“Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood”

Back in the Neolithic Age, when I was an undergraduate in college, I took a class in linguistic philosophy.  I learned one thing only:  that all statements can be classified as either factual or moral statements.

A factual statement is one that asserts that something is the case.  A moral statement is one that asserts that an action or thought is more preferable than another.  If I say that Barack Obama believed in the health care reform bill, that is a factual statement.  The statement is about what Barack Obama factually believes.  If I say that the health care reform bill was a good thing, then that is a moral statement. A moral statement is a factual statement of the attitude of the speaker about an issue.

Moral statements only indicate the mode of the statement; they do not necessarily imply that the subject is what is conventionally considered morality or ethics, although they often are.   Factual statements make claims about the nature of reality.  Moral statements express an attitude towards reality. Factual statements are about what is and moral statements are about what should be.

For a statement to have the form of a factual statement does not necessarily mean that the purported fact is true but only that the speaker is asserting that it is. Likewise when a speaker makes a moral statement, it does not necessarily mean that what the speaker says is morally correct, only that the speaker is asserting that it is.

I discuss politics with many people, and I find it very, very frustrating that so many people are incapable of differentiating between factual and moral statements.  

I happen to find the Tea Party to be an interesting movement in American politics.  I've been observing them for the purpose of being able to arrive at an informed judgment about them.  I have been getting my information from the print media, not T.V., or God forbid, radio. I have been making factual statements about the nature of the Tea Party and what I think they believe and advocate.  People have been criticizing and attacking me for what I have been saying, as if I was advocating the Tea Party’s positions, which I am not.

I am trying to be objective and use reason, and people are reacting to me with wildly subjective attitudes, emotions, generalizations, and things not based on fact.  When I say something, they twist my words into something I never meant and read things in that aren’t there.  It is as though by making a factual observation, I stand accused of believing the thing that I observe.  It's like being a citizen in North Korea or something.

People are watching reports of the lunatic fringe on cable T.V.  I’ll say something sober and reasonable about the Tea Party, and then I will get hit with an angry stream of left-wing bigotry based on what that person saw on cable T.V.  One person accused me of supporting the existence of white supremacy organizations.  I was particularly offended by that one because that person knows me.