Tony Fauci has become a highly recognizable figure during the pandemic, appearing many, many times in the media, and having been discussed by others in the media far, far more times than he’s actually spoken.
Since one side attacks/discredits Fauci, and the other adores/upcredits him, a natural question arises -- who's right? Is Tony Fauci credible, or not?
It’s an important question. He affects the pandemic, including our understanding of it, our emotions about it, our actions, and our policies. Fauci affects hundreds of millions of us. So we should give his credibility evaluation its due, right? We probably don’t want to just fire off a willy nilly thought on it (I love it when descriptions rhyme). We probably want some certitude, so we should get in there and follow the systems the linguistic engineers have designed for reaching truth in credibility judgments. (Being credible in our credibility search.)
To answer this question, let’s pull out some of that rhetorical architecture, and look at all that it will take to get to a reliable/quality answer about Fauci’s actual credibility (not his claimed credibility, but his actual credibility). And, as per always, I play the rhetorical referee in this -- I don’t have a dog in the fight, I just want to make sure both dogs play by the rules (there are rules, even in a dog fight, it turns out).
Let’s proceed.
Here is the architecture you will need to apply in order to get to Fauci’s actual credibility, instead of stalling out somewhere and just slapping a credibility onto him, because you’re tired of playing the Fauci game. (Which, come on, is what everyone does. No one does a full credibility assessment of Fauci, or, really anyone else, for that matter. Take a look at the machinery of credibility establishment, and give me an honest answer -- how much of this do you actually do, like 4%? Maybe?)
Okay, here we go, the architecture you need to use to be credible in your assessment of credibility.
Hi ho, Fauci, away!
() How qualified are you to assess Tony Fauci’s credibility?
- your training levels in logic, rhetoric -- low v mid v high
- your access to quality information -- low v mid v high
- your neutrality -- low v mid v high
() How much effort do you want to put into assessing Fauci’s credibility?
- low v mid v high
() What quality levels do you want for your assessment?
- on which element: evidence, information, interactants, conclusions, process, each step in the process
- high v medium v low
- final quality -- true v mixy v false; claimed v actual
() How important is it to you to assess Fauci’s credibility?
- high v medium v low
() Who else is assessing Fauci’s credibility?
() Neutral evaluators -- rhetoricians, academics, intellectuals, journalists, writers, scientists, moral people, logicians
() Positive evaluators -- himself, his friends, colleagues, fans, Dems, pro-science,
() Negative evaluators -- rightwing media, politicians, some scientists, extremists, the crazy,
() What extent of Fauci’s credibility do you want to establish?
- global v mid-sized v specific instances
- past v present v future
() What Fauci work areas do you want to assess?
() Scientist -- training, projects, history,
() Expert -- on which areas, depth, quality, flaws
() Politician --
() Management of Public Health -- employees, the public, resources
() Doctor --
() What type of credibility do you want to assign?
() Positive
- expertise v trustworthiness v morality v competence v openness v other-centeredness v humility v honesty v strength v resilience v toughness
() Negative
- non-expertise v untrustworthy v immoral v incompetent v closed to other ideas v not other-centered
- deceptive v non-transparent v cherry picks v propaganda v cabal v corrupt v politician v facade v evil v greed v stupid v hubris/ego v power-hungry v dangerous
() What Fauci area do you want to assess?
- work v life, past v present, specific issue, frontstage v backstage
() What valence of credibility do you want to assign?
() Positive
- he rates highly on these areas (and/or low negatives)
() Negative
- he has high negativity on these areas (and/or low positives)
() What are the possible outcomes/conclusions you can reach?
- settled v mixy v unsettled credibility,
() What claims do you want to make about Fauci’s credibility?
- positive v mixed v negative
() What sources will you use to gather information about Fauci?
- direct, imagined, testified, mediated, virtual, studied, falsified
() What evidence will you present about Fauci’s credibility?
- direct, imagined, testified, mediated, virtual, studied, falsified
() What counters will you allow/deal with in your assessment?
() From whom? -- Fauci, friends, intimates, experts, enemies,
() On which areas -- claims, evidence, warrants, conclusions, qualifiers, refutation, action warrant
() Who will be involved in your assessment?
- information sources, co-evaluators, judges, rebuttals, conflicting sources, receivers of your assessment,
() What warrants will you need in your assessment?
- when will evidence be enough, quality enough? when will you have spent enough time/resources to draw conclusions?
() How will you communicate your assessment to others?
- live, mediated, written, social media, blogs, videos,
() How much will you qualify your assessments of Fauci?
- highly v some v almost none
() How stable will your assessments be?
- locked v some ongoing process v unfixed
() What action warrants will you recommend based on your assessment?
() Think -- think/believe these things about Fauci
() Feel -- feel these ways about Fauci
() Do --- fire Fauci, put Fauci in jail, harm Fauci. v. promote him, follow his advice
() Relationships -- cut off/diminish relationships with people who have a different evaluation of Fauci