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Am I misunderstanding what bad faith means? Merriam Webster: lack of honesty in dealing with other people. It sounds like you're saying they are incompetent, n

Am I misunderstanding what bad faith means? Merriam Webster: lack of honesty in dealing with other people. It sounds like you're saying they are incompetent, not dishonest. I ask because I see this all over the place, and almost every time I see "bad faith" or "disingenuous" (which I think are synonymous) I wonder if the person writing it just saw someone else use it incorrectly and never learned what it actually means, or if I just don't understand what it means myself. For the sheer quantity of usages like yours, I should probably assume I'm wrong, but I'm having trouble reconciling that with the definition.

dekhn 5y ago
Nope, I'm saying they are dishonest. Cherry picking data and using rhetorical tricks (or other tricks commonly used in social media) is dishonesty and acftually is a sign of a competent person- somebody who knows they can fool most people with a slick argument instead of a correct one.
- ifyoubuildit 5y ago
  Aren't there some contradictions there? You say upthread that they believe the thing they are trying to convince us of. You also say that they are competently using tricks to fool us into believing the thing that they believe is true. Why would they be fooling us into believing something that they believe to be true? And if they were, would that even be deceptive? This doesn't seem coherent to me. What am I missing?
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I dunno about you, but all my training in writing and rhetoric was based on the idea that the author is right, and should, above all, have the goal of convincing the reader, that not all readers can be convinced without the use of cherrypicked data or illogical reasoning, and that it's acceptable to do so (this is the "all effective writing is propaganda" school of thought). We were also taught how to identify this and counteract it. In high school we spent a lot of time analyzing William F Buckley's article https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-aids.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/s... which uses rhetoric to make a utilitarian argument.
    - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
      I can't say that I've had any formal training in rhetoric, so I can't speak to that. > ... the author is right, and should, above all, have the goal of convincing the reader ... It still seems logically inconsistent to me to call that bad faith. Let me try from a different angle. In my mental model, bad faith requires that the author try to convince you of something that they know is untrue (or at least may likely be untrue). Is my model wrong? If so, how?
- adamrezich 5y ago
  the author intentionally crafted a lengthy piece of misinformation, in bad faith, with the intention of having it be misleading, using cherry-picking and rhetorical/social media tricks, intentionally trying to fool most people with a slick arguments instead of correct ones... but she somehow believes her own line of bullshit 100% genuinely, even though she was the one who spun it to begin with? you can't just call everyone who disagrees with your worldview L. Ron Hubbard and be done with it.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    It's quite common to do this. Most op-eds I read fall into the category of "author believes, uses rhetoric to cover up weak argument, to convince normies".

dekhn 5y ago

Nope, I'm saying they are dishonest. Cherry picking data and using rhetorical tricks (or other tricks commonly used in social media) is dishonesty and acftually is a sign of a competent person- somebody who knows they can fool most people with a slick argument instead of a correct one.

ifyoubuildit 5y ago
Aren't there some contradictions there? You say upthread that they believe the thing they are trying to convince us of. You also say that they are competently using tricks to fool us into believing the thing that they believe is true. Why would they be fooling us into believing something that they believe to be true? And if they were, would that even be deceptive? This doesn't seem coherent to me. What am I missing?
- dekhn 5y ago
  I dunno about you, but all my training in writing and rhetoric was based on the idea that the author is right, and should, above all, have the goal of convincing the reader, that not all readers can be convinced without the use of cherrypicked data or illogical reasoning, and that it's acceptable to do so (this is the "all effective writing is propaganda" school of thought). We were also taught how to identify this and counteract it. In high school we spent a lot of time analyzing William F Buckley's article https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-aids.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/s... which uses rhetoric to make a utilitarian argument.
  - ifyoubuildit 5y ago
    I can't say that I've had any formal training in rhetoric, so I can't speak to that. > ... the author is right, and should, above all, have the goal of convincing the reader ... It still seems logically inconsistent to me to call that bad faith. Let me try from a different angle. In my mental model, bad faith requires that the author try to convince you of something that they know is untrue (or at least may likely be untrue). Is my model wrong? If so, how?
adamrezich 5y ago
the author intentionally crafted a lengthy piece of misinformation, in bad faith, with the intention of having it be misleading, using cherry-picking and rhetorical/social media tricks, intentionally trying to fool most people with a slick arguments instead of correct ones... but she somehow believes her own line of bullshit 100% genuinely, even though she was the one who spun it to begin with? you can't just call everyone who disagrees with your worldview L. Ron Hubbard and be done with it.
- dekhn 5y ago
  It's quite common to do this. Most op-eds I read fall into the category of "author believes, uses rhetoric to cover up weak argument, to convince normies".