The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

I find that fools and liars contradict themselves at some point, often after frantic efforts to protect one falsehood with another.

Lying requires little imagination. All it takes is contempt for the person to whom one lies. Just think of the offensive expression "Who are you going to believe -- me or your lying eyes?"

Classical Greek philosophy developed in Athens in part as a means of keeping the political discussions honest. The tool is logic, still within the realm of philosophy. Philosophy might not achieve the truth, but it can certainly tear down falsehoods. Most basically the law of non-contradiction applies: truth does not lead to anything worse than paradoxes. Falsehood in contrast leads quickly to contradiction.

Logic also establishes that certain syntheses of facts cannot lead to certain results. Some work: thus

All cats are predators
Fluffy is a cat
Therefore Fluffy is a predator

is valid.

Here is another one:

All cats are predators
"Mr. Ed" is not a predator
"Mr. Ed" is not a cat.

This one isn't valid:

All cats are predators
All snakes are predators
Therefore cats are snakes

(or is it that snakes are cats?)

It is telling that the first introduction that most people get to formal logic is in high-school geometry, and that high-school geometry separates as few other courses do "college material" from non-college. To be sure, geometry is vital to such tradesmen as machinists who may need no college degree, but at this point almost any skilled trade is best done with some college education. At the least a college education is good for getting more out of life than mass low culture.

Let us remember this inglorious statement of Donald Trump as a campaigner:

"I love low-information voters".

Before Trump, just about politician would be loath to admit such. Ignorance is not innocence, and it makes one vulnerable to manias, swindles, and demagogues. It is telling that the vilest dictatorships typically promoted bare literacy so that people could absorb propaganda without criticism. Thus such likes as Lenin, Mao, and Saddam pushed basic literacy... and little else unless purely technical training. Hitler and Pinochet, who took over literate societies, debased formal learning. So does Donald Trump and so do most of his political partners.