Good faith vs Bad faith

mookieproof otm

probably more accusations of bad faith than actual bad faith rn. but usually only in politics threads

more accusations of bad faith than actual bad faith

These are broadly the same thing? Or at least end up having the same effect? Once you get into this territory you're moving away from the topic at hand and into more existential territory around defeating an opponent, and thats a distraction and a dead end. Fighting a battle that actually an unstated other battle rather than the one ostensibly at hand is where things start to spiral!

As tetchy as things have gotten on ilx the last many months...if you zoom out and think abt how insane our lives are right now...it could be a lot worse

17 years ago, as no WMDs were found in iraq, a former friend of mine was all like 'so you're saying that the world would be a better place with saddam hussein still in charge there, right?'

i can only imagine the gymnastics he's performing these days

I always try to make it clear when I'm trying to defeat someone, in case anyone is accusing me of bad faith

This is touching on something else, which is the desire to be right, to win - which has some problems. Its not bridge building or consensus making, it focuses from a starting point of difference rather than agreement and can we build on that. Its difficult in a format which inherently rewards stridency, and we can all be guilty of that (and sometimes its merited)

If you think someone is genuinely coming from a place of bad faith, they most likely see you as the problem, rather than anything you are saying at that moment. Accusing them of bad faith (even if true) can't help in winding that down, that in itself is a trap and unproductive i think

17 years ago, as no WMDs were found in iraq, a former friend of mine was all like 'so you're saying that the world would be a better place with saddam hussein still in charge there, right?'

A classic of the genre! Though actually isn't he right? Weren't you saying the world would be a better place with Saddam in charge? Phrasing it like that is obviously weird and designed to provoke an emotional response but the conclusion is actually correct?

As tetchy as things have gotten on ilx the last many months...if you zoom out and think abt how insane our lives are right now...it could be a lot worse

― singular wolf erotica producer (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 11:13 PM bookmarkflaglink

this is otm. i was expecting a coup, with LJ possibly usurping control of the borads

you could occupy a very powerful role in my Council

Non internet it's easy because you can see when someone is playing devil's advocate and it's not smart so I just switch off.

And I think online and on a board where you get to know what matters or does not to a poster you can see how that plays out too. Although it might take a bit longer to figure out.

Charlie Kirk has been tweeting about why he’s done watching the NBA for seven years. pic.twitter.com/iaNk2wOWYj

— Chris Jackson (@ChrisCJackson) July 31, 2020

xp is this you admitting the tools of your trade?

I don't find "good faith" and "bad faith" to be particularly useful concepts in deciding whether to enter a discussion.

For me, there are two criteria for whether I enter a discussion. 1) do I genuinely think that there's a chance that *I* might learn something, through having the discussion? 2) is there a genuine chance that at least one of the people involved might be willing to change their mind? (And the person in criteria 2 might very well be me!)

Criteria 1 - I do often learn things from people I have (fairly minor, but important) differences from. Discussion, and teasing out the shape of those disagreements can be a very powerful way of learning. But there has to be a certain level of mutual respect, and mutual enjoyment for that to happen. (And a good way to discover whether you do have mutual respect, is to find out how each other handle small disagreements before you move on to the important ones.)

Criteria 2 - well, I have a pretty good understanding on the kinds of new information or new paradigms or new theory or different experiences I had not encountered, that could change my mind, so I'm learning to recognise whether other people display the capacity to provide me with those kind of things. In the other person, that's harder - have they shown the ability to learn and grasp new ideas before? Do they seem like *they* actually want to engage in a mutual learning process? Are they actually engaging with me, and the things I'm saying, or are they talking to some weird projection of their own issues somewhere six feet over my left shoulder? (I don't always manage that one myself, to be honest, so if I catch myself doing that, I generally find that it's a good sign that *I* am the one who should exit the conversation.)

But there has to be a certain level of mutual respect, and mutual enjoyment for that to happen. (And a good way to discover whether you do have mutual respect, is to find out how each other handle small disagreements before you move on to the important ones.)

This is true and also surprisingly rare ime

I wouldn’t say I use good/bad faith as criteria for engaging in a conversation but I do use it to determine whether I stay in a conversation, usually using questions similar to the ones Branwell posed.

Yesterday on Twitter, I engaged in some wild speculation about the potential for COVID-19 to create a large population of citizens with debilitating long-term medical conditions and some yahoo with less than 20 followers popped up to quote much smaller death statistics at me, completely ignoring that I wasn’t talking about mortality rates and that if his were actually correct, the size of the at-risk population I was discussing was actually an order of magnitude higher and the problem I was speculating about could be much worse than my already-and-admittedly handewavey numbers were making it out to be. Instead, he stubbornly insisted on quoting a death rate which, if accurate, has already been surpassed by reality. I engaged him solely to put my narrative out to others who might have more concrete information than my speculation then ignored him as he refused to engage the topic I was actually discussing and was parroting information cherrypicked to minimize the potential threat of the pandemic. It was a bad-faith conversation and I quickly saw my way out of it.

Conversely, I said some extremely harsh things about Jody Rosen’s article championing “Lean On Me” as the US national anthem on a mutual friend’s Facebook wall; he engaged me, stated further thoughts and intentions that were not evident in the article as presented, and thanked me for the feedback, which he viewed as valuable since I effectively took away the exact opposite messages of what he was trying to communicate. I thanked him for engaging me and, while I still disagreed with his article and the reasons he dismissed other anthem candidates, the conversation ended well and I think we both got something out of it. That is the definition of a good faith conversation, to me.

And sometimes it’s not even a “this person is in bad faith” or “that argument is in good faith” but it is about the chemistry between those conversants in that space?

I agree that it's a reductive framing of the interaction, yeah. Intentionally so; I find it easier to start a conversation within specific boundaries and then explore how those boundaries expand.

xp is this you admitting the tools of your trade?

― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Friday, 31 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Lol, "trade" implies a skill I could make a living from. I would if I could!

So yes.

i won't argue with anyone i am not 100% sure is a real person with honorable intentions
life is too short and i have more than enough argument on my plate, not hungry for more

what makes me sense that someone is arguing in bad faith? if they are arguing with me and do not know me personally, for starters!

i will settle for a real person whose identity i can verify; intentions are hard to determine but actually not that hard when a person who doesn't know me at all/hasn't talked to me in 20+ years is suddenly itching to argue.

Sorry, DJP, that was an x-post to kinder.

It was a bad-faith conversation and I quickly saw my way out of it.

I think this gets to the heart of it. It is much, much easier to recognise bad faith arguments, than it is to recognise "good" faith arguments.

If you're talking about structural racism, and someone starts "all lives matter"-ing, or if you're talking about structural misogyny and the other person immediately goes "oh, you just hate men" or if you're trying to talk trans stuff and your awful uncle starts up with "penis = man" you KNOW immediately that's a bad faith argument and you can make a swift exit with whatever energy you have left.

It takes something far more ineffable, and "you know it when you see it" to recognise the "good faith" arguments, even sometimes when you are already in them. (Like, when you started rubbishing Jody's piece, did you even know you were doing a "good faith" argument or were you just venting about an awful piece of criticism you read online?)

Something else that's quite important (and Anvil has kind of touched on in the brainworms thread before) - is recognising the terrain of the conversation. Recognising the rhetorical style, or whatever, of the conversant.

Some people are really swayed by logical arguments, by facts, by contextualisation, by understanding more about the topic. And for other people, it really is more of a feelings and emotions and social connections thing. (And, indeed, the same people can operate in different modes on different topics.) If you think you're in a logic, facts, contexts conversation, and the other person is in a feelings, emotions, social connections conversation, that is going to run into rocky ground very fast. And it's not even a good faith / bad faith problem. It's people operating in different modes.

(I've said this many times on the No Boys thread, if someone starts talking astrology, the correct thing to do is not to start debunking their terrible pseudo-science, it is to recognise that they are giving you *emotional* information about themselves and their relationship to you, and flip into "this is about social connection" mode.)

For the facts, logic, contexts person, it is sufficient to be Right! All that is required is to provide data and prove the thesis statement, and then you have won the argument, Q.E.D. For the feelings, social connections person - a far more effective and persuasive conversation would involve, "well, this would be the *kindest* thing to do" or "wouldn't this be fairer to everyone involved?" or "this would promote peace in your social circle and bring you closer to your friends and loved ones." I really struggle with the latter style of conversations (and I thank my therapist for teaching me how to *do* them, at all) but for many emotive topics, these kinds of conversations are far more persuasive - and far better at counteracting actual propaganda, which always works on an emotive level, and not a rational level.

I think I conflate concern trolling with bad faith. Or is concern trolling a form of bad faith? I'm specifically thinking of conservatives who are deeply concerned about murder in Chicago.

And it's not even a good faith / bad faith problem. It's people operating in different modes.

I think this is largely true, or at least there is overlap. For instance a key part of 'bad faith' delivery, for me, is misrepresentation. Someone intentionally misrepresenting what I've said, or misunderstanding. But my RW cousin consistently 'mishears' what I've said in such a way that I don't think its intentional. Its more that he has decided what I've said before I've said it. The exchange for him is more of a big picture exchange, and the detail is an obfuscation (weirdly inverting the concept of bad faith almost to a point where he might see my 'detail' as the bad faith, intended to trip up a more obvious big picture truth which is self-evident to him)

Which comes back to this idea of modes. Its also why I think 'debates' don't really work, why challenging often doesn't really work. Its focused on an end goal and working backwards, instead of fixing on a starting point of what is shared.

if there is enough shared (and that might be as little as 20%), perhaps there is the possibility of moving that forward to 30%. This seems more productive than starting at oppositional points

This is all complicated by the fact that on TV, youtube, print and elsewhere, people are paid to do this, and many of those wheeled out on 'the other side' aren't really equipped, and often end up flustered and frustrated (in some cases leading to the well worn eye roll)

Sara Ahmed - "Rolling eyes is feminist pedagogy".

Its more that he has decided what I've said before I've said it.

Yeah, this is definitely a thing. (Again, something I know I have done myself, too, so I know how easy it is to do.)

I think it’s possible for people to hold un-PC beliefs / beliefs that I find reprehensible and not necessarily be acting in bad faith when they argue them. But maybe I don’t understand what bad faith means.

So yes.

― let them microwave their rice (gyac), Friday, 31 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Feeling this is bad faith from you

Its more that he has decided what I've said before I've said it.

I initially put the 'blame' on him for this (and there is some to go there don't get me wrong). But I've also had to think, well what can I do to try and make that not the case). In some ways the phyiscal reactions, body language, signs of irritation, tone of voice, he's using those as cues and much of the conversation is actually happening there (and for me it must be too). So when I say he's already decided what I've said before I've said it, maybe thats only partially true and whats actually happening is he's listening to my mannerisms and speech patterns more so than my words, And even if I'm speaking as neutrally as possible and aiming to not give away visual cues, if my underlying mode is to win, then thats still obvious, more obvious than any words that might be said

This is really what I've gradually tried to jettison, the focus on being right, and to try and get more towards understandings

I think it’s possible for people to hold un-PC beliefs / beliefs that I find reprehensible and not necessarily be acting in bad faith when they argue them.

Of course it is. Most people would say Richard Spencer argue in good faith? Its right there on the tin. Someone like Tim Pool on the other hand..

I assume everyone is arguing in good faith unless they’re obviously trying to speak to/influence an audience - ie arguing with one person on Twitter but it’s actually for the benefit of 500k followers who will see it.

'bad faith' to me is when you really believe one thing, but you aren't comfortable admitting it, so you go for the plausible deniability of objecting on procedural grounds ("I don't have a dog in this fight, but I question the logic you're using here!") or sea-lioning ("I'm not against Black Lives Matter, but why not a more open-tent approach?") in an attempt to chip away at the opposition so that you can win the debate through attrition (the other person flipping out at you or retreating).

like that one Hendrix vs Van Halen thread when a few people were saying it was obviously Hendrix who was a better guitarist, and St3v3 Goldb3rg started arguing with these people, saying that it's fine to find Hendrix better, but you can't use bad logic and poorly constructed arguments like he alleged they were. but then after pushback he admitted he just thought Van Halen was better and that was his real M.O..

In my lexicon, arguing in "bad faith" does not equate to employing an indefensible argument, based in ignorance. Ignorance itself is not a form of bad faith. Rather, it means knowingly employing a weak or false argument and adhering to it in the face of contrary facts and a stronger argument structured around those facts. iow, at the point where your interlocutor begins to deny the relevance of a reality contrary to their position they've entered the wonderful world of bad faith arguing.

An example that comes easily to hand is when "death with dignity" laws are being opposed on specious and false grounds, such as the slippery slope argument that it is just a preliminary step to euthanasia of the old and disabled. Such laws have been in existence for decades now and no such slippery slope has appeared. Pointing out this reality should result in their rethinking and retracting the slippery slope. If they say "that proves nothing", then they are committing to asserting a non-existent reality, based on no facts observable anywhere. That's instant "bad faith".

'bad faith' to me is when you really believe one thing, but you aren't comfortable admitting it

Contra my boundless optimism in this regard, it does happen all the time on ILX, i.e.

The Official, 100% Anonymous ILX Self-Censorship Poll

Bad Faith is also Earth-2 George Michael's best album

Boolean faith vs Fuzzy faith

For me, there are two criteria for whether I enter a discussion. 1) do I genuinely think that there's a chance that *I* might learn something, through having the discussion? 2) is there a genuine chance that at least one of the people involved might be willing to change their mind? (And the person in criteria 2 might very well be me!)

then after pushback he admitted he just thought Van Halen was better and that was his real M.O

for some reason this is really poignant to me rn -- like, it should become some sort of shorthand to deploy -- a la is this a "Van Halen was better" clusterfuck?

good faith means you’re stating something you believe or are willing to posit while accepting people may disagree, may find disagreeable, or may question your basic assumptions. you don’t have to accept those disagreements, reply to them, or make assumptions about where they are coming from without reasonable discussion

bad faith isn’t necessarily a thing. it comes from dissembling, being unwilling to accept your wording or premises (or even their historical/institutional stance) may have been in error, or that you are posting something you don’t want to be questioned

our words have contexts, sometimes based on past interaction, and insisting that others interact in good faith when you’ve been guilty of any of the above in the past assumes a lot. be kind, perhaps even walk on quiet feet when you’re trying to speak to a group where your words have been unclear in the past. if someone seems unnecessarily aggrieved by your current words, do not take personal offense but consider the past.

tl;dr no knee-jerk reactions to the knee-jerk reactions to those you’ve quarreled with in the past unless they’re universally bad actors. it’s better in that case to play dumb or just ask, not assume

is making an argument that is obviously intended to refer to a specific set of circumstances or an individual person but without stating that -- is that good faith or bad faith? or just passive-aggressive? asking for a friend. ... not to be self-righteous about it, because I have done it as well, but it's uh, impressively self-referential here and now

Bad Faith is also Earth-2 George Michael's best album

my brain read this as Earth doing a George Michael cover album and if someone could get Dylan Carlson on the phone that would be great

xp - I don't think it's either. "Bad faith" (in terms of debate/argument/conversation) is pretty simple, IMO - arguing what you know to be untrue, to serve your desired ends. Bush/Cheney/Powell leading up to Iraq were arguing for it in bad faith, knowing that there were no WMDs or links to al-Qaeda. Your dimwitted cousin who was pro-war was most likely acting in good faith because they believed their leaders were telling them the truth.

The line becomes blurry when you can't tell if someone is stupid or in on it. Joe Rogan is acting in good faith because he's a numbskull; Ben Shapiro is probably acting in bad faith because he either has a career to serve or he's an ideological true believer who's happy to get his followers riled up to serve those ends. But he might actually just be as much of a numbskull as Rogan.

If we're going to accept the premise of 'bad faith' then some, most, or even all of this thread would now appear to qualify. It the 'obviously' in obviously intended is referring to this thread itself it definitely wasn't obvious to me!

If true then yes, soliciting opinions on a specific thing without stating it is a form of bad faith. The removal of specificity can be done with the idea of making something 'clearer' but it is a form of skullduggery. It makes an assumption that the specific is an example of the abstract and asks you to implicitly agree with the premise but without being told thats whats been done

Rogan's position can change of its own accord. Shapiro's would only change by design.

I think a lot of this might actually be about how zoomed in or out you are. eg if your position is scousers are thieves and you use a particular example of a theft as evidence knowing it not to be true. Its bad faith in that you're arguing something you know not to be true - but you don't care because its handy evidence and it will do, and you think bigger picture 'all scousers are thieves' is true regardless of this one particular scouser, so it becomes true in the abstract even if not in the specific.

So whether its bad faith or not starts to depend on your stance (pointing out this particular case isn't a scouser becomes nitpicking)

If true then yes, soliciting opinions on a specific thing without stating it is a form of bad faith. The removal of specificity can be done with the idea of making something 'clearer' but it is a form of skullduggery. It makes an assumption that the specific is an example of the abstract and asks you to implicitly agree with the premise but without being told thats whats been done

Anvil, you're very perceptive. I get caught out by this a lot. It's a form of bait and switch.

I took the topic of the thread seriously, thought about specific examples in recent conversations I had decided to have or not have (and weirdly, none of them were conversations on ILX? One was a private twitter DM thread I decided to engage; the other was a set of private DMs on another messageboard where I noped out of the conversation when it became apparent in which direction it was going.) That I was using it as a place to think carefully about my own actions, without realising that others were using it as a soap box to give their opinions on others' actions!

I did not see that possibility, and I now feel foolish about that. It's always a shock to realise that I am seeing one set of contexts, while other people are working with a completely different set of contexts that did not occur to me. (And it's completely mutual, that my context is as obscure and inexplicable to them, as theirs are to me.) As an autistic person, grasping the contents of other people's minds can be *incredibly* difficult. It's like being inside a very specific kind of philosophical solipsism all the time. (Which some people choose to read as narcissism, which... you know, whatever.) But the blithe assumptions that others make about the contents of my own mind, and put forward as the truth - since diagnosis, I am at least aware that I have little grasp on other people's interior worlds - but they seem genuinely unaware that they don't have a grasp on mine, either.

When I am having an Actual Discussion, and not just ~messageboard chit-chat~ I really do try to discuss the background and context of each word in the original question, to make sure that that the actual argument under discussion is clear to both parties. ("Do you belive in god?" well, what does 'you' mean, what does 'believe' mean, what does 'god' mean? Once we are in agreement on those words, then I can answer the question.) That a discussion where two people are using the same words with different contexts and interpretations may not actually *be* bad faith, even though it sure can feel like it. But an argument where one person is deliberately using one word or context in a way that obscures other meanings or contexts they are still continuing to draw on (or deny) is bad faith from the start?

This comes up a lot in litigation — I tend to think of a “good faith” argument as one that has some reasonable basis in the law or the facts even if it could be wrong, whereas a “bad faith” argument is one where you just willfully ignore contradictory facts or law. Like the other day I took a deposition and I asked the guy “Did CrookedCo ever have a policy against doing x?” And he said “Absolutely not, we never had any policy against that.” And then I showed him an email in which he wrote “We at CrookedCo do not do x, please keep this confidential.”

He was trying to claim that it wasn’t really a “policy” but that email made it a bad faith argument imo.

This comes up a lot in litigation — I tend to think of a “good faith” argument as one that has some reasonable basis in the law or the facts even if it could be wrong, whereas a “bad faith” argument is one where you just willfully ignore contradictory facts or law.

This is consistent with U.S. tax practice as well -- though there are a bunch of different metrics about how "good" one's faith in based on percentages of likelihood that it would be accepted/accurate. ... Most of this w/r/t to the tax code is relevant to what type of citation and fine you can get if the IRS/tax court disagrees with your position. Basically the penalties for making a good faith mistake are much lower than those for making bad faith mistakes, which may/may not constitute "tax fraud" -- where the penalties for preparers / agents / attorneys are the equivalent often of being dis-barred from doing tax work.

I mean -- I kinda did a similar thing in terms of changing the subject to the chain store/classism -- so idk

I don't think it's bad faith to change the subject of a discussion ?

Right. Like the nearest place to get affordable food for many of the people living in the largest homeless encampment in Oakland is Target, not the small cooperative grocery only a few blocks further.

What I object to is the idea that these are moral or ethical failings on the part of a beleaguered mass of mostly poor people rather than the hegemonic prowess of capital and its logistical frameworks.

One of the reasons that I am reacting the way that I am, is that there is a long history of judging authors who are considered ot be women by how *likeable* they, or their work are - whether they are agreeable, whether their work makes people feel good after they have read it. (And writers who are considered to be male are not expected to meet this 'likeable' criteria, not in anything like the same kind of way.)

And one of the reasons I like Schulman, and the reason I keep persisting with her, even though such a mixed bag as this book, is because she makes absolutely no pretense as to being likeable, or agreeable - which is an unbelievably freeing thing to read in a female writer, someone who doesn't GAF if they come across as likeable or not. There is no wink, no sugar-coating, there is no handholding or making you feel OK about challenging stuff. She *IS* disagreeable. I often come out of reading her theory books feeling like I have been challenged, maybe even called out - perhaps sometimes attacked.

And working through that feeling of 'why do I feel so attacked by this disagreement' is part of what *I* get out of it, puzzling through difficult and complicated phenomena, in which I feel I may be complicit. She's a really good author, for me, for learning to sit with discomfort, and winkling out discomfort from mere difficulty. And she works for me, because of those things.

Her arguments do not scale. They are not universal, and she falls down where she tries to make them universal. But that doesn't mean that she "sucks". And Table, your post really did seem to boil down to your finding her - or, it turns out, her audience - disagreeable. Which to me, is the point.

But I'm not actually interested in local politics of SF, so I'll bow out and you can carry on with your derail.

Your willful misreading of my follow-up posts is laughable.

Like the nearest place to get affordable food for many of the people living in the largest homeless encampment in Oakland is Target, not the small cooperative grocery only a few blocks further.

<pedantic> actually one of the food banks has a massive site a few blocks past the co-op grocery as well and there tend to be long lines there. </pedantic>

Yeah, there's also the bank on San Pab at 34th or so, if that's still around...

Anyway, enough derail. After being accused of being a sexist because I don't like a famous author's theoretical frameworks, I'm going to leave this thread.

Yeah -- San Pablo & 34th! ... awww don't leave, let's just try to have better arguments.

Rhonda????

*sigh* ... where?

The real bad faith move was that bollox djp starting this thread during my hiatus imo

Thought this was a deems revive at first.

The great revivals of 2022 are in motion dont worry, rhonda has the green paper