Invoking Occam’s Razor here is conflating neutrality with simplicity which is not always the case. Most political dichotomies of opinion are social constructions which themselves have bias. While there is a kernel of truth to “the truth lies somewhere in the middle” (you should try to get a complete picture before reaching a conclusion), applying it to already-biased dichotomies and then landing in the middle is going to result in you favoring the original bias present in the construction.
I would argue it does. One extreme wants to say; “Tienanmen Square was a horrible tragedy and China/ Communism is the evilest thing in the world”, likely not true, but also, neither China nor Communism have clean hands. The other extreme wants to say; “Nothing interesting happened with Tienanmen Square and the West/ Capitalism is the evilest thing in the world”, equally unlikely to be true, but also, neither the West or Communism have clean hands. In this case, Occam’s Razor implies that neither of these extremes is reasonable and that the true story is actually some composite of both. I’m not using Occam’s Razor as a form of neutrality, merely as a mechanism for determining when a reasonable conclusion can be made.
“Tienanmen Square was a horrible tragedy and China/ Communism is the evilest thing in the world”
is already a centrist position in the US. It’s not extreme, it’s mainstream.
“Nothing interesting happened with Tienanmen Square and the West/ Capitalism is the evilest thing in the world”
is a straw man and not a position many people hold.
So no, the truth is not in the middle of those two things. China doesn’t hold that nothing interesting happened. China doesn’t even hold that capitalism is the most evil thing. Individuals on the internet may play fast and loose with moralizing, but it’s not about capitalism being evil. It’s about it being exploitive and abstracted slavery. People don’t engage in slavery to be mean, or because evil has possessed them, they do it because they materially benefit from it.
But that’s not what Occam’s Razor is. Occam’s Razor is an appeal to parsimony: the explanation that requires you to take on the fewest unwarranted assumptions is the best one, at least most of the time. The idea is that if you one possible explanation for an event that requires you to invent a whole metaphysical system and another that doesn’t require that, you should prefer the latter explanation assuming both have equal explanatory power. It has absolutely nothing to do with “splitting the difference” between two explanations or anything like that.
Nothing interesting happened with Tienanmen Square
If we are your proxy for this extreme and this was your takeaway from the readings and videos you’ve been linked, I don’t know what to tell you. The June 4th Incident was the culmination of weeks of protests and has lasting impacts to this day both domestically and internationally. Chinese students are taught as much in school.
I’ll use a more recent example here than some of the other comments. The west claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Iraq claimed otherwise. Is the truth simply in the middle because both George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein are unreliable and bad people? Did Iraq have half a WMD? What does your interpretation of Occam’s Razor say about this situation?
Nothing interesting happened with Tienanmen Square
You can’t possibly think anyone here believes this, this is just the cartoonish (racist?) western propaganda image of a society brainwashed into forgetting massive historical events, akin to “no winnie the pooh in China” or “1M Uyghurs genocided in Xinjiang.” You’ve gotten at least a dozen articles and sources elaborating on the causes, events, and outcomes of the protests and riots on June 4th 1989
Invoking Occam’s Razor here is conflating neutrality with simplicity which is not always the case. Most political dichotomies of opinion are social constructions which themselves have bias. While there is a kernel of truth to “the truth lies somewhere in the middle” (you should try to get a complete picture before reaching a conclusion), applying it to already-biased dichotomies and then landing in the middle is going to result in you favoring the original bias present in the construction.
I would argue it does. One extreme wants to say; “Tienanmen Square was a horrible tragedy and China/ Communism is the evilest thing in the world”, likely not true, but also, neither China nor Communism have clean hands. The other extreme wants to say; “Nothing interesting happened with Tienanmen Square and the West/ Capitalism is the evilest thing in the world”, equally unlikely to be true, but also, neither the West or Communism have clean hands. In this case, Occam’s Razor implies that neither of these extremes is reasonable and that the true story is actually some composite of both. I’m not using Occam’s Razor as a form of neutrality, merely as a mechanism for determining when a reasonable conclusion can be made.
is already a centrist position in the US. It’s not extreme, it’s mainstream.
is a straw man and not a position many people hold.
So no, the truth is not in the middle of those two things. China doesn’t hold that nothing interesting happened. China doesn’t even hold that capitalism is the most evil thing. Individuals on the internet may play fast and loose with moralizing, but it’s not about capitalism being evil. It’s about it being exploitive and abstracted slavery. People don’t engage in slavery to be mean, or because evil has possessed them, they do it because they materially benefit from it.
But that’s not what Occam’s Razor is. Occam’s Razor is an appeal to parsimony: the explanation that requires you to take on the fewest unwarranted assumptions is the best one, at least most of the time. The idea is that if you one possible explanation for an event that requires you to invent a whole metaphysical system and another that doesn’t require that, you should prefer the latter explanation assuming both have equal explanatory power. It has absolutely nothing to do with “splitting the difference” between two explanations or anything like that.
If we are your proxy for this extreme and this was your takeaway from the readings and videos you’ve been linked, I don’t know what to tell you. The June 4th Incident was the culmination of weeks of protests and has lasting impacts to this day both domestically and internationally. Chinese students are taught as much in school.
I’ll use a more recent example here than some of the other comments. The west claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Iraq claimed otherwise. Is the truth simply in the middle because both George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein are unreliable and bad people? Did Iraq have half a WMD? What does your interpretation of Occam’s Razor say about this situation?
You can’t possibly think anyone here believes this, this is just the cartoonish (racist?) western propaganda image of a society brainwashed into forgetting massive historical events, akin to “no winnie the pooh in China” or “1M Uyghurs genocided in Xinjiang.” You’ve gotten at least a dozen articles and sources elaborating on the causes, events, and outcomes of the protests and riots on June 4th 1989
that is not what Occam’s Razor is though
Tfw you confuse Occam’s Razor with the Golden Means Fallacy