Quote:
Originally Posted by markbarbera
On the contrary, I am being objective when I say that Flaherty's comments are his perception on how McGuinty is managing Ontario's economy.
Indeed, a declarative sentence claiming mismanagement is purely subjective. I clarified by stating that this is a perception driven by Flaherty's political ambition. I never intended to be sanctimonious, nor did I become subjective in my statement.
Asking for evidence on how the Ontario economy is being mismanaged by the current government is in no way being subjective. Rather, it is asking those offering opinion to support it with fact.
I notice that your previous post again states that McGuinty's economic policy performs poorly. How so? Can you provide examples of what, in your opinion, is poor economic policy?
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You're attempting to draw me into a political debate which I'm simply not willing to have.
The nub of our dispute arises out of your attack on the accuracy of my prior statement. The problem is that you seem to have conflated the concept of "accuracy" with that of "objectivity". These are not interchangeable. An "accurate" statement entails verity. An "objective" statement, on the other hand, entails only lack of bias or disinterestedness. A statement which is not "objective" may nonetheless be perfectly "accurate" in that it correctly describes a given state of affairs regardless of the motivations which prompted it. Truth and bias are certainly not mutually exclusive.
To the extent that you confused accuracy with objectivity, you did indeed "become subjective" in your statement. To challenge the accuracy of my prior statement is also to challenge its truthfulness, which by extension is to challenge the truthfulness of Flaherty's own statement as well. Such a challenge, being political, is almost of necessity subjective.
I might very well have written "He is just laying the groundwork by pointing out
what he believes to be McGuinty's economic mismanagement of the province" but that would have been awkward and schoolmarmish. The sentence I chose was, granted, less objective in tenor, but it was not per se less accurate. To determine the accuracy of the statement we would have to engage in protracted political debate. And political debate being what it is, we would probably never arrive at a mutually satisfactory conclusion. When it comes down to it, accuracy and objectivity are concepts not really amenable to the political arena.
I still don't see why - even granting the possibility that you do understand the conceptual distinction between accuracy and objectivity - you felt it necessary to criticize my post. Yes it could have been worded more objectively, but why need it have been? This is a discussion forum. Bias of some sort is implied in virtually every substantive statement on here. To point out that one statement might not have been utterly objective in viewpoint is moot, pedantic, and yes, very much sanctimonious.
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