Causal Theories So Implausible They Deserve to be Called "Objectivism"

The most striking thing to me about the stab-in-the-back accusation under discussion is the unique definition of “objectivity” that underlines Goldstein’s indiscriminate accusations of bad faith. For example, if you click the links that purportedly substantiate his claim that anti-war criticism “incorporates carefully-crafted falsehoods many of the war’s critics know for a fact to be objectively untrue” you will discover that you must be arguing in bad faith if you believe that Hussein had no significant relationship with Al Qaeda, a group that now includes most of the Bush administration itself, which is no longer arguing that a significant relationship existed. We learn about an “undeniably partisan (or at least, ‘adversarial’) media” [my emphasis], which sits rather uneasily next to the fact that of the three most important newspapers in the country two strongly supported the war and the other published Judith Miller in an effort to jump on the jingoistic bandwagon. But, of course, it’s not just that Goldstein’s definition of “objectively wrong” appears to be “disagreeing with, or presenting data inconvenient to, the unfalsifiable a priori ideological commitments of Jeff Goldstein.” In comments to this post, Dave sums up the bigger problem with the stab-in-the-back argument:

Without some actual process-tracing–showing how, with a quality in the general vicinity of “specificity”–this sort of thing actually does concrete harm–it’s all a non-starter. I suppose one way would be if criticism sapped the resolve of Congress to pass the appropriate level of supporting legislation. This would be a tough case to make on several levels, but it would be nice if the stab in the back theorists would try. Their notion of causality–despite the strategic placement of the word “objective”–could be very, very generously described as impressionistic.

This, as Rob also said, is the crucial problem. Even if Goldstein’s claims that anti-war critics (or, at least, those who also disagree with the President on other issues) routinely make bad-faith arguments that are “objectively” inaccurate had any supporting evidence, his argument about the “objective damage” done by those who have the temerity to disagree with him wouldn’t make any sense, because there’s simply no plausible causal relationship between the effectiveness of the insurgency and the nature of domestic opposition. It’s not just that there’s no evidence; even in theory, it’s impossible to understand what difference it would make if the Democratic Party were even more supine. Would the insurgency simply lay down and roll over if there were 45 Liebermans in the Senate and Michael Moore never made another movie? It’s just an unserious argument, one the Poor Man so effectively demolished:

Understand that the people killing us in Iraq aren’t motivated by Gore Vidal or inspired by Susan Sontag or organized by Michael Moore or in cahoots in any way with any of the right’s celebrity pinatas – not literally, not metaphorically, not if you look at it in a certain way, not to any infinitesimal degree, not in any sense, not in any way at all. They do not lead a clandestine international conspiracy of Evil which has corrupted everything in every foreign country plus everything in America not owned by loyal Bush Republican apparatchiks; nor are they members of such a conspiracy; nor does a conspiracy remotely matching that description exist. To think otherwise is, literally and to a very great degree, insanity. It is insane.

To summarize “objectively,” the responsibility for the Iraq War is as follows:

Those who decided to go to war and those who supported them: 100%
Those who presciently opposed the war: 0%

And clearly, anyone who disputes this is disseminating carefully-crafted falsehoods they know to be objectively untrue.

…as Professor B notes, Norbizness explains the new uses of “objective.”