Omissions and Positions

Forgive me but it has been 4 years since my last blog. Not that I believe that anyone will either notice or care. These blatherings are usually for my benefit, a sort of aide memoire on cogitations and polemic. The act of blogging is, for me, less an act of self-publication but more a record of how my mind worked at the time and what exercised me.

One of the problems I have with any blogging of substance is that I start from a position where I am firm in what I believe is my own subjective understanding of what the problem is. And then I look at what I am writing and know that I really should have supporting evidence for my claims. Then I look at that evidence and chastise myself for cherry-picking that which corresponds to my position. So I then go out of my way to look at both unbiased evidence on the subject and even go so far as to look at evidence that directly contravenes my position. Once I have looked at it all I then evaluate that evidence and see if my position changes.

Then I realise that a week or two has passed and the thing I wanted to write about has either changed or nobody cares about it any more.

So I don't write. But I do learn.

I try to avoid the echo chamber that is social media where the tendency is to cluster in groups that can affirm confirmation bias and cultivate viewpoints from across the political spectrum. I can find myself vociferously disagreeing with someone on a particular subject/policy with whom I normally share many views. Other times I find myself in agreement with particular issues and the position of those on the opposite end of the political/social/ethnographical spectrum from me. What I do see is the rise of tribalism, the growth of the ad-hominem where reasoned debate actually would be a more sensible way forward. But I also realised that reason and fact isn't enough to sway entrenched positions - on either side including mine.

Where the subject of my writing is something entirely subjective then I don't hesitate. Anything I write as a review or critique is precisely my own opinion. Any facts are moot when I am writing about whether it appealed to me and the fault I found in it. I cannot in good conscience do the same when it's about policies and actions that affect society, the populus or the planet. For that I need as many facts as I can grasp and how those facts stack up to become evidence for or against something. I want to know, if something is described as an issue or problem, then what is the scale of that problem? Is it a genuine problem or is it just a media pleasing gimmick? Is there any evidence that the problem exists or is this just to appease those that think anecdotal is empirical evidence (clue: it isn't). If there is a problem does the proposal actually address the issue? If the proposal doesn't then what would be the unintended (or entirely intended but not stated) consequence?

So maybe that's why I don't write so often. Because I have too much thinking to do