later doesn't eliminate the problem only reduces it.
This makes me think of a statement that really resonates with me. It's attributed to William James, a philosopher and psychologist from the late 1800s
To that end the video above puts forth a better explanation than either shills or sockpuppets. Namely that these people believe whatever they have to believe to get where they want to be. (ideologically).
Am I saying they don't believe in anything? Not exactly. This isn't true nihilism but a more focused "professing beliefs is simply an means to an end" sort of ideology. In short: These vaccine critics know what they hate but not much else.
The attractive thing about this hypothesis is that it handily explains a LOT of behaviors which are problematic for rational folk:
- People who are critical of vaccines embrace ridiculously anti-science ideas -- germs don't cause illness
- They can then later make statements which imply the opposite -- my friend the microbiologist who works with incredibly deadly germs, agrees that vaccines are nonsense
- The vast majority of their positions are trivially easy to refute -- you can't put formaldehyde in someones body in those quantities! It's a poison!
- ...and they have no trouble re-posting their positions even when they have just been refuted!
If professing a belief is merely a tool to achieve some rhetorical goal then espousing -- the sky is green -- carries with it no responsibility whatsoever. Quote someone correctly or incorrectly. Read a study or misread it. Right belief? Wrong belief? What's the difference to someone like that?
Not only that but people like that can do something which those with intellectual integrity can't. They can defer how seriously they are making a statement. That is, they can say "Doctors who vaccinate are no different than Josef Mengele".
The person who says that isn't right. They haven't even thought about it and technically speaking they don't even care if they're right. Once they're demonstrated to be incorrect they'll just mentally file that away as something they said "Just to rile them up". Even though if they had conversed with a friendly vaccine critic on this subject they would happily have expounded upon their pet theory as if it was true.
See the problem?
If it was really a joke, then duping someone on their own side is hardly rational. If it was really a belief then you wouldn't repost it once it's refuted.
Which of course perfectly explains why there's no debate between these folk. These people don't really hold a belief in any significant sense. Thus when prolific vaccine critic Boy Dodgers says that he thinks that homosexuality and non-cis gender identity are caused by vaccines** It doesn't matter to the rest of his ilk.
When professing a belief is simply a means to an end. There's nothing there to challenge when the end is the same.
**Incidentally that is an actual opinion I've seen go utterly unchallenged on the Facebook page of Thinking Mom's Revolution (quite possibly the most inappropriately named website on the Internet.).
So what does this mean?
Well...in part it kind of validates a tactic that I've applied when arguing with some folk on Disqus. I simply express skepticism that they truly possess the belief they claim.For example when people call those with pro-science views "shills". I could say: "I don't think you really believe that. If you did, it would be pretty easy to show you were you're wrong. However until you can convince me that this is a belief of yours. I don't see how talking about it could be worth anyone's time."
As far as I can tell. That pretty much ends the argument...and why wouldn't it?
One would have to believe something to argue to the contrary.
Cheers.
