Today, I'd like to direct my readers to a very important fallacy -- one I often hear repeated on polite pseudo-intellectual company: "Stove's Discovery of the Worst Argument in the World", which this author refers to as "the central plank of the social constructivist position."

To set the stage:

In 1985, the year Sydney University threatened him with disciplinary action over his complaints about `Jobs for the Girls', David Stove ran a Competition to Find the Worst Argument in the World. In his marking scheme, half the marks went to the degree of badness of the argument, half to the degree of its endorsement by philosophers. Thus an argument was sought that was both very bad, and very prevalent...

For those without the patience to wade through the whole thing, the fallacy may be boiled down to: "I have eyes, therefore I cannot see." If that doesn't sound familliar, then let me put it this way: it is the argument by which people incessantly contend that because our various perceptions of he world are flawed/biased/etc, they cannot be trusted at all, and thus we know nothing of the world.

Example: Someone will start by repeating Ward Churchill's fabricated of smallpox-blanket genocide incident. I will point out its fraudlent provenance. Suddenly, my opponent will assert that history is written by the victors!

My reactions:

(a) Well, perhaps, but then that also applied to your initial argument, which you offered with enthusiasm, as well. (The contradiction, of course, reveals that, at some level, they really don't actually believe the argument at all, and even don't believe in "truth", but are simply offering whatever is tactically useful at a given moment. How very Buddhist.)

(b) The underlying implication, of course, is: therefore can know nothing of history. No; our perceptions may be flawed, but not completely so. We should endeavor to root out bias, but not give up on history simply because bias is possible. One must actually prove bais is present -- or simply shut up, because, of course, no historical contention is any truer than any other.

The argument can also be applied to the news media, science, etc. In high utopian dudgeon, it comes down to the argument that truth is unimportant (or even nonexistent) but that these various narratives simply exist to promulgate and justify inequality, oppression, etc.

The common antidote to this oppression, in true Satanic/Hegelian (but I repeat myself) form, is to be equally unconcerned about objective truth (which doesn't exist), but to subvert these various narratives to one which favors the oppressed class.

Example: a reporter believes all news is biased, but he is "good" because he is telling stories which primarily undermine oppressive structures (white racism, Bush, corporate greed, etc.) and gives power to the oppressed (minorities -- or at least the political groups which purport to represent them).

All this is really about power (not truth) -- which should not surprise us; power is the admitted goal and focus of social constructivism, which promulgates this fallacious and destructive brain virus.