Just the Facts

Once we get passed the pejoratives, what is the difference between a conservative and a liberal?  Let’s eliminate the extremists on both sides, but for the middle of the road folks in both parties there are certain differences that I want to explore.  My intention is to discover if we have more in common than we think.

Once we get passed the misguided labels of “heartless ultra-rich conservatives” and “wealth redistributing liberals”, the difference seems to be in the means and not the ends.  The majority on both sides want this country to work.  For goodness sake, why wouldn’t we?  We just disagree on how to achieve this.

Currently our arguments involve economics.  We know that “if all the economists in the world were lined up, they couldn’t reach a conclusion”.  Thomas Carlyle called economics the dismal science.  He had good reason.  The study of economics is one area where we can find “facts and formulae” to dispute everyone else’s “facts and formulae”.  So contrary to Daniel Moynihan’s admonition, we can have our own facts  when discussing economics. 

How do you resolve a difference of opinion when people have facts that differ?  First I think we need to question if economics is really a “science”.  In fact, I’m not sure that I could get wholesale agreement on even calling it a science.  My reasoning is that a scientific model is judged by its ability to consistently predict outcomes.  For instance, if you step off a ladder into mid-air, the law of gravity can be depended on to have the same effect today that it did yesterday as it will tomorrow.  You will fall to the ground.

Economic theories cannot predict consistently.  So we have supply side-economists, demand side economists, trickle-down economists, behavioral economists and “never the twain shall meet”.  And none of their theories can predict what the economy is going to do with certainty.  We should have learned this when our erstwhile Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan admitted that he made some mistakes.  Until that time, and the collapse of an economy built on his theories, I thought he could do no wrong.

Some of the most interesting arguments are happening right now with the budget discussions; economists disagree on what to do and what will become of us if we don’t.    But in spite of this, we still take opposite positions based on their facts.

The issue is rather simple after we agree that economics is a questionable “science” full of opposing theories.  We choose the facts that we like and ignore the facts that we dislike.  The process is called “confirmation and disconfirmation bias”.  Sociologist Steven Hoffman, a professor at the University at Buffalo, writes, "Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief," he says, "people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe."  He calls this, motivated reasoning. 

I know this is disappointing to those among us convinced that we are objective observers of the truth.  Sorry, we are all as subjective as the next guy.  In being so, we are motivated to find the “facts” that confirm what we already believe.

You must know that about me by now.  I have ex-readers who have refused to read this column because they don’t like “my facts”.  They prefer their own.  No harm, no foul!  I’ve said from the beginning that this is just my spin.  That simply means that I will use the “facts” that I like.  Obviously, you have the same option.  But let’s be honest.  Neither of us has a stranglehold on the truth.  Especially when it comes to economics.  So we’re left with the problem of who to believe.  Just remember Nietzsche’s claim that reality is made up of competing stories about reality.  Maybe there’s a bit of truth on both sides of the argument.  If only our politicians would acknowledge this.

Robert DeFilippis