Vorspeisenplatte

Jamie Whyte describes himself as “Outraged of Highbury” – someone who endlessly sends furious letters to newspapers complaining about sloppy thinking, logical errors, fallacies and muddles. He does the same at parties – and even on trains. Fortunately he’s a professional philosopher – or he might have attracted the attention of the authorities long ago.

Im New Scientist erklärt er die grundsätzlichen “fallacies” öffentlicher Debatten, unter anderem:

There is a terrible tendency to treat people as reliable sources of fact when in fact they are simply “important” people or people who happen to be in the news.
und:
Too many people see truth as just a game between groups, as a kind of tribalism. That is not rational. Far too many people are not prepared to say: “I don’t believe this and here’s my argument why I don’t.” They don’t feel they need to. Instead, they will say something like: “Economists are just part of the capitalist conspiracy so I don’t have to listen to their arguments about free trade.” Thus they dismiss all economists’ views on the grounds that they are members of a particular group.

Genau das ist es, was mich in der Debatte um die Hartz-Reformen zur Weißglut bringt (und nicht nur dort): Der Mangel an methodisch sauberer und vernunft-basierter Argumentation. Ich kann es deshalb den Schreibern und Schreiberinnen der Süddeutschen Zeitung gar nicht hoch genug anrechnen, dass sie unverbrüchlich sachlich zu diesem Thema erklären, aufklären, berichten, logische Bezüge herstellen. Danke, die Herrschaften.

(Via Zeitgenossen, natürlich)