The Infinite Argument Loop
1,300 words. Five minute read.
By Austin Kaiser, @Kaisermane
The biggest problem plaguing America is that people who are extreme in their views, at first glance, seem like they have something meaningful to say. This attracts people to debate them in good faith but what ends up happening instead is an infinite loop. An infinite loop occurs when an extremist and a person who doesn't realize how off their rocker their opponent is, debate until the person of good faith gives up and another comes and takes their place. This sociological phenomenon has been the defining trait of the country's politics for decades and is the defining characteristic of every TV, radio, and dinner table debate. I've never seen a history of genuine political debate, whatever that would mean. I'm not sure what it would look like because I've not experienced it in my lifetime — though I believe it would probably look a lot like normal discussion.
But who is right? How do you tell which is which? People ask me, "Austin, if you're sure that conservatives are sick, the cause of all problems, and everything they believe is propaganda, how are you certain that it's not you who is wrong? Maybe you believe lies other people tell. How do you know that you're not the one who is wrong about global warming, prejudice, history, and economics?" That is a good question and maybe you can already sniff out my answer. My information is correct (though incomplete) because it comes from different sources i.e. books, documentaries, and conversations. They interconnect with each other and paint a bigger picture. This interconnection is proof they are true since everything in the world is indeed linked.
When I looked into global warming, I started scientifically like, "This is a problem. How do we solve it?" But I soon saw that there were solutions already known and that the problem was businesses didn't want to implement them because they would cost money. Then I discovered that one party in particular, conservatives, spread the lie that global warming was a liberal hoax. That's one situation. But in another situation I looked at the issue of prejudice in America and found it still rampant. I also found that the same party spread the lie that there was no such thing as systemic racism.
See? The information clicked. I got closer to the bigger picture the farther I went. Critical thinking is not about analyzing prejudice or science in a bubble but about the world at large and the discovery — unfortunately for us — that one powerful party manipulates the facts. If you turned this around and looked from the conservative point of view, you wouldn't get this same clicking. The world does not cohere together neatly for them because what they believe has been made up. Their information comes from YouTube, forums, and propaganda. They are full of things pulled from each other's butts. That's the operation — everyone pulling from their butt and bringing it to the pot. Sadly for them, disparate, random fiction only connects vaguely when you squint your eyes and squish it together.
On the surface, both parties are similar. They believe they are right, the other party is wrong, and that their opponent's conclusions are based on misinformation and bias. They believe that the other party is not only misled but actively destroying the country through its ignorance. Conservatives feel this way about people who oppose them and people who oppose them feel the way about conservatives. But they both can't be right. That was the first clue I ever got, well before I was into politics, that something was terribly wrong with the country.
If both sides felt not disagreement but that the other was completely full of lies then someone had to be out of their mind. More than likely both were since one was naive enough to argue at all, but one in particular had to be deeply wrong. A healthy argument is two people caught in a gray area, leaning opposite ways, but trying to get at the truth. They disagree on certain things but, through discussion, ultimately agree on many things and heighten their sense of the overall argument by the time it's over.
Our country is not the result of slowly-building sophistication. We are not a history of productive debate and a continuously-improving understanding of the world. We are America, The Great Infinite Loop. "But how do you know conservative aren't right about some issues? What if both sides are good and bad and have some things right and wrong?" Unfortunately, an argument where both sides are partly true does not create an infinite loop. It doesn't produce a world that looks like ours.
If you go back one hundred years, the only civil rights and consumer protection laws passed have been passed under duress and during great protests. The only facet of life that has continuously "improved" regardless of public sentiment is business. Businesses are bigger than ever and the reigning organism in America. If you want to understand the country, you start with corporations and how and why politicians support their reign. You don't have to start from square one and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. You can go right to the source.
It's a mistake to let an extremist argue the point of view that electricity in Texas should be deregulated and then try to persuade them why it should stay regulated. You should already know in your head that their view is part of an ideology. Don't waste your time. People wasting their time on these arguments is what creates the illusion that there are "two sides to the story." To argue a question as open-ended as, "Abortion or no abortion?" "Taxes are no taxes?" "Consumer protections or no consumer protections?" is to participate in the infinite loop. Well-meaning people are tricked everyday into arguments that they would not be a part of if they understood their origins.
That's what makes the Democrats so uniquely dishonest. They effectively have a chance to call a spade a spade but instead create a weird, calm, seemingly-objective world where questions can be asked in a vacuum and debated. In middle school, I was asked, "Is a minimum wage good or bad?" "Should we invest in national defense or not?" I was asked these questions as if they had no historical context, as if they were philosophical dilemmas humankind was destined to quandary about.
But they're not and we're not. That is the point of the essay. We were raised to consider Democrats vs Republican a normal part of the equation, that parties fighting was a difficult problem to solve, and that they both had good and bad qualities. That this was the way democracy works. Ours was a healthy one and, in fact, the world's greatest. Our constitution was the most enlightened and ingenious in history. Any problems that continue to exist are simply the result of original sin. Humans will always have problems. I now know that this is all false.
The sad thing is many people have not yet gone through the upsetting process of realizing just how deep, influential, and historically entrenched conservative beliefs are. They haven't realized that they must move on to the higher endeavor of simply articulating the phenomenon. I don't look for solutions because I'm not informed enough to do so. The problem is still bigger than I understand it to be. It's no fun to abandon an argument and not go right to the question of, "But what do we do now?" But we're not ready because we don't know enough. We've been in this infinite loop for so long that we're only barely teasing out its structure. We need to first articulate how the conservative, corporate model of delusion works in America, and then, after we've done the arduous task, talk about change.
By Austin Kaiser, @Kaisermane
Help me create an oral history of what it means to be an artist in today’s day and age. Subscribe to Patreon for as little as $5 a month and fund independent writing like this.