Context: A discussion about the state of the American economy after a Rachel Maddow opinion piece on the internet
This discussion involved a couple of old friends, both trained in well-respected MBA schools and with a long history of investment portfolio management( i.e much better informed then me about business and economics!). Both still believe in “facts”- whether they be government reports such as the Labour Board statistics or other economic reports or private company reports. Both are still Empiricists-despite decades of feedback by yours truly about the limitations of that approach lol!
I, myself, was very fortunate. At a young age I was confronted by a clever girlfriend for being a Positivist( another form of Empiricism) That challenge changed my life-over 50 years ago! But most of the people I know ,educated in the West, still believe in “facts” .In medicine they call that “objective evidence”. In science it is called statistical analysis in peer-reviewed journals .In politics it is whatever suits your political narrative lol
Getting back to Rachel Maddow for a minute, her thesis was that, as opposed to the Trumpian narrative that the U.S. has all the cards in its trade deal with Canada, America was going to suffer more from the tariffs than either Trump or many of the economists think and that Canada might actually gain an advantage in asserting its own independence.
The usual “ad hominem” critique then followed. Rachel Maddow is a well-known leftist with MSNBC , a Trump-hater and on top of it not that well-informed about the “facts”. in this particular dossier. However, despite all of that, her primary thesis may well be correct. Why do I say that?
As those who have been following me for awhile know, I reject the contemporary Epistemology of “objective evidence” and favour an Epistemology of “seeing ‘,”hearing” and “feeling”( in Quranic Arabic that is “basirat”, samiyya” and “fuad”)This way of accessing Reality includes looking at peoples hearts ,listening carefully to anecdotes and “searching the neighborhood” to see what is really going on!
When I apply this model ,I notice the following. Many, many people in both Canada and the U.S. are worried. Only 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. I hear more and more stories of people having a hard time finding jobs( I believe this is not only true in Canada but in the U.S. as well).I see more and more stories of small businesses having a hard time with the tariffs. Some are even closing down.” Poppy-cock” say the Empiricists .”The macro picture is unchanged” i.e. more government statistics lol.
And perhaps most of all, Americans are unhappy! They are now divided into Trump-haters, who are unhappy because he is in power and Trump sycophants who are unhappy because they have to embrace his lies as part of the package and embracing lies and denial is NEVER a formula for happiness!
Then there is the rest of the World that is increasingly anti-Trump and anti-American. The Canadians who are avoiding travel to the U.S. and plenty of other countries’ citizens doing like-wise I am sure. Being hated is rarely a formula for success! America which once was a beacon of freedom and success is now seen as tyrannical, bullying and manipulative.
None of this augurs well for the future of America. But so-called “experts” fixated on macro-economic data ” can see none of this! Empiricism and its sister philosophy Materialism has done so much harm! We can see this so clearly in the countries that embraced “Dialectical Materialism’. Now we can see it coming in those countries that have embraced “Scientific Materialism”. God help us all!