On truth in politics

How many of us can claim that our beliefs have remained constant and unchanged throughout our entire lives? I would guess the the answer to that question is very few, if not none at all. For the insistence to hold the same belief in the light of new, conflicting evidence would be a kind of dogmatism. If dogmatism prevails, science would never progress and debates would be ultimately fruitless. In the most extreme form of dogmatism, nothing can be learnt from any enquiry or reasoning activity. Hence, it seems that there is nothing wrong or problematic about revising our beliefs when we come across new and credible evidence which demonstrates to be inconsistent with what we originally believe. In fact, it seems to be the rational thing to do. 

If this conclusion holds true, then the question of what evidence we choose to expose ourselves to is highly important. One may ask the following question, ‘Surely if one is to maximise the chances of attaining the truth, one must be exposed to ALL available evidence?’ That is a valid point. However, faced with the physical constraint of possessing finite resource and time, and that the sum of all knowledge in the world is of such an unimaginably huge quantity (if not infinite), how is it possible for us to realistically expose ourselves to ALL available evidence? 

If it is established that possessing complete awareness of all available evidence is impossible, then the overall balance of the evidence we access becomes an important issue. If it is not possible to become aware and to comprehend all the literature against, say, wealth redistribution, then the least that one can do is to ensure that one is exposed to the evidence provided by both sides of the debate. Whether any debate can be simplified into two clearly distinct sides is another issue, but staying open-minded in what we read and listen to seems to be the best approach of preventing ourselves from falsely believing in lies. 

To judge what is true and what is false, in politics, is an extremely difficult task. In contrast to philosophy, or in the natural sciences, there is a huge interest to deceive and to create exaggerated, if not downright false reports. A false report of a scandal, or perhaps the taking of a certain individual’s words out of context, for instance, can be of extreme benefit to a particular party. Even statistics can be interpreted, or should I say distorted, in ways which could advance a particular political end. How can we judge whether we are learning or whether we are being brainwashed by false ‘knowledge’?

‘Reason’ - may be the typical response to this question. But is reason infallible? Even the cleverest person in the world, it seems, is vulnerable to making mistakes. Even IF we concede that the cleverest person in the world is capable of avoiding all possible mistakes in reasoning, then it would seem that the average person must at least be vulnerable to some error in judgment. I understand that excess scepticism can debilitate action; but it seems that if we wish to hold true beliefs, or simply to avoid holding false beliefs, we must be sceptics to some extent. I also acknowledge that being overly sceptical can prevent us from fully committing to a cause; but perhaps this is only because a full commitment, when lacking a balanced knowledge ‘around a subject’, is rarely an embodiment of rationality. What this further entails is that perhaps one should always think carefully before making any claims about what they know or believe with certainty, particularly when the belief in question concerns politics.