Ouija politics

In which the jolly contrarian Hayes amateur sociologist in the Christmas pantomime.

Every opinionated windbag knows the experience of trying in vain to dismantle a a transparently fatuous “political” argument.

Political in the wider sense of being a generalized disposition attributable to a generalized class of people. Are often political dispositions, but need not be. “Born again Christians”, “conservatives” (with big or little “c”) a, socialists, bitcoin maximalists, Guardianistas libertarians — this kind of group. One to whom one might attribute a generalized position, or set of beliefs.

Of course, the group is a narrative, as is its putative agenda: unless someone has published manifesto, no two individuals in the group will share identical beliefs, and it may be that no single individual holds exactly the beliefs ascribed to the group.

This is no different from observing that of 1000 individuals no single person will necessarily have the average height, weight, hand-size, inside seam, waist and chest measurement. The more dimensions you measure, the less likely it becomes.

Hence your struggle mounting an intellectual assault: your argument is deconstructs an average to which your particular opponent does not necessarily subscribe. Your intricate syllogisms snatch at thin air.

Hence atheists and Christians can shout themselves hoarse at each other, rather enjoying themselves, and make no ground on the other’s beliefs.

That narrative view — albeit unheld in the particular — nonetheless has an emergent power of its own, that comes from that aggregated view