Let’s Not Willfully Misrepresent Our Opponents

I’m tired of both the right and the left demonizing their opponents and willfully misunderstanding and misconstruing their arguments. Really. Freaking. Tired.

[Edit: I originally offered several examples here, including one referring to “right-wing filth,” one hypothesizing about whether or not a right-wing politician’s face was “permanently stuck” in a whine, and two comments hypothesizing that pro-lifers would feel “smug satisfaction” if women who cannot afford a pregnancy were to start committing suicide. I have removed the actual text of these examples because the last two comments were drawn from my own comment sections, and while I did not provide links or state who wrote them, I hurt one of the commenters by posting her words in this fashion, and I regret that.]

Our political opponents are human. It’s worth trying to understand our opponents rather than blatantly misrepresenting them or demonizing, mocking, and deriding them. Do we really think our opponents will have any reason to listen to us if we treat them like that? Do we think they will try to understand what we are saying if we don’t even try to understand what they are saying? These sorts of statements aren’t about dialogue or solutions or even creating well-thought-out positions. They’re about fostering the group cohesion of your own side.

I grew up on the other side of the aisle. Those people aren’t what they’re made out to be in blog posts and comments like these. I may have disagree on underlying fundamentals, and I may think them misguided, but I don’t think the vast vast majority of them are in any sense evil or sadistic. I would like to think that there is a way I and they can at least talk and pinpoint where we disagree and where we may find common ground. Oh sure, it’s easy to argue that this isn’t possible because they won’t do it, but that comes across as a lame excuse if we won’t do it either.

On top of all of that, we are more convincing if we grapple with our opponents’ actual beliefs rather than strawmanning them, and if we engage with them rather than dealing in petty insults and silly taunts. Is that really so very much to ask? No one wins in our current state of hyper-polarization. No one.

***Addendum***

After reading criticism in the comments I feel like I wasn’t quite clear enough on a few points. Rather than edit the post content I will add some additional thoughts here. I’m going to leave aside the personal insults bit for the moment (some commenters argued that personal insults can be appropriate, and while I disagree addressing that would be an entire new post). I’m also going to leave aside what our goal is when engaging with our opponents (some commenters said they don’t see the point in trying to convince others, and while I disagree, again, addressing that would be an entire new post). What I do want to address is this issue of misrepresenting our opponents.

My emphasis on understanding is not intended to be an emphasis on agreeing. The Right holds many positions that are harmful, sometimes disastrously or inexcusably so, and that should absolutely be called out. My point was that we should actually understand the other side’s arguments, not that we should reach some form of understanding. What I am saying is that we should attack the actual arguments people are making rather than creating strawmen—things they aren’t actually saying—and then arguing against those. I am not saying we should hold hands and sing kumbaya. I’m saying that we should attack actual positions rather than strawmen we have created of our opponents’ positions.

That bit about no one wins in our current state of hyper-polarization? I didn’t word it quite as I should have, because I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be polarization on issues where there clearly is polarization, etc. What I was trying to say is that no one wins when each side mischaracterizes the other’s positions and imputes false motives to the other side, and that it sometimes appears to be more about group cohesion than anything else. No one wins when each side misrepresents the other side’s position rather than making sure they fully understand it before attacking it.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with disagreeing adamantly and calling out bad ideas or harmful beliefs. I do those things all the time! What I am saying is that I frequently see comments actually misrepresenting what the other side believes. It is true that intent is not magic. But just as we shouldn’t misrepresent someone’s positions, we also shouldn’t misrepresent their intent. Yes, by all means, explain the horrible results of their positions! Again, I do that all the time! That can be incredibly powerful. But there’s a difference between saying “politician X’s positions will result in women’s deaths, let me explain how” and “politician X is a filthbag who would smile in his sleep if women all just offed themselves.” The right side of our political spectrum today has enough positions that cause real and actual harm without our creating fictional ones.

***Addendum #2***

After reading some more of the comments, I need to add a few more things.

First, it is true that I suggested that the two comments on abortion were willfully mischaracterizing pro-lifers when I had no knowledge of their intent and thus shouldn’t have called it willful. I will remember this in the future, because it is true that the fact that I feel something is a mischaracterization does not mean it was intended as a mischaracterization.

Second, many commenters have argued that some of the comments I used as examples merely represented venting, and shouldn’t be seen as intending to be accurate or be held to the standard of, say, a printed article. I am not completely sure how I feel about this, partly because in spaces like blog comments it can be hard to tell the difference between someone who is venting and someone who is perfectly serious. However, I do take the point.

Third, there has been some disagreement on whether the comments on abortion were actual mischaracterizations. I regret using those two as an example simply because whether or not they were mischaracterizations gets away from the point I was trying to make, and also because my using these examples, even without putting a name with it, hurt one of my commenters.

In my experience, those the comments did mischaracterize pro-lifers. Several of the commenters, including the author of one of the two comments I used as an example, have argued that in their experience, the portrayal of pro-lifers was accurate. I don’t know what to make of this entirely because it does conflict with my experience, but it has given me food for thought.

Fourth, I should restate that I do still think that willfully misrepresenting our opponents is a bad idea, and that we should try to make sure we do understand our opponents’ actual positions. That was what I was trying to say in my original post, but I should have said that without using personal examples, and while remembering my first, second, and third point above—that just because something looks like a mischaracterization to me does not mean it was intentional, that sometimes people are merely venting and not trying to make an actual argument and that should be borne in mind when reading their comments, and that what appears to me to be to be a mischaracterization may actually in others experiences be reality.