Getting Started

Productive Course Discussions

A core element of this course is online discussion. It’s important that we respect each other in these conversations. It’s fine to disagree, but please do so in a way that recognizes the humanity of the people with whom you are speaking. One way to do this is to make sure you critique ideas rather than criticize individuals. Another way is by committing to learning, not debating. In other words, focus on sharing information rather than persuading.

Remember that digital conversations often lack the nuance of first-hand conversations, so give each other the benefit of the doubt (and, when writing, keep in mind readers may not get nuance, so it’s probably to avoid modes of communication like sarcasm).

It should go without saying that hate speech based on race, gender, class, ability, etc. is unacceptable. However, be aware that there are other ways in which systemic racism can expose itself in conversation. Avoid generalizations about social groups, and do not ask individuals to speak for a social group.

Finally, be aware of misinformation and disinformation. It can come in many forms, but it also has no place in our discussions. Some obvious examples include:

False equivalency: In short, this is drawing an equivalence between two things based on faulty reasoning (more colloquially known as comparing apples and oranges).
Both side-ism: Similar in a sense to false equivalency, this approach is often used in political debates to suggest that opposite sides have equally valid arguments and that both should be represented in all conversations. However, just because two sides disagree does not mean that both sides have equally valid arguments. As Roger Berkowitz, Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and Professor of Politics, Philosophy, and Human Rights at Bard College, writes: “Simply saying both sides lie when one side lies prolifically and shamelessly and the other side tells smaller lies with greater compunction would hide a meaningful difference.”
The merchant-of-doubt approach: This technique is, at its core, an attempt to sow doubt rather than pursue knowledge. The merchant of doubt does not necessarily seek to prove or disprove ideas, but rather to undermine the bases for establishing facts and knowledge. This approach often presents the merchant of doubt as operating in the “marketplace of ideas” and simply offering alternative ways to think about the world, when in fact, this person is often disingenuously undermining our capacity to pursue knowledge. Below are a few ways this happens:

Imposing unrealistic standards of certainty before a position can be considered valid. This can happen in at least two ways. In the first instance, an individual denies the credibility of a position despite overwhelming evidence. They might point out that the science is incomplete or that experts are not in 100% agreement, when in fact the vast majority of experts agree. In the second instance, this is reversed: an individual claims certainty because a position cannot be disproven. A famous instance of this is Bertrand Russell’s teapot. He notes that one could claim that there was a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars that was too small to be picked up by telescopes. Making this claim does not make it true just because it can’t be falsified.

A second merchant of doubt approach is skepticism for skepticism’s sake. This technique offers few to no answers, instead focusing on generating doubt about claims to knowledge with which the person disagrees. One popular form is the devil’s advocate strategy in which an individual presents an opposing position that they ostensibly don’t believe. While the devil’s advocate approach has historically been used to refine arguments, in popular culture, it’s a common technique among trolls who simply want to increase discord or who want to express noxious ideas without consequence.

Merchants of doubt will often use a third technique, the red herring, to redirect attention or conversation from the core concern to another that has little relevance. This is usually done as an approach to undermine the original idea through distraction. It is often done by pointing out an irrelevant fact or an abandoned theory to force attention away from the topic at hand.

I point these examples out, because they are common in contemporary conversations—and because they have one thing in common: to spread misinformation or disinformation. Given that this is a course based at a university, we are attempting to pursue knowledge based on rigorous logic, empirical fact, scientific method, humanistic inquiry, and critical analysis. As such, we want to avoid misinformation and disinformation—and to point it out when relevant.

If you are interested in learning more about misinformation and disinformation, feel free to work through this module: https://iu.instructure.com/courses/1937127