Self-declared neutrality is the move in which a writer stamps their own position as non-political: “that’s just arithmetic,” “this is common sense,” “the numbers don’t lie.” It usually works in two steps. First comes a premise almost nobody disputes, often a textbook rule. Then a whole program is loaded onto it, as if the program followed from the rule as automatically as the rule follows from itself. Having opinions is not the problem; an opinion column is supposed to have them. The trick is the label. A position called “not ideology” is protected from being argued with, and anyone who disagrees is cast as the ideologue.
- “Arithmetic, not ideology.” A column on winter heating bills argued that “limit supply while demand holds, and prices rise. That is arithmetic, not ideology.” The premise is standard economics, and the column had already conceded that a war moving world oil prices fits the same rule. It then used the line to carry a full program: approve a pipeline, keep plants open, build refineries, slow down climate mandates. The arithmetic covered the premise. The program was a set of political choices, and the column gave no cost figures for the mandates it promised to “be honest” about.
The test: separate the premise from the conclusion and ask whether someone could accept the first and reject the second without making an error. If they could, the conclusion is a judgment, and calling it math is a way of not defending it.
