Yes, Conservatives Commit the Genetic Fallacy Too, but Liberals Still Rely on it Too Much

I have received a reply to my article, “Intellectual Rubbish in the Democratic Party” in the form of a full article from Robot Philosopher. I think crafting full replies to articles of those we disagree with is a good practice, and WordPress would be wise to even encourage the practice. Competing posts encourages more thoughtful replies and can also elucidate issues in a debate the way a single post cannot. Proverbs 18:17 states:

“The first to plead his case seems right,
Until another comes and examines him.”

Biblical wisdom that reminds to always listen to both (or even more) sides of a controversy or issue before forming an opinion.

In a comment to my intellectual rubbish post, he said he believes he may have been a little too abrasive in certain aspects, so keep that in mind as you read my original post, his reply, and my reply.

Robot Philosopher’s main argument

His main concerns are:

“1. It attempts to discredit every single use of the “only because you are white” argument. While it is true that much of the time it is used is either racist or fallacious, much or even most of the time, it isn’t. It is not inherently either of those things, as was implied. There are experiences that are commonplace in black society in America that white people simply don’t experience. That isn’t a partisan statement. It is a statement of fact; As is the fact that many of those experiences white people don’t have are indisputably not good.

If you disagree, perhaps imagine this argument: “Women should feel appreciative/flattered at constant cat-calls? You only think that because you’re a man.”

Does the above argument imply all men believe cat-calls are flattering? No. Does it accurately convey the fact that men and women often have different experiences that are relevant to the debate in question? Yes. It is neither sexist nor fallacious. The same is true of the argument this writer is attempting to debunk – depending, of course, on the context.

2. It pushes the notion that in most debates of these kinds, liberals do not and cannot back up their beliefs on this issue with evidence, and the conservative can. That is *patently* untrue (bold, italic, underlined, asterisked, and red is not enough emphasis).“

Start with point 1.

” It attempts to discredit every single use of the “only because you are white” argument.“

While my post could be interpreted as painting with a very broad brush, that was not the intent of my argument. I am white, I know I do not have the same experiences in the world as those who are not white or people who have grown up in a different culture or nation. My argument is to point out the misuse of racial arguments in situations like this. The line is basically, “You only believe in policy X” because you are white. If I argue for tax cuts, it’s because I’m white. If I am skeptical of government power, it’s because I’m white. There is an almost complete lack of engagement by some liberals when it comes to policy debates. They are also completely missing political theory and instead just jumping to an easy debate stopper. If I quote Thoreau about the government being best that governs least, am I going to get an argument or a dismissal because of my race?

However, I do freely and openly admit that race can be relevant, sometimes. But when it comes to broad policy debates about the power of government, tax policy, climate change, and such, race shouldn’t be the driving factor. Political theory isn’t based on race unless you are a white supremacist. Same with policy debates. Is climate change real or not? If it is real, is it a threat or not? These questions have nothing to do with race. They are neutral with regards to race.

So, I would agree that “While it is true that much of the time it is used is either racist or fallacious, much or even most of the time, it isn’t. It is not inherently either of those things, as was implied. There are experiences that are commonplace in black society in America that white people simply don’t experience. That isn’t a partisan statement. It is a statement of fact; As is the fact that many of those experiences white people don’t have are indisputably not good.“

The cat call argument at the end of point 1 isn’t entirely clear to me. I suppose some men are like that, but most men can understand enough about the female experience that a woman might feel uncomfortable being cat-called. Though, there are a minority of women who are flattered by it (though I wouldn’t do this to a woman and would have trouble even if she directly told me she gained some sort of confidence by me doing so). Life can be rather complicated sometimes.

On to point 2.

My position on politics is that when both sides are being honest, they are really emphasizing different parts of the human experience, and neither side is inherently unreasonable a lot of the time. Conservatives tend to focus on order and structure while liberals tend to focus on those on the margins and those who are left out of the system. I think both sides are needed for a healthy politics, and because life is complicated and some situations don’t lend themselves to easy answers, I don’t automatically assume my political others are wrong. I just believe I have the better argument.

Now, some liberals cannot back up their points of view. They want the prestige and satisfaction of feeling like they’ve won a debate without doing the necessary hard work to actually “win” the debate. I’ve met people like this in my life, and I’ve seen them on countless TV shows. I’ve also met intelligent liberals, and I regularly read the Atlantic, New York Times, and articles that RealClearPolitics has decided are interesting.

I don’t believe all liberals cannot back up their points of view. Legitimate arguments exist on both sides. My original post was about certain trends I see on the left that are consistent enough to stand out. I’m not sure how many times I tried to engage in debates with people and was called a Trumpanzee and such when I don’t even like Trump. But the left overall became apoplectic over his presidency.

Robot Philosopher’s Side Points

Philosopher writes:

” “Don’t think about their argument. They’re poor and lazy and just wanting a handout”, “Don’t listen; They’re atheists who want you to worship the devil”, “They’re liberal and just angry that Trump won the election”, “Don’t bother responding to them – They just want to be allowed to kill babies because they’re evil.”, etc.

I have heard each of those, paraphrased, many times. Smarter conservatives may know that atheists don’t believe the devil exists, either, yet I’ve heard even that argument several times.

How many times have you heard Congressmen or Trump, himself, make the above arguments? The “handouts” one has been played on Fox News as a way to hand-wave away valid criticisms for literally decades, and “bitter that Trump won the election” was likely said by every single major conservative news outlet, nearly every conservative Congressman at some point, and definitely Trump, himself, nonstop for four years. None of those sources that I saw even attempted to confront actual grievances – they were just hand-waved away after a pejorative label was slapped upon them.

If I were to attempt to discredit conservative’s valid arguments (with attached studies, data, evidence, statistics, etc) by stating “Republican’s just argue that atheists want to worship the devil, therefore we are justified in explicitly pretending they haven’t offered any actual evidence of their claims”, what would you call that? Fallacious, right?

“You just believe that because you’re white” vs “You just believe that because you’re atheist” or “You just believe that because you’re liberal”. “

While I would quibble with some of the examples here, I do agree that conservatives commit the genetic fallacy as well. Some of the examples above are great illustrations of the fallacy. A fallacy is a fallacy, regardless of who commits it. It is not an example of the genetic fallacy to thoroughly refute an argument and then go into potential motivations for a position, but most people skip to the motivations section.

The examples about welfare are the most obvious offenders, and the right needs to stop using them. “You only believe in welfare because you don’t want to work,” or, “you like big government because you don’t want to do the hard work of actually forging your own life” are some common examples of the genetic fallacy.

All sides of the political spectrum should agree that fallacies have no place in public debate.

Philosopher also believes that I’ve committed a hasty generalization by not providing enough examples or statistical evidence to show a general trend in liberals’ use of the genetic fallacy:

“Take this very meta-debate this writer and I are having right now; They, the conservative, provide 3 links not pertinent to the actual claim being made (which is fine), and two links to isolated cases. Someone I’ve never heard of called Amy Coney Barrett a “white colonizer”, and another story in which one person on a radio show said the host, whom she mistakenly thought was white, had benefited from ‘white privilege’.”

Ibram K Kendi is a major thinker in leftist ideology (he made the white colonizer comment). He isn’t an unknown thinker. He has appears in mainstream media and wrote the book, “How to be an Antiracist.”

Here he is on CBS:

Here he is on again:

This one has Robin DiAngelo, who is also an influential leftist thinker.

Both of them constantly flirt with the genetic fallacy and are fairly mainstream in academia especially.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor, also has a blog that comments on legal issues, and he has catalogued multiple professors who have made outrageous comments on race. He is a liberal, but he’s willing to tell the truth based on how he sees it, whether it hurts his side or not.

There’s also liberal professors who have commented on disturbing trends they have noticed, like this one.

Two more liberal professors wrote about people’s increasing inability to even tolerate listening to arguments that disagree with them.

The bad arguments in all of these groups rely on the genetic fallacy to silent dissent. There is a clear trend when people from the left are writing about it as well.

None of the previous sources even include black conservatives like Candace Owens, John Riley, Thomas Sowell, Tim Scott, David Webb, and others who actively reject the narrative about black suppression and white supremacy being everywhere. They also do not like the arguments about “you only believe this because you are white.”

Here’s a liberal thinker in an interview with Bill Maher going after identity politics:

I don’t think any statistical analysis would really help because I’m not sure it would be easy to study how often one side commits the genetic fallacy vs the other side (though a study like that would be interesting and probably only philosophers or philosophy majors would read).

Philosopher seems to really take issue with how I generalize:

“The person with flimsy accusations against Barrett, and the person who made a mistake and a bad argument on a radio show, are not representative of liberals as a whole – certainly not within the confines of this debate – yet this author would have you believe they were.

If they were merely pointing out that these two specific liberals were wrong in making the cited arguments because they were fallacious, they would have been fine. Instead, they imply it is widespread amongst liberals without providing evidence for such a claim, and, more egregiously, they make the false claim that liberals typically don’t provide evidence for their claims at all, but instead are simply practicing identity politics – again, without evidence.”

As I think I’ve made clear, the intent of my argument was not to claim all liberals commit the genetic fallacy all the time or that no liberals can ever back up their arguments. My point was about a general tend I, other conservatives, libertarians, and some liberals have noticed among some other liberals. My language probably was too broad in certain circumstances, and I should have qualified my statements more clearly. There’s always a balance with readability and literal accuracy.

As the last point I’ll address, Philosopher writes:

“Can anyone find me a prominent conservative who believes systemic racism doesn’t exist and yet has offered a rationalization for why black drivers are disproportionately pulled over more than white drivers, despite tending to find less contraband, and why that discrepancy shrinks during night time when it’s harder to tell race? Or why the Police Officer’s Dilemma study or a similar study looking directly at police officers seems to conclusively show that (at the very least: implicit) racism against black people is commonplace?”

First, I do believe that a small minority of cops are more likely to stop someone because they are black. Even Tim Scott, a conservative Senator from South Carolina, claims that he’s been stopped because he’s black. Most every adult black person in the United States has a story about this happening at least once. There’s no reason to deny this obvious truth.

Second, the claim that a minority of cops disproportionately stop some black drivers is different from the claim that police are wantonly killing black men for no reason. Here are some statements and studies to consider:

1. Statement to Congress
2. New York Times summary of a study (potential bias in use of force but not in killings)
3. Jason Riley is a black thinker and columnist
4. Thomas Sowell is a retired, black PhD economist

Black conservatives need more intellectual space. Their perspectives will often surprise you if you only pay attention to mainstream media. They rarely get big interviews because they go against the mainstream narrative that all black Americans are liberal.

As for the studies cited, the dilemma study is based on a video game simulation. I don’t have the ability to read it, but, for Study 1, it states, “In Study 1, White participants made the correct decision to shoot an armed target more quickly if the target was African American than if he was White, but decided to “not shoot” an unarmed target more quickly if he was White.” So, the decision was still correct, it was just made “too fast”? Study 4 says there was some sort of “equivalent levels of bias.” I don’t think this is conclusive enough to show much.

As for the second study, were the decisions accurate or not? The abstract states, ” Officers outperformed community members on a number of measures, including overall speed and accuracy.” I would expect people who are trained in something to be able to do it faster and more accurately. I think the study would be more interesting if officers were consistently making the wrong decision. I would also need to see what the simulations looked like.

Overall, I agree with Robot Philosopher that there are liberals who can provide evidence for their arguments, that conservatives do commit the genetic fallacy, and that the black experience is different in some ways from the white experience or any other experience in the United States.

However, there is a general trend among some on the left to misuse the genetic fallacy to silence opposing arguments, and this trend appears to only be getting worse.