[MD] Straw Men and the Primacy of Trust

[Matt Kundert]

DMB said:
(In my experience, accusations boil the blood only to the extent that 
they're true - so much so that wild, implausible accusations will only 
amuse the accused.)

Matt:
That might be the nub assumption we differ on.  In my experience, 
accusations will boil the blood of a much larger range of psychological 
profiles, even when they are not true.  It is the existence of an 
audience, a third-party, that often creates the difference in reaction 
for these kinds of people.  Further, I do not think these kinds of people 
are morally deficient (i.e., I don't think they _shouldn't_ be that way).  
For, if one assumes that people will only have their blood boil if they've 
been caught out in a lie (i.e., that boiling blood is in fact an 
_admission of guilt_), and people of these varying types don't think 
they _have_ admitted anything, and still honestly and sincerely think 
the accusation misguided, invalid, wrong, unmeritorious, etc., then 
one response is to think that the persons blood boiling is a weakness 
in character, a mistake on their part.

You've described a very recognizable profile, one associated with the 
American archetype of the "rugged individual," a type that also often 
looks askance  at those (as being too genteel) who do behave 
differently in front of audiences (or worse, different audiences).  The 
image of the rugged individual is typically associated with an 
apotheosis of authenticity, a sense that your true self doesn't change, 
no matter where you are, and that signs of mutability, of acting, of 
showing different sides of yourself (or even, of _having_ different 
sides of yourself) are all kinds of hypocrisy.  Pirsig, in fact, fits well 
into this picture of what moral types we should commend.  (A very 
good book on the history of this type in modern culture is Lionel 
Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity.)

I'm not trying to thrust too much responsibility on the head of 
accusers, or more generally, asserters of claims.  There is a danger 
of that in trying to get that equilibrium right, but I do, absolutely and 
unequivocally, think there is a responsibility on the part of the 
asserter.  You, also, do not want to deny this.  However, I think I 
may be angling for a more complex picture of responsibility than the 
one you might be presenting.  And the complexity might lie in the 
sense that I want to account for more neutrally judged 
psychological-response possibilities.  So, I might be willing to say 
that _everything_ does not, in the end, come down to whether the 
claim has merit.  That everything does just come down to the merit 
of the claim might be a kind of Machiavellianism that I don't think is 
good.  It's not that the ends justify the means, in this picture, but 
that the means don't matter, just so long as the ends are just.  I 
think progress in justice has shown us that the means do matter in 
thinking about the long approach to just ends (i.e., if we have 
greater assiduity in our choice of means, then that will in fact create 
greater likelihood in being right in our ends).  There are ways to 
accuse, and ways not to, and the justification for there being good 
and bad ways (whatever the truth/merit of the claim) is that people 
are more likely to be justly accused if one follows the good ways.  
That's abstract, but it might cut a joint of difference between us.  
(Depends on how broadly you construe "merit.")

Matt