Thomas Jiang

About Me

Projects

Writings

Notes

Arguing in Bad Faith

27 August 2020

At the 2012 debate tournament in Indianapolis, I began to realize that something was wrong. We were winning debate rounds that we should have lost - easily. The topic was

Resolved: Stand Your Ground laws are a legitimate expansion of the doctrine of self defense.

Like most Public Forum topics, it was topical. That February, George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, under the protection of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Justifiably, most teams preferred to argue the negation on the topic, so we found ourselves arguing the affirmative and having to defend the legitimacy of Stand Your Ground laws. And the argument we chose to use went along the lines of, “The Supreme Court ruled in 1985, in Beard v. US that the principles behind Stand Your Grounds laws are legal and constitutional. Thus, Stand Your Ground laws are legitimate.”

Intuitively, this argument is suspicious. It is circular and abuses a narrow definition of the word “legitimate”. But despite the obvious problems with this argument, round after round, we saw winning results. I’m sure that everyone being high schoolers with limited experience surely did not help. But I am coming to recognize just how difficult it is to overcome arguments made in bad faith.

Attacking arguments made in bad faith is the thesis of Paul Krugman’s book, Arguing with Zombies. These zombie ideas, as Krugman describes, are these provably false arguments that persist and survive long past the date that Krugman has proven them false. Ideas that even I have unwittingly been victim of. For instance, the idea that Social Security is going broke. Admittedly, I never understood in detail what that actually meant. I did not know whether it would mean a slight reduction in benefits or a complete dissolution of the program. I just knew that it was true. But Krugman writes that the truth there is nuanced, and as the SSA Board of Trustees writes, Social Security can actually be fairly sustainable. But the general idea that it is not has given some politicians the freedom to move to enact particular changes to the system.

The nice aspect of Social Security is that the system, despite its size, is well understood. There are a small set of numbers that one can bring to the table as concrete, persuasive evidence when arguing the truth. One can take revenue numbers, expenditures, population data and come out with a good sense of the system. The trouble, as Krugman notes, arises when the truth is murkier, when systems get complex, and when there requires a great deal of trust. Take government policy to recessions, one of the many topics that Krugman writes about. Austerity vs stimulus, the topic that was debated throughout the 2008 recession. Multiple governments across the world chose austerity instead of stimulus and by Krugman’s account, hindered economic recovery for many years. But the arguments Krugman and others made aren’t easily translated to the simple numbers and figures that Social Security can. And in part that’s why multiple governments chose to listen to those arguing for austerity measures. But even after reading Krugman’s essays on the topic, I find myself only believing in the benefits of Krugman’s policy because I trust him and his credentials, not necessarily because the core arguments are compelling or visceral. That trust is important because malicious actors are easily able to muddy the waters with issues that might seem simple.

Krugman has a very interesting idea about earning that trust and making a persuasive argument to the public. At the start of the book, Krugman says that one of his four tenets of punditry is to be honest about dishonesty. He writes,

Now we get into the more controversial aspects of punditry. As I’ve explained, these days everthing is political. And as a result, many public arguments, in economics and everything else, are being made in bad faith.

So how should an economist-pundit deal with this reality? One answer, which I know appeals to many economists, is to continue acting as if we were having a good-faith debate: to lay out evidence, explain why it means one view is right and the other is wrong, and stop there.

My view, as you might guess, is that this isn’t enough, that it’s actually unfair to readers. When you’re confronting bad-faith arguments, the public should be informed not just that these arguments are wrong, but that they are in fact being made in bad faith.

I have my doubts about the efficacy of this strategy because it can too easily be co-opted by the very bad faith actors that the policy is intended to reveal.

Recently, my friends have begun playing a social deception game called Among Us. It is another in the category that also includes many other staples: Resistance, Mafia, Avalon, Secret Hitler, Werewolf, and so on. Though these games are not everyone’s cup of tea, I highly recommend experiencing at least one of these, if only to be forced into the villain’s role. (One can also watch popular Twitch and Youtube streamers play if one’s friends are not cooperative.) In these games, where the truth is intentionally hidden and words are one’s weapons, one finds themselves a convincingly realistic simulation of what I imagine politics to be. I only jest about this, as I have no experience in politics and so could not make sure a comparison. But in these games, it is difficult to persuade other cautious players to believe you. And when accused of being a villain, one often finds themselves resorting to the strategy that Krugman has laid out. You simply respond to your accusers with your own accusations of bad faith arguments and maliciousness. You muddy the waters. You rely on the audience’s cautiousness, lack of hard truth, and general confusion.

But while I don’t think this policy of calling out bad faith arguments is necessarily effective, I do think that it is useful in the argumentative arms race. But I believe that the best strategy is to keep the arguments as simple as possible. As Krugman puts it, “Stay with the easy stuff” and “Write in English”. The problem with that, is that with some issues, one must be an expert to follow those guidelines. Inexperience in both the subject matter and in confronting malicious actors made it hard for high schoolers to refute bad faith arguments like the one we ran. Thanks to Krugman, I’m learning that it doesn’t get easier when people leave high school and move beyond the social deception games.