BTW — that thinking spans the entire political and religious spectrum
Yes, but what's funny is that saying this gets you dismissed as engaging in "both sides-ism" when, in fact, this kind of A/non-A can be found on the entire continuum. Let me turn to religion a moment.
I ran into this - literally - all across the way when it came to seminary studies. Despite attending a conservative, evangelical seminary we had this moronic idea of having to read ALL SIDES of an issue. Footnoting them. We didn't have to agree with what the author said though addressing the point was beneficial if there was enough room in the limited space we were given for papers. Some "liberal" (largely unbelieving) scholars write some of the best works that are not wrong in terms of what they conclude. In fact, as a good friend of mine points out, they will invariably come up with the orthodox Christian position being espoused by the biblical author(s), but they don't (necessarily) see any relevance to modern church life. But many of them will cover all sides of an issue even if they aren't orthodox Christians and more often than not they come up with that basic conclusion of "this is what the author meant."
Not good for some entrenched fundy Christians who take the view, "You shouldn't be reading the works of those authors." I guess they don't think folks in their congregations will ever come across those works, which might have been true in the 1940s but is insanely naive now. As lawyer Vincent Bugliosi said regarding "surprises" sprung by the opposition in a court case, I at least want to have been heard on as addressing and not afraid of the issue raised.
I read good "liberal" authors and I read others who were nothing more than fundies in the opposite direction. If only two gospels mentioned something, that meant the others were saying it didn't happen. (That whole Synoptic "how often it is mentioned relates to how true it is" is truly laughable and makes as many assumptions as the most fundamentalist right-wing Christian does).
Bear in mind I've limited my discussion here solely to Christianity. (One of the requirements to attain my degree was to attend the service of a non-Christian religion, interview someone in the "church" and record my observations/thoughts/assessment in a five-page paper. I attended a Hindu church, and I'm not going to even pretend this made me any sort of expert on the religion, but I certainly had more ground for my views than someone who never went - and who has no earthly idea how many offshoots within the Christian church actually are a Christianized form of Hinduism). I had a pleasant visit with one individual there, and while he knew where I was coming from and I was learning where he was, I wasn't there to call fire down from heaven on the congregation, either.
Amusing anecdote: when I asked the instructor of my class if it was okay to do a paper on Scientology - I liked the fact nobody in the history of his class had done this - he said they were very "tight" and I would be fortunate to even make it in the front door at best. I tried, but they never returned my call after promising to do so.
Maybe it goes back to the maxim, "Thinking is hard, which is why so few people ever do it."
I've had the misfortune of a steady diet of Faux News this week at my folks' and listening to this I'm like, "All anyone had to do was pay attention to know they're splitting hairs or misrepresenting." I don't think I've heard one statement that is a "fact" that didn't remove some important qualifiers that change the story. In other words, yes, there are facts, but they're distorted through a prism.
