Is Political Communication Possible?

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
I.e. - can people who occupy significantly different points on the political spectrum engage in rational debate, of a sort which might end in them increasing each others' understanding?
These days I often find myself doubting that they can.
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
I think they can.

We can.

Yes we can.

**

But everyone has to be very cool.

Or, at least one person does.

Very, very, very cool.

But then again, perhaps rational debate is not the way things are done...
 
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sufi

lala
i read somewhere about a project to field a host of independent candidates (via interwebs) for the next (UK) election, aiming to break the tired deadlock between the big two parties, which stifles rational debate or action. sounds like a good plan, (anyone know any more?)
it kind of connects with the obama story - raising big questions that the supposedly opposed parties in US have been stalemated on for years... would coalition government or 'national' government be able to get more done?
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
I further contend that no communication isn't political, in some form or another, in the sense that it relates to power. Rational communication, I don't know reason - rationalism - ratio, it's a question of relation, no? So, it is possible to discern to reason in almost anything, if that is the stance you wish to adopt on it. Like Hegel.
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Let me explain a little more clearly what I was getting at. I am thinking of political arguments, for the sake of simplicity let's say that they're just between two people, where each of the participants holds wholly seperate political principles, rather than just having divergent views about how best to practically apply said principles. Of course, the question of when something stops becoming a matter of pragmatic preference and becomes a matter of foundational principle (or vice versa) is itself an interesting one, but whatever the explanation I would claim that it's a distinction that we all intuitively recognise in political discussion.
The question then becomes, is it ever possible for an argument between these two hypothetical people to end with one of them consciously changing their beliefs, perhaps in such a way that they come to understand why their previous beliefs were wrong and their new ones are right? (and I oppose this rational form of persuasion to, for example, being cowered into submission by the power and anger of the other's views, or being tricked through rhetorical slight of hand without fully understanding what you're agreeing to). Too often to my mind, this ideal is not achieved, and instead we have people talking - or more accurately shouting - past each other, or worse politely ignoring the aspects of each other's views that they find challenging or difficult.

Apologies if this is obtusely expressed, my brain ain't getting enough exercise these days. :eek:
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Good fuckin question!
By negotiating between your concrete situation and the available theoretical perspectives on this situation, I would say. Though obviously that's an exlplanation that needs fleshed out, and could probably be done so in different, opposing ways.
 

vimothy

yurp
So even before we have this argument that may or may not lead one of us to rationally change his views, we must first argue with ourselves and our imagined others. Furthermore, I contend that there is no real difference between this argument and the one that is to follow.
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
I believe in a race of mutants. That is my current political principle. I am not sure you will be able to talk me out of it, because I am not sure myself that I know what it means. Something to do with swimming and Magneto and the Brothers and Guattari and the girls of Berlin Alexanderplatz.

How are views formed? Well (blinks rapidly) that is a good question...

I note, to accept the principle of rationally changing views, you need to accept the principle first of all of being guided by reason. Which I am not sure I accept.
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
I don't quite see the point you're making here?

(A fitting response for this thread! :slanted:)


Edit: directed at Vim.
 

vimothy

yurp
Andy, in order to have an argument about a rationally held view, you first need to arrive at it. How do you do that? Via a process not dissimilar to your hypothetical argument, but with one less participant. Of course, this rest on a rather massive assumption, which josef correctly identified. So how are views formed in the first place? I agree that it is a good question, and not one I know the answer to.
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
There are two sides to a view, no?

1) That wot is looked at.

2) That wot looks.

So there is scenery, and eyes, and also conceptual equipment of various kinds and manners. Manners. Manners. which function in some ways to control and condition views & stuff.
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Andy, in order to have an argument about a rationally held view, you first need to arrive at it. How do you do that? Via a process not dissimilar to your hypothetical argument, but with one less participant. Of course, this rest on a rather massive assumption, which josef correctly identified. So how are views formed in the first place? I agree that it is a good question, and not one I know the answer to.

Yes, that's all correct I think. But that wasn't really what I was asking about. I was taking for granted this process of view-formation, and thinking of situations where the participants are quite experienced view-formers, as it were. I feel that especially in the political sphere, over time people's viewpoints tend (or can tend) to become increasingly entrenched, increasingly polarised, increasingly closed off from outside change.

Perhaps this is easier to think of through a concrete thought experiment. Imagine that you were to have an in-depth, perhaps face-to-face debate with one of the bloggers who attended the Communism conference. Would rational political communication be possible? Obviously I can't answer for you, or them, but I fear that any substantial debate would reach a point where you were no longer even capable of disagreeing with each other in any meaningful sense, that you would not be able to understand or recognise each other's viewpoints, because you used radically divergent core concepts which did not map with each other.
Now obviously both of you must have started from somewhere, must have led lives where you think about your situation in the world, converse with others about this situation and consult the range of public opinions on this situation, but over time (and the reason for this, I agree with you, is very hard to exactly pinpoint) you have moved down such different routes in your enquiries that you no longer share any, or sufficient, common ground to communicate effectively from
 
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josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
A nice summary.

Personally, I no longer even know what I disagree with anymore. I don't know if I disagree with anything. There are things I will not do, and there are things I will question when I encounter them, but disagreements... harder. I don't really agree with myself... half the time. I guess I disagree with certain ways of understanding the world... for example, the Fascist way ("my struggle") but I wouldn't register that disagreement in the form of an argument. I am finished with arguing. Or at least, certain kinds of arguments. Or maybe not, who can say, I don't know, the weather today is beautiful.
 

vimothy

yurp
I am generally very disagreeable and feel certain that, were I to meet with one of the participants at the Communism conference, I would find a way. And I'm not disputing the fact that people have strongly held beliefs. For myself, I find that I continuously change my political views as I learn more about the world. Obviously, any findings when n=1 are not going to be significant, and perhaps I am simply deluded, but.... Lets say we are talking, me and, I dunno, Alain Badiou. What are we talking about? Perhaps the weather. So we do share some assumptions, some interests. I think communism is a bad idea, Badiou thinks it's a good idea -- that's all very mundane. But what is this thing that we are talking about? I think it is not the same. Under the conditions specific to my proposition, communism is bad by definition. For Badiou, the reverse is true. Do we need to agree on a definition of communism to communicate? I am not sure that we do, and I am not sure that that if we did it would be limited to politics. An ethnomethodoloist would say that the communication of reason is never a goal. Rather, it is the production of an event.
 
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