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Consensus

It's an interesting thing to note that today's issues are frequently revolving around "consensus" views. As The Ace at PoliPundit.com notes, the left likes to "establish a consensus reflecting political preferences and make that consensus a fact." Leaving aside for the moment whether a consensus view reflects "facts" or not, I'd like to look at the logic behind this tendency, and how it fits in naturally with the left's world and political views.

First of all, the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the word consensus in this way:

1 a : general agreement : UNANIMITY <the consensus of their opinion, based on reports...from the border -- John Hersey> b : the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned <the consensus was to go ahead>
2 : group solidarity in sentiment and belief

I think that the left likes to believe that consensus means "unanimity" as the definition here implies. I think that's wrong, but the concept is used as a club to beat aside the opinions of anyone that doesn't agree with their agendas.

The left has a tendency to take a consensus as found in the sense of definition 1b and treat it as in the sense of definition 1a. Once they've reached this treatment, their consensus quickly becomes a consensus as found in definition 2.

I suppose that seems like too fine a distinction, but if you think about it "most of those concerned" is by no means all. It merely needs to be a single individual more than 50% of those concerned. To take a viewpoint held by just slightly over half of the people and treat it as though it represents a unanimous viewpoint is intellectual dishonesty. Yet this is what lies behind the "settled science" of global warming today as well as so many other social issues.

Consensus by itself is not a bad thing, but this misuse of the concept, this blurring of the definitions leads to bad results.This is how the left can so successfully take a part of their agenda and, by picking and choosing the "experts", gradually build a limited consensus. Then once they have achieved that they quickly shift the concept from being a "majority" view to a "general agreement" view without ever actually having achieved gradual agreement. This gives them the excuse to browbeat dissenters and feel good about it.

The very existence of a "consensus" viewpoint like this swiftly becomes "group solidarity" for the left as well. Once this happens, even people who have no actual knowledge of the issues cannot be convinced of the opposite viewpoint, whether they are presented with facts or not. This explains Sen. Reid's declaration that even if presented with evidence of the success of the "surge" strategy in Iraq he wouldn't be convinced, because it "obviously wasn't working".

We can expect much more of this from the left in the future. The left is very fond of the notion of a "pure democracy", even going so far as to say that conservatives don't support democracy. What drives this urge to "pure democracy" and consensus building from the left? Could it be that the socialist nature of modern day liberals and the Democratic party platform encourage it?

I think that it does. Whenever you have a purely "majority rules" situation, you have a tendency toward socialism. People, left to their own, without a firm moral standard, or a firm grounding in logic and evidence tend to want things that benefit them at the expense of others. When a mob works in this fashion the rights of individuals are buried to the "will of the people." Perhaps this is what was meant back in January when supporters of Hugo Chavez declared that Socialism IS Democracy.

The left today uses "consensus science" to drive their socialist agenda. They use "consensus politics" to drive their socialist agenda. By twisting the usage of the term consensus they imply that anyone that doesn't support their agenda is a reactionary or simply an evil person worthy of trial ala Nuremberg.

It's a pretty powerful weapon, this twisting of meaning. It's a sad thing indeed that our educational system today doesn't teach children to think. Instead it teaches them what to think, leaving them poorly equipped to deal with the propaganda flowing from the left in the guise of science and truth.

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