When Truth is a Trap
Consider the following statement: “The fraction of young Muslim males who are terrorists is higher than the fraction of old Swedish women who are terrorists.” The statement is undoubtedly true, and everyone knows it. And someone who is committed to overcoming bias would frown upon any attempt to deny that it’s true merely because it makes some people uncomfortable.
But there’s a problem. Different people have different opinions regarding what attitudes and policies towards young Muslim males are appropriate. And some of those people simply don’t like them, for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the fact that a higher (though still tiny) proportion of them are terrorists, and would like to generate a generally hostile and illiberal attitude towards them. A very effective way to do this is to highlight the above fact. And it is likely to be effective even though everyone already knows that the fact is true; general attitudes towards young Muslim males will be more negative the more often the fact is repeated. And anyone who opposes such an agenda is in a pickle: they can concede that the fact is true and help advance the agenda of their opponants, or they can deny that it is true and look like idiots. Furthermore, the fact may be relevant for some non-illiberal purposes (say deciding which countries should need visas to enter the U.S.), and it becomes very hard to use it forthrightly in making that decision without advancing a very different agenda that you didn’t mean to advance.
What is to be done?
Compare the nation/society to the individual. The self-sacrificing do-gooder versus the charitable individual who has retained a healthy dose of self-interest.
We say it is good that Mr. Smith gives X amount to charity, gives a respectable amount of time to community outreach of some kind, etc.
We would also recognize as foolish the same behavior taken to another degree wherein Mr. Smith allowed his charitable activities to destroy his personal life, his family, his career, etc.
Liberalism towards all of humanity, without the tempering of common sense and a healthy dose of self-interest is simply foolish.
Not focusing on young Middle Eastern men in security processes is thus foolish.
Interring Americans of Japanese descent across the board, is/was, equally foolish.
Taking things out of balance in an exalted quest for ideological purity sounds noble, and I’m sure it makes one feel superior, but “fighting bias” while ignoring common sense always comes to negative results.
The reason academics are so often ridiculed in the private sector, is precisely because the professor tells the CEO he needs to hire more people of a certain demographic, and that in the long run, the CEO can help bring that group of people out of their plight. Meanwhile, the professor – utilizing a healthy dose of self-interest – makes his own investments, hires everyone from landscapers to accountants, and so on, based on the competency of the company/individual/investment, etc.
Think of Peter Singer and all of his pronouncements against the evils of a free society; that it’s murder for a person to keep more than $30K in annual pay, etc. But of course, he lives on much more than that, saying that he’ll live on less when we all lead the way.
Eliezer,
How best to counter this particular type of lie is exactly the question. I liked the suggestion by JewishAthiest about hitting your opponents with equally true but equally irrelevant facts that are uncomfortable to them. But it will only work if is not used just to score a point off the other side, but is followed up with something like: "OK, now can we leave aside true but irrelevant facts and talk about the actual issue?"