11.29.04
Posted in General at 2:12 pm by Clay
I read a rant in today’s Wall Street Journal opinion section. It was de gustibus by Bret Stephens. I’ll selectively quote from it(and I wish I could provide you with a link, but I don’t think it’s possible without violating copyright law.).
Bret Stephens starts off with an argument that a liberal friend made:
“God be praised,” he wrote. “At least, I hope, we can all agree that it’s good that Ashcroft is out.”
He then moves on to talk about how the “midnight arrests” and the general atmosphere of intimidation are probably more liberal hubris than what is actually happening in the US.
His real problem, though, is the use of, “At least we can all agree”, because he doesn’t agree, and thus isn’t a part of “we”.
So far, I agree with him. It’s really annoying when people use, “You’re with us or you’re against us” terminology.
He goes on to rant about how liberals are supposedly “tolerant” and “open-minded”, and yet they tend to only be tolerant and open-minded about the things that they already agree with, and everyone else is wrong.
Unfortunately for those who would like to pin this on the liberals, conservatives say things like, “Support our troops”, when what they really mean is, “Be quiet and support the war/our president/my beliefs.”
An argument like this that attacks only one side is blind to exactly how stupidly the other side behaves from time to time.
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Posted in General at 1:53 pm by Clay
Straw Man n. An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.
This type of an argument has been bugging me recently. Personally, with most every topic, I tend to concern myself more with trying to figure out why each side thinks what it does than actually taking a side on the issue. When I talk with people, I attempt to make them see where the other side is coming from. This tends to tick people off. It shouldn’t. It means that their view of the other side is a caricature that has absolutely nothing to do with reality.
Unfortunately, doing a straw man argument seems to be the default argument for most people. People call pro-choice people pro-abortion. Pro-choice people don’t want all women to go out and kill their fetuses; they view the life of a collection of cells to be well below the right of a woman to be able to control her own body, and thus they see it as an issue of choice. People call pro-life people anti-choice. Pro-life people view the fetus(and possibly embryo) as a living human being that deserves all the rights of all other human beings. They’re not anti-choice; they want people to be able to live their lives, just not at the cost of (what they see as) murder.
Why can’t the pro-life side understand the pro-choice side(and vice versa) even though they disagree?
Abortion, though, is the easy example. The less obvious examples include when Bush says things like, “Some people…” when it’s entirely unclear who those some people are, or even if they exist. If Bush were to say, “Some people want to stop education reform, and stop our kids from improving.” he would be making an obvious misstatement. People are rarely against education reform. They’re against stupid, ill-conceived reform(as they see if). Unfortunately, until 20 years down the road, we won’t know(for sure) who was right. Possibly not even then.
So, please, watch your terminology. If you’re railing against the wrongs of your opponents, please try to use their arguments and understand why they make those arguments. If you’re going to use biased terminology, please do it only intentionally(e.g., I refer to Ernest “Fritz” Hollings as an “enemy of freedom” because of his kowtowing to Hollywood and anti-consumerist forces. In that case I’m not trying to make a good argument, I’m trying to beat down viewpoints I really don’t like, or make the point that terminology like that can be used in a lot of different ways.)
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