[Tango-L] Style Wars: Truth and Truthiness

[Jay Rabe]

Highly enjoyable discussion. 
On the subject of whether it applies to tango-L: 
If you're talking about governments or economic systems, while you can of course have highly polarized viewpoints, regardless there are metrics and objective criteria that can be evaluated to assess the truth of one side's assertion of being a "better" system - per-capita income, unemployment rate, price stability, etc. The presence of such criteria are necessary, it seems, so that the "ignoring evidence inconsistent with the position/belief" principle can even be applied.
However it seems to me that most of the really polarized debates on Tango-L are about what I call semantics, eg: what is the difference between the style I call milonguero, vs. the style you call close-embrace? Or: If I'm dancing to pop music, doing steps that (in the absence of music) anyone knowledgeable would recognize as Argentine Tango steps, can I call the dance I'm doing Argentine Tango in spite of the music? 
For these kind of questions and issues, it seems the relevant core factors are personal preference and values, and I cannot imagine what evidence one might offer to support either polar position. 

            J
          TangoMoments.com


> To: Tango-L at mit.edu
> From: Stephen.P.Brown at dal.frb.org
> Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:59:03 -0600
> Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Style Wars: Truth and Truthiness
> 
> Previously I wrote:
> >> Rather than approximating the truth, the forever ongoing style wars on
> >>Tango-L are more likely to yield what Stephen Colbert calls 
> 'truthiness.'
> 
> Konstantin responded:
> >[T]ruthiness is not an inherent property of the medium or
> >method of organization and of information exchange, but
> >of the people that participate in it.
> 
> Agreed, but I would add "and of the way the relate to each other."
> 
> >Consequently, this problem seems to appear more readily and
> >is more difficult to quash in places/meeing groups/blogs that
> >are mostly populated by right-wing authoritarians.
> 
> I don't see what authoritarians (right-wing or otherwise) have to do with 
> it.  Truthiness is the result of informal networks of like-minded 
> individuals who reinforce each others' perspectives and help maintain 
> individual biases.  The key to an unbiased outcome is that there is a 
> mechanism for sharing and aggregating the information and that observers 
> are independent of each other rather than polarized into identifiable 
> groups with self-perpetuating biases.  In a polarized world where 
> liked-minded individuals replicate the information that others have 
> provided, the independence property necessary to avoid truthiness isn't 
> found.
> 
> As I see it, when it comes to style wars and many other topics, Tango-L 
> participants do seem to separate themselves into smaller networks of 
> people who hold substantially similar views and support each other.  In 
> such cases, they generate self-perpetuating polarizing views with an 
> us-versus-them mentality.  Those are exactly the conditions that develop 
> competing truthinesses.
> 
> With best regards,
> Steve
> 
> 
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