The appeal to authority is a commonly recognized fallacy. While holding a PhD in a subject often means a person has greater insight, they might be crazy, corrupt, or wrong. In every field there are people who lean on their credibility rather than their work or argument, however, within international relations, there is a twist on the appeal to authority. This is the ‘Have you been there?’ challenge, or its inverse, “I was there.” The lite version is: ‘I have friends or family from there.’ People throw these phrases around as though they are trump cards. As though having a connection to a place gives you an automatic win.

In a recent Muke Debate, Duogless Murry insinuated that his opponent should spend time in Israel before he comments on the Israeli government. 

In tweets, posts, and interviews where Tulsi Gabbard argues that the US should not support Ukraine. She continually reminds us that she has Ukrainian “friends” and that she has been to Ukraine.  Tulsi Gabbard: How war in Ukraine will end | Tulsi Gabbard and Lex Fridman.

Using lines like, “I have friends…” or “I was there….” when making an argument is weak. Neither of these statements is relevant to the actual argument, they are an attempt to create an illusion of legitimacy. 

While traveling to a place and seeing it for yourself can have huge value, being there does not mean you understand an issue. If being in a place gave you a monopoly on the truth there would never be conflicting narratives from locals. Think of the last time you were at a family gathering, how many of your relatives would agree on the most recent political event in your country? It is the same all around the world, people interpret their lived experiences differently.

Counterintuitively

Being on the ground can make you more biased. It can give you a false sense of perspective. This is particularly true for journalists and politicians who travel at the invitation or expense of governments. They are given a tour and shown what the government wants them to see. The Soviet Union employed this tactic, hosting foreign journalists, who wrote about what a great place it was, while millions of people starved to death. Most notable among these was Walter Duranty.

In a fun remix of history, Putin gave an interview to Tucker Carlson in Russia. True to form, Tucker used his journalistic prowess to extol the virtues of Moscow, misrepresent exchange rates, and ignore issues faced by average Russians due to Putin’s policies. Here is the infamous Russian grocery shopping experience, Tucker Carlson Shopping in Russian Grocery Store (Full).

The Assad regime also played host to journalists. “Independent journalist,” Eva Bartlett took the government tour of Syria. After several such trips, she made a name for herself writing and giving speeches about how Assad was fighting terrorists funded by the US. Since her time in Syria, she has taken up a new cause and now writes about the benefits of Putin’s “special military operation,’ in Ukraine. 

As a side note, Eva Bartlett’s Twitter account proudly claims, “I go where I write about.” How novel of her. 

How can we learn about events happening in places we are unfamiliar with? 

Unfortunately, there is no quick or easy answer to this, if you want to be able to assess a situation accurately or at least be able to judge the quality of sources, you are going to have to read. Read history, read political analysis, read economic reports, and read enough background information to be able to form a context for current events. This will give you a foundation on which to judge new information. 

The good news is that it is easier to find reliable sources for building context than it is to find sources for current events. Read country profiles from online Encyclopedias, world fact books, and other dry scholarly sources. Familiarize yourself with the bare-bones history of the place in question. Learn about the geography, prevalent religions, and economic drivers; be aware of the historical and current political systems. Having a basic understanding of a country or a region will help you decipher the information you hear about a current event in that area. 

Another way to approach foreign affairs, and current affairs in general, is to stop reading headline news. Be a week behind the headlines. No one knows anything at the outset of an event, give it time for experts and skilled analysts to properly collect and examine information and critique each other’s theories. Look at publications that favor long-form articles and make a point to print counter-articles, such as Foreign Policy and Current Affairs.