What is it?
There are many things possessing a desirable aesthetic due to their function, for instance, the sound of an engine running smoothly or the color of a perfectly ripe piece of fruit. Many times, a decent amount of work needs to be done to achieve the desired functionality, so sometimes it becomes easier, through deception, to have the appearance of functionality, rather than actually achieving said functionality. Instead of having a car that runs well, someone might artificially roll back the mileage, or sloppily paint over a damaged exterior in order to mask greater damage on the inside. This is why a friend or family member will recommend taking along someone more experienced with you when purchasing a used car, so the more experienced party can spot the deception and inform the potential buyer that the seller has attempted to emulate the function via aesthetic rather than adopt the functionality itself.
This is what I mean when I talk about “aesthetic vs function.”
In public discourse, there are many things people say because it gives them the aesthetic of being truth-seeking, critical thinkers. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the time, this is achieved through deception and wordplay, rather than the person adopting the actual functionality they claim to have.
Examples
The “Non-Partisan”
There is a desire to present oneself in a way that makes them “above” simply copying the political positions of their peers, even if that’s what they ultimately are doing. Very rarely does the “non-partisan” individual have a way of independently generating unique, consistent and coherent thoughts, but rather they find a way to criticize unimportant things that appear to be part of their political in-group while still aligning 100% with every important, core belief. An example of this would be being highly critical of Donald Trump’s “undesirable” but ultimately inconsequential flaws, such as his promiscuity or fiscal habits as president, while being in lock-step with the most integral beliefs of MAGA conservatives, such as his dangerously divisive rhetoric, claims of mass voter fraud, or his attitude that the entire political and corporate world are a “swamp” capable of being drained only by him.
The “Rational” One
“Rationality,” or pretending to be someone possessing a high level of “reason” or critical analysis, is a highly desirable aesthetic that rarely follows the function of someone being rational. It is a scarce thing that when a person claims to be “rational” or “truth-seeking” does the person actually exhibit any qualities fundamental to those people; rather they tend to align almost entirely with certain other groups of people and they simply wield this “rationality” against someone else that belongs to the “wrong” side. It is almost universally considered a red flag when anyone has anything related to “truth” or “rationality” in their title or channel name, as they almost always appear to pursue anything but.
The “Skeptic”
“Skepticism” is never applied evenly to anything. People are almost never skeptical from a place of rational criticism, but rather because the skepticism is required to maintain their cognitive consonance. People claim to be “skeptical” of everything, and they insist that they “do their own research,” but that more often than not just consists of them repeating things they’ve heard from some counter-culture podcast, or some unsavory social media account.
The “Uncomfortable Truth” Teller
“Uncomfortable truths” are, ironically enough, nearly always a great source of comfort. These comfort-bearing factoids exhibit the guise of discomfort in order to smuggle in some incredibly convenient thing that explains all of the issues or social ills a person or group might be facing. Great examples of this might be telling people the “uncomfortable truth” that some huge system is against them, e.g. the FDA or WHO or IMF. At first glance, it may seem disconcerting that these large organizations can’t be trusted, but the people who call them into question will generally only do it to explain some other phenomenon that they otherwise can’t explain, and they often still continue, in practice, to trust these organizations anyway. For instance, a person will say they are vaccine-skeptical, but they still have no problem buying and consuming other over-the-counter medications. Or they may be opposed to how emergency use authorization was given for the mRNA vaccines, but they had no issue with monoclonal antibodies since they were recommended by Joe Rogan, despite them having less clinical evidence to support them.
Almost none of these “uncomfortable truths” require you to change your mind or your actions in a way that you wouldn’t already want to, but instead serve to motivate you to continue moving down a path you already found highly desirable. An easy test for this is that when someone hears an “uncomfortable truth,” it’s less likely to produce an uncomfortable feeling of “oh, no…” inside of them, and more likely to produce a euphoric feeling of “oh, yeah, I knew it!!!!” instead.
Limitations
The problems of adopting an aesthetic of a function without the function itself should be obvious, in most cases. They have manifested throughout history as obvious scams, be it multi-level marketing schemes, snake oil salesmen, used car salesmen or other types of scammers. The damage from people who wear truth or rationality as an aesthetic do damage on two different fronts: they lure the listener into a false sense of security, fooling them into believing they are standing on epistemically firm ground when the truth is anything but, and they occupy space and crowd out other, more reasonable voices, who now have to spend time convincing others that they are the “real” rational people, and not the aesthetically rational people plaguing the same space.
How to Avoid
There are many simple strategies you can deploy to avoid falling into this trap, but I’d recommend checking out my tips for checking cognitive biases to start.
What you should essentially be doing is finding some good research practices to commit yourself to in order to ensure you’re collecting information in an active manner, not a passive manner where a social media feed (YouTube, X, Facebook, etc…) is feeding you what keeps you clicking.
How to help others
Here are a few simple ways to help others be aware of these pitfalls, ask them these questions:
- Where does the person you’re listening to get their information from? Are they open and honest about how they are informed, more than just saying they “read a variety of sources”?
- Does the person you listen to ever speak to people with opposing views? Not in an insignificant way, but someone who substantively disagrees with them?
- Does the person you listen to ever break from their party in substantive ways, or do they always fall in line with their “group”?
- Do they make incredibly strong predictions that never seem to come true?
- Do they change their mind on their own, against the grain, or do they only ever seem to change their mind when their group changes their mind?