There is a saying I keep in mind not just for my day to day job, but for every area of my life. Admittedly, it is fortune cookie wisdom, but despite my usual disdain for vague platitudes, this one carries some actual weight with me for it’s simple utility.

“A problem clearly stated is a problem half solved.”

The first thing to do when attacking a problem is to define it as clearly as possible. This is easier said than done, because people very easily get this step entirely wrong. It’s why we have a million social programs that are largely ineffectual at solving the issues they are meant to fix. It’s why we collect enormous amounts of taxes, and then still run a national deficit. Throwing money at problems, especially vaguely defined problems, doesn’t fix them. It usually creates more problems, which is why I find it infuriating when people talk about how the government should deal with things like poverty, unemployment, racism, education, and sexism without realizing how futile such a suggestion is. An amorphous entity like the government solving an ephemeral problem like racism in general? That’s insipidly ignorant on such a monumental level, I would even deign to call it double plus bad.

How do we solve racism, then? Define it clearly. Should a person receive different treatment based on their race? Still too vague. Should a person pay a different price for a good or service based on their race? That’s getting closer. I would say no, and it’s specific enough to be codified in law. The inverse of this, people getting paid differently based on race, is also specific enough to be codified in law. That’s why we did that. But systemic racism? Something that cannot be defined, and exists as more of a general feeling rather than something clearly defined? Impossible to fix. Too vague, so solutions will always be mediocre at best.

This is my biggest frustration. There is a non-partisan group of pseudo and faux intellectuals who do the exact opposite of defining problems. They continually obfuscate to the point of absurdity, and tear down any existing systems as imperfect while never presenting concrete alternatives. This is, literally, destructive. People have actually said that even if Jussie Smollett did stage a hate crime hoax, the important thing is that the event sparked a needed conversation on racism.

Excuse me? Are you serious?

Some people might say “the journey is the destination”, and while that has some value applied to how one approaches life in the moment rather than always living in the past or thinking of the future, I would contend that in regards to intellectual discussion, we want to get results in the end. A conversation with respect to intellectual, political, or cultural issues(yes, I think all three are separate but related) is only valuable if it produces something. Is it worth it to raise racial tensions if you don’t come up with actual solutions to anything? Is a hard conversation that does nothing more than stir up negative emotion worth it? I say no… it’s not.

“But we need to address difficult issues!” you might yell at me through your computer screen. Yes, we do. The operative word is address. And like I said, we can’t solve a problem we don’t understand. So much rhetoric, especially that of a political nature, is purposefully obtuse and designed to manipulate. I hate that stuff. It does not clarify, it makes people less informed by feeding them a false reality. But you want to know the real problem here?

I’m still being too vague. I’m talking generalities. It’s all unsolvable because I haven’t clearly stated the problem.

Here is the problem, or at least one of them. Those aforementioned intellectuals? They are more concerned more with being right than being correct. The difference? Being “right” is the perception from others, while being “correct” is the factual basis. Or, for our purposes, that is how I will frame it, since language serves us and not the other way around. But why this distinction? Because some people believe there is no such thing as “correct”, even if they will never outright admit this.

I could say this is a postmodernist principle… and it is. Subjective morality is apparently a feature, not a bug, of postmodernism. But to put it solely at the feet of postmodernism is insufficient. This is something held by what I will collectively refer to as the “bad actor”. These are people who lie, mislead, deceive, conflate, and just generally do everything they can, wittingly or not, to reduce the ability of people to understand the world. These people follow no creed, they bear no flag. They are in every single movement that mankind has ever formed, and there is no simple test for finding them. This is not a left or right phenomenon, it is a degeneration of morality. They hold the assertion that reality is fundamentally not objective, and thus our actions carry no real consequence. All that matters is power and acquiring what we desire, everything else is disposable. Most of all… morality.

Can you see the problem now? We have people who cannot be reasoned with, cannot be trusted, and cannot be easily detected. So, what is the solution?

Well, now that I have defined the problem as specifically as I can(though even this still might be woefully inadequate), I can attempt to offer a solution.

1. Know what you believe, and why you believe it.

Bad actors always try to confuse people and make them question their fundamental beliefs while providing no useful alternatives, whether the actor realizes that is what they are doing or not. Picking a hole in some ideology does not make their own points right, nor does it immediately invalidate that ideology. It is always possible that they are offering a skewed image of that way of thinking, and I find they will sometimes go as far to willfully misunderstand someone who explains away their objection. Bad actors will always prey on the least informed, so if you don’t know the subject someone is trying to debunk, then take everything the antagonist presents with a grain of salt.

2. Recognize the intellectual non-sequitur

One thing I see a lot is using logical fallacies as a crutch. Yes, logical fallacies mean an argument is basically invalid from a logical perspective, but they should still be refutable through an explanation. For example, an attack on someone’s character does not refute any argument, hence the Ad Hominem fallacy. But if I say “Socialism doesn’t work, and has never worked, you historically ignorant moron.”, the bad faith actor will hone in on the insult and ignore the argument within. You could say I shouldn’t bring insults into conversations at all, but this is merely an example that could be expanded to other situations. They latch onto pointless details within an argument rather than trying to understand the point you are making.

3. Disallow the debate troll

Interestingly enough, I’ve seen a debate troll call other people debate trolls. But this is a real thing. A debate troll believes nothing, and only seeks to deconstruct. He seeks to provoke, antagonize, and derail only. He does not abide criticism of his own way of thinking, though he is more than happy to provide it to other philosophies. Usually, they are fast talkers, aggressive, and think quick on their feet. I would call a debate troll a subset of the bad actor. The only thing to do with these people is to ignore them. Mocking them is also an option, but you should not waste time trying to debate them in good faith, because they will not extend you the same consideration.

4. Keep a filtered mind

We should not have a blindly open mind. There is too much falsehood in the world to just accept things at face value. Nor should we have a closed mind, as it is astronomically unlikely that we already know everything that is true. Thus, we should navigate the razor edge between these two, and consider new ideas without becoming immediately ensnared by them. We should talk with people we disagree with, and figure out if both parties can either come to an understanding, or at least gain a better view of the opposing side. We should learn to recognize the bad actor, and only observe from a distance rather than engage directly. It’s the old “don’t feed the trolls” advice; once you know someone isn’t interested in honesty, any attempt at genuine discussion is futile. The best you can do is learn about their techniques so you can properly classify not just the techniques, but the kind of person who uses them.

Well, these are my ideas at least. This turned into something similar to my post on Intellect Signaling, but I think this is still different enough to have value. I see an increasing amount of political division, and this is my current attempt to move towards remedying it. Let me know what you think in the comments below, and feel free to add your own ideas on how to recognize and combat these bad actors.

Meandering Musing: Define the Problem