"Intellectually Dishonest"--what the EFF does that mean, anyway?

[blondeatlast]

By now, most of us know what McCain said, but seriously, is it just a buzzword or does it carry a coherent meaning?

From what I can gather, he said that those who oppose and escalation are lying--but to whom are they lying?

I'm a bit of a language wonk, but I'm also a blonde, admittedly. I've heard it used in the God vs. no God debates but never outside of them. So, someone wiser than me, please explain if you can?

[Behind the Aegis]

1. from Wikipedia...

this is a pretty good defintion...

Intellectual dishonesty is the advocacy of a position known to be false. Rhetoric is used to advance an agenda or to reinforce one's deeply held beliefs in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. If a person is aware of the evidence and the conclusion it portends, yet holds a contradictory view, it is intellectual dishonesty. If the person is unaware of the evidence, their position is ignorance, even if in agreement with the scientific conclusion.

The terms intellectually dishonest and intellectual dishonesty are often used as rhetorical devices in a debate; the label invariably frames an opponent in a negative light. It is an obfuscatory way to say "you're lying" or "you're stupid", and has a cooling effect on conversations similar to accusations of ignorance.

The phrase is also frequently used by orators when a debate foe or audient reaches a conclusion varying from the speaker's on a given subject. This appears mostly in debates or discussions of speculative, non-scientific issues, such as morality or policy. In such cases, the speaker is (perhaps unwittingly, and always ironically) guilty of both intellectual dishonesty and ignorance, because he or she has mistaken opinions for verifiable facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dishonesty

[Felinity]

7. Was there a picture of *

next to the definition? I can't think of a better poster child for Intellectual Dishonesty than that.

BTW John McCain is increasingly becoming an anachronism. Bye bye Johnnie, you can only trade on that POW story for a few decades, then you have to start making sense.

[Orsino]

10. But how is it different from old-fashioned, steam-powered dishonesty?

From what I've seen of the practice lately, "intellectually" is a questionable label.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

11. It's hard to explain the difference, I've found

It's one of those, "I know it when I see it" kind of things.

Intellectual dishonesty is a variety of what you call old-fashioned dishonesty, but I've always seen it as of a less brazen quality, usually relying on rhetorical devices and spin to make black seem white.

The best example I can think of was in Al Franken's book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, where he looks at a chart that was designed to show how Reagan's tax cuts supposedly helped the poor more than the rich, then points out that the data used to make the chart fails to take payroll taxes into account, and when payroll taxes are factored in the rich make out like bandits while the poor are screwed as well.

So perhaps intellectual dishonesty is a statement that is true as far as it goes, but that relies on unstated assumptions and cherry-picked support.

[Orsino]

12. Or perhaps it is a loaded term, in this case...

...framing the debate as purely an intellectual matter, rather than as a humanitarian crisis.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

13. I didn't actually read the OP article, sorry.

I confined my post only to answering the post right above me, about the difference between intellectual dishonesty and just plain dishonesty.

[Orsino]

14. It's all good.

:pals:

[Ediacara]

2. It's a shade below lying

Promoting something you know is either false, or completely unsupported.

BTW, what did McCain say?

[MUAD_DIB]

3. Maybe McCain is using the old and worn anti-intellectual routine.

"Only those intellectual longhairs are against the war. Those thinking non-NASCAR chardonay drinkers oppose USA red-blooded Amurkinism."


Close enough?

[planetc]

4. Er...I'm a language wonk too, and brunette, but ... er

Hair color does not correlate in any way I know of to a passion for language. You just have a sensitive brain which will remain so even when your hair is gray, as mine has begun to turn. You have reality-based insanity to worry about, but nothing else.

I have not seen the exact quote from Mr. McCain, but I fear that he is a man obsessed by his ambition, and therefore that his statement should be filed under political-speak, a language that doesn't have an adequate dictionary yet. In my next incarnation, I'll work on one.

[blondeatlast]

15. "Reality based insanity." You nailed it. Seven years of

"Did they REALLY say/do/bomb that?" will do that to a person. :rofl:

[aikoaiko]

5. I love that pejorative.

I usually use it when someone is arguing well based on certain premises, but one or more premises may be flawed.

[RoyGBiv]

6. Ironically ...

Accusations of intellectual dishonesty are often themselves intellectual dishonest.

[Felinity]

8. Good One! n/t

[Kagemusha]

9. He means it's hypocritical to oppose the surge and yet fund it with $

and that you should be honest and support it with word as well as with $ or oppose it and vote to de-fund the $ and get more American troops killed (because the executive branch will do it anyway even without the $) and take the heat of being called a traitor.