I read an article today that made me cringe. It was about wage disparity, and lower taxes, and gas prices. The gist: the rich are getting richer, poor are getting poorer; low taxes and gas prices are to blame! Trigger some class warfare! Everyone rage!
Incidentally, I agreed with some points and disagreed with others. But what really bothered me was the author did all of his arguing through assumption.
The article began with a few charts describing wage disparity changes from year to year. Some of the charts were presented in a really aggravating way--simply expressing changes in numbers, without explaining some of the potential causes. For example, the top 10% taxpayers earned 2% more this year; the rest of us, on average, earned quite a bit less this year. Pitchforks out, everyone! Except it's not a conspiracy: the top 10% are largely people in jobs tied to the financial sector (CEOs, CFOs, Directors, financial professionals). This year was contradictorily good for business and bad (or so-so) for individuals. So then, all individuals took a hit--but those individuals whose fortunes are literally tied to the performance of businesses did quite well. Bam, mystery solved. Conspiracy averted.
Or not, whatever. I'm definitely oversimplifying. But my point is that charts, alone, with naught but the author's snide commentary to accompany and explain, do very little to educate and very much to enrage. The aggravation for me, however, began a few charts later.
After discussing wage disparity, the author moved on to how the U.S. is doing on the "solution," by which he really just meant tax levels. His rationale was that higher taxes would provide more money for the government, which would spend the money directly on poor people. Wealth redistribution to correct for wage disparity.
Let's put aside whether I agree or disagree with the idea. The point is, the actual argument was never made in the article. It was all charts: first charts on wage disparity, with snark about rich people; then charts on taxes, with snark about...well, rich people still. Charts that establish the premise, then charts that follow the conclusion. No argument made, but readers come away convinced.
Slick move, and it will probably work, right? Inevitably there will be a conversation in which someone defends their position using this article, pointing to charts and basically declaring that science has proven wage disparity is bad and high taxes are the solution. But that's not really what happened here.
What really happened is, we avoided the argument. We skipped straight to co-opted agreement. And I see that happening throughout our political narrative. People on both sides of the aisle have discovered that in the age of open dialogue, it's simply easier to win the argument prior to arguing--and so we don't actually open the conversation anymore. We don't ask whether taxes are the best method for wealth redistribution, or whether redistribution is appropriate, or whether poverty is even what the real problem is. We don't delve into the issue: we reinforce an assumed--but unexamined--position. This is dialogue in the age of information and wide-open communication.
It makes me sad, but honestly I understand why we're here. Real conversations on real positions get trolled out of existence. Open dialogue becomes a shouting match. Even if the conversation stays polite (an extreme rarity), everyone simply goes to Google, gets an intellectual pinch hitter, and before you know it you're just having someone else's conversation--usually for the umpteenth time.
So it's depressing to read political stuff on the internet--and now that I say it that way, I realize we could have just jumped to that conclusion a few paragraphs ago.
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