The two sides myth: preformationism v. epigenesis

Great Feuds in Science describes a feud you don’t hear about much. If you do hear about it, you hear a strategically vexed version.[1] For years, there was a debate about the origin of life—what makes something come alive? It’s conventional to say that there were “two sides” on this issue—that’s how it was described in its era, and how it’s generally narrated.

What I want to do is use that example to show that describing a situation as having two (and just two) sides leads to a misunderstanding of the issue(s) even when everyone agrees that there are only two sides. That something can be mapped as two sides doesn’t mean that’s an accurate way to think about it. If we reduce complicated issues to two sides, then we ask: which group is right? And, since that’s the wrong question, we’ll get a wrong answer.

Because positions with important differences get blended into one, people end up engaging in the fallacies like straw man and nutpicking without realizing it.

In the 18th century, it was conventional to believe that there were two camps on the issue of the origin of life: preformationism and epigenesis. Hellman summarizes preformationism: “all embryos existed, preformed though infinitesimally tiny, in either the egg or the sperm” while “plants were thought to arise from preexisting miniature organisms hidden in the seed” (68). In other words, if two humans have sex, there was in either the sperm or the egg (there was some disagreement on this point) a teeny, tiny person, a humonculus. That being just gets bigger as they grow. Preformationism was wrong.

Beliefs are not autonomous mobiles floating in space. They are entangled with other beliefs—as proof, conclusion, or (most commonly) both at the same time. Preformationism was both the evidence for and conclusion of the belief that God created all of creation at one moment. That argument runs like this: preformation is right because it supports the notion of a static creation and the notion of a static creation is right because preformation supports it. It’s a mobius strip of reasoning.

Hellman doesn’t give a precise definition of epigenesis, nor do various other sources, because it was defined through opposition—not preformationism. One version, advocated by Needham among others, was spontaneous generation , basically the idea that life springs from dead matter.

Needham boiled mutton gravy, put it in a container sealed with cork, and heated it to a point that people believed was enough to kill any living thing. And there was life that sprang up (worms). He was clear that he had proof. (He didn’t—part of my point in this post is that data is not proof.)

According to Hellman, atheists used Needham’s experiment to support their case. That’s the mirror image of the logical mistake that preformationists made. The atheist argument accepts the associations preformationists insisted were necessary–that preformation proves God’s static creation. Since they were wrong about preformation—which was supposed to be proof of God–, they were wrong about how creation happened, and therefore wrong about God. Notice that this is a valid argument only to the extent that the entire world of possible scientific, religious, and political beliefs is really a world of only two possible positions, and that preformationists were right in associating religious belief with preformationism. They were wrong. So were the atheists. Not because being an atheist is wrong, but because those associations were wrong, and Needham’s experiments were bad.

Voltaire argued that Needham was wrong (he was), but he did so with arguments no more rational than Needham’s. And, that Needham was wrong in arguing for spontaneous generation doesn’t necessarily mean he was wrong in arguing against preformationism, let alone wrong about creation or God. (As it happens, he was, but so was Voltaire.)

If you treat a complicated issue as two sides, then you can believe that showing any person (or specific claim) on “the other side” is wrong means you’ve shown that whole side is wrong about everything. You haven’t. You’ve misunderstood and misrepresented the issue. Both Needham and Voltaire were right that the other was wrong, but they were wrong in thinking they were right.

Here’s what I mean. An old, but I’ve come to think very useful, concept in argumentation is that affirmative and negative cases are different. We tend to conflate them. Or, more precisely, we tend to treat a solid negative case as though it’s a solid affirmative case.

An affirmative case is one in which I say that my policy, claim, or party is right. A negative case is one in which I say that your policy, claim, or party is wrong. An effective negative case is not a rational argument for an affirmative. If I believe that bunnies are communists, and you believe that they are Zoroastrians, we each have an affirmative case we need to make. (Bunnies are communists; bunnies are Zoroastrians.) If I make an effective negative case (you have not shown that bunnies are communists), I have not just shown that my affirmative case is true (bunnies are Zoroastrians). That’s the mistake that Voltaire made.

But, so very, very much of our public discourse makes Voltaire’s mistake. Both Needham and Voltaire had strong negative cases; neither had affirmative cases stronger than a weak sneeze.

If we ask the wrong question, we will always get a wrong answer. If we ask, which of these two groups is right?, we’re asking the wrong question.

If we assume that all of our policy options are defined in terms of two identities, or a continuum between them, then we are arguing policy no more rationally than Needham and Voltaire. We might be right that they are wrong, but that doesn’t mean that we are right that we are right. Their being wrong doesn’t make us right.

[1] You read about how Pasteur showed spontaneous generation was wrong. Various people, including Voltaire, had also shown it was wrong, but they did so in favor of a grand narrative that was just as wrong. People who want to have a narrative of science that is about truth-tellers opposed to religious bigots don’t like to talk about people like Voltaire. There are a lot of things they don’t like to talk about, like eugenics. Another binary we need to abandon is scientists v. bigots. If we could step away from talking about social groups, we might be able to talk about ways of reasoning and arguing in favor of policies/claims. I’d like that.





Another persistently irrational case: fear-mongering about trans people and bathrooms

Last week was the week of TribFest, which is great. It’s just heaven for policy wonks. Normally, of course, it’s in person, and, since the Texas Tribune tries to be non-partisan, it means that there are often panels with people on “both sides” (Lawdamighty I hate that metaphor). But, this whole last week I was thinking about a panel from a few weeks ago.

I should begin by saying that I think that conservativism is a legitimate political philosophy (although it’s one with which I disagree). And, as a legitimate political philosophy, it can be defended through rational argumentation.

The GOP, on the other hand, is not conservative, nor does it engage in rational argumentation to defend its policies, because it can’t. And a speaker from a couple of years ago seems to me to exemplify how GOP rhetoric works. It’s all about irrational fear-mongering, with some shameless exploitation of children as a kind of rhetorical shield thrown in.

Just to be clear: I think being fearful can be rational. And I think it’s possible to make a rational argument for being fearful. The GOP use of transphobia is not a rational fear, and, in fact, the rhetoric works to keep people from thinking rationally about the issue. Instead, the whole rhetorical strategy consists of teaching people (especially vulnerable people) to memorize and repeat certain talking points verbatim, even when those points are contradictory, incoherent, and often outright lies.

A teenager on the panel (call her Chester), who was representing an anti-trans organization, talked about how she went home to her daddy (I’m not kidding, that’s what she said), saying that she was frightened at the idea of boys in her bathroom. Her spiel (since all she could do when asked a question or pushed was to repeat that spiel or part of it verbatim in the discussion, I feel it’s fair to call it a spiel, rather than an argument) emphasized how terrible it was that she should feel frightened going to the bathroom. She also talked about how Obama was forcing this down her throat. (Another metaphor I think people have not thought through) because he enacted an Executive Order after a particular event (I don’t remember the event).

What I do remember is that someone pointed out that she had her chain of events wrong, and that she was putting Obama’s Executive Order after something that was actually before it, which she admitted. Yet she continued to repeat the spiel with that false narrative–the one she admitted was false.

But the whole argument was hateful. Her argument–this policy is bad because it frightens students–has the major premise that teens (all teens, even ones not like her) should not be afraid to use the restroom in their high school.

Except she didn’t believe that major premise.

Someone asked her, “So, you think that teenagers should be able to go to the bathroom without being afraid that they’ll get assaulted?” and she said, “Yes, absolutely.” I think I kind of momentarily blacked out from how hard her in-group entitlement hit me, but I think someone pointed out that trans students are far more likely to get beaten up in bathrooms that she is likely to get….what? Assaulted by a male who thinks his best strategy for assaulting women is to pretend to be trans in an American high school?

She didn’t care about whether students might be assaulted in a bathroom. She didn’t care whether students are afraid in a bathroom. She only cared about whether she was frightened. What she was appealing to was not a premise about students feeling safe in bathrooms, but a premise about what the ideal society is: a world in which policies protect people like her from being made uncomfortable. It’s all about politics as providing safe spaces for easily-triggered in-group members. It’s toxic populism.

Also, it isn’t within several football fields of a rational argument. Rape is a major problem among American teens, and I take it very seriously, but it isn’t possible to make a rational argument that the most common kind of rape—the kind about which Chester should be worried—was the kind about which she complained to “Daddy.” (Her word, seriously.) A girl in an American high school isn’t suddenly presented with the threat of rape if a trans girl can use the girl’s bathroom.

Her argument was not grounded in a rational assessment of relative threats to her physical safety.

I really wish that we still taught people about syllogisms. As Aristotle said, in public disagreements (as opposed to how philosophers in his day argued), we rely on enthymemes (A is B because A is C). In common conversation, I might say to you, “Hubert is a jerk because he kicked my shins for no reason.” I would not have to engage in a long and complicated argument to show that my major premise—kicking someone in the shins for no reason is bad (C is B)—is true.

But, let’s imagine that I made that argument, and then I told you a story about how much I admire Ruth because she goes around and kicks shins for no reason. In that case, I don’t actually believe my own major premise is a principle. So much of our political discourse works this way–people make arguments with major premises they don’t believe.

Appealing to the premise that kicking shins is just something useful for me in the moment. For instance, if I say, “You are a terrible room-mate because you leave dishes in the sink,” I am making an argument with the major premise that “people who leave dishes in the sink are terrible room-mates.” If you point out that I also leave dishes in the sink, and I don’t acknowledge that means, by my argument, I’m a bad room-mate, then I’m throwing claims to deflect from my behavior the way a monkey throws poo.

Chester was, obviously, throwing poo. Her whole argument was deflecting from how trans students are treated to how she felt. She didn’t actually care about whether people feel threatened or might get assaulted in bathrooms. She only cared about whether she felt scared.

She hadn’t thought it through at all, as was made clear by the fact that she couldn’t do anything other than repeat the script she’d been given. And that’s another appalling aspect of this whole argument. There are, and always have been, Machiavellians who so believe in their case that they throw children like her out to make insensible arguments. I think she was shocked at getting challenged in what she said, and she was probably traumatized. The organization that put her out there knew the argument they were telling her to make would be treated with outrage and scorn. They exploited her. They put her out there making an incoherent and irrational argument that was actively offensive and hurtful to trans students, and let her take the heat.

That’s unconscionable. And it shows that they don’t actually care about her, or the feelings of high school students. So, let’s do the math. She made an argument that made it clear she didn’t care about anyone other than her in service of a group that didn’t care about her. There’s a theme here.

And in service of what argument? There is no rational argument that can be made that trans students are more of a threat to other students than cishet students; when transphobics try to make an argument that gender is perfectly correlated to biology, they get into a set of claims that only MC Escher could map.

Clearly, GOP fear mongering about bathrooms is just another instance of what is often called the Southern Strategy. But, the author of that strategy wasn’t just talking about the South. What he said is that people prone to voting GOP are more likely to respond out of fear of the Other, and he was right. People drawn to closure, people who get anxious in situations of ambiguity or hybridity manifest that anxiety as anger.

Years ago, Mary Douglas showed that we want to live in a world that is a taxonomy of hard categories. We want things to be purely their thing—fish don’t have shells; we don’t eat the same things our enemies eat; birds fly. Fish that have shells, birds that don’t fly—those are dangerous. Arie Kruglanski showed that many people are drawn to closure (aka, certainty). For some people, that sense that the world can be easily and with certainty categorized is tremendously comfortable. They need to believe that their cognitive categories are ontological ones—their neat mental categories are how the world is—because that means they know the world.

Presenting someone who believes that there is a clean binary of gender/sexuality with the fact of trans people is like giving a Sun Ra album to someone who is obsessed with a music collection that has rigid categories of genre.

They get mad. Irrationally mad. Because their categories are gerfucked. Because they’re being presented with a world that is not a rigid taxonomy of discrete categories, one in which we can be certain that our internal imagination and the world outside of that imagination are definitely the same.

If you noticed, I shifted from they to we. We are all drawn to a world in which we make quick judgments, on the basis of categorizing people, places, groups, experiences. We have to be in that world; otherwise we would go mad. We all have taxonomies, and we all get flustered when we come across something that blurs the categories of our taxonomy. It’s fine that we have categories and taxonomies. What matters is what happens when we come across data, an experience, or a person that presents us with a transgression of our taxonomy. That transgression is threatening only insofar as it proves to us that our taxonomy does not guarantee certainty.

The more frightened we are by uncertainty and ambiguity, the more we are frightened by transgressions of our taxonomy. That we are afraid does not mean we are in danger. That someone threatens our taxonomy does not mean that they threaten our safety.

That Chester experienced trans girls as violating her taxonomy is understandable, that this transgression made her uncomfortable is also understandable, but that she went from her feeling uncomfortable to characterizing them as a threat is externalizing and exaggerating her discomfort. What made them seem dangerous for Chester is that they complicated her sense of how identity works, that they transgressed the lines of her taxonomy. The leap from “This person is a serious threat to my way of thinking about people” to “these people are a threat” is the real danger.

The position she was given to memorize and repeat is not rational. Nor is it Christian. She wants to be able to go home and tell Daddy that she is frightened of people, and they should therefore be banned from her space. If students find her presence in a high school restroom frightening, should they be able to get her banned from that space? Is she willing to be treated the way that wants to treat others?

Nope.
















Introduction to “Deliberating War”

“When men go to war, they begin by taking action, which they ought to do last, and only after they have suffered do they engage in discussion” (Thucydides, History 39, Lattimore 1:78)

Notice that Japanese Americans must report for internment

According to the Greek historian Thucydides, in 431 BCE, the evenly-matched city states of Corinth and Corcyra were in conflict with one another, and each decided to try to ally itself with one of the major regional super powers: Athens and Sparta. At what Thucydides calls “The Debate at Sparta,” a Corinthian speaker tried to persuade Sparta to intervene in the conflict on its side, a policy choice that would almost certainly provoke war between the evenly-matched superpowers of Sparta and Athens.

The conflict between Corcyra and Corinth involved yet another city-state Potidea, as well as complicated questions of prestige (Corcyra had been a colony of Corinth), but it didn’t directly involve Sparta in any way. There were not immediate obvious benefits to getting involved, and there were considerable risks. It wasn’t simply that the outcome of a war between Athens and Sparta was impossible to predict with any certainty—Athens was financially stronger, and had a masterful navy, while Sparta had a much better infantry—but it was very possible that any real winner would be their common enemy Persia. Persia had tried to invade the Hellenic region (what we call “Greece”), and had been repelled only because of combined efforts of Sparta and Athens, as well as political instability back home. Were Athens and Sparta to go to war, it’s possible that they would weaken each other so much that the next Persian invasion would succeed.

Given the unpropitious rhetorical circumstances, what persuasive strategies could the Corinthian speaker use?

This book has an openly normative claim: he should make his case through rational policy deliberation. By ‘rational,’ I don’t mean to endorse the conventional notion of “rationality” as a characteristic of an individual, nor is ‘rationality’ defined as the absence of emotion; what do I mean will become more clear through the course of the book. I’ll make my argument in a largely negative way, showing what rhetorical choices various rhetors made, speculating why they made those choices, and then discussing the implications and consequences. What I will argue in this book is that there is a rhetorical trap for policymakers, a trap that has consequences for everyone in the community, and many people outside of it. Rational policy deliberation is hard, and it is not always the most persuasive strategy. If there are a lot of possible policy options, the situation is complicated or ambiguous, a small number of people are suffering from the “ill,” the “ill” is something that will happen in the distant future or difficult to imagine. A rhetor’s preferred policy might be particularly difficult to present persuasively for many reasons, such as that rational deliberation would show it to be a harmful, dangerous, or meretricious plan. It might be a good policy, but not obviously good, or there might be considerable immediate costs and only long-term benefits. It might be—like several policies discussed in this book—one with high political costs (e.g., one that touches a ‘third rail’).

When rational policy deliberation seems risky or less persuasive, rhetors are tempted to evade it, and that is the trap. They might instead opt for strategies more likely to be effective in the short-term at mobilizing support, selling a product, inspiring voters, gaining assent to a policy, diverting attention from a failure or scandal. For instance, a rhetor might insist that there is still only one choice in terms of available policies, that this choice isn’t just right, but obviously the only possible choice, and therefore we don’t need to engage in policy deliberation at all. We just need to commit fully and passionately to that option. If we believe strongly enough, we will be successful, so anyone insisting on deliberation is either stupid or corrupt, and just trying to waste our time.

This way of evading democratic deliberation has been aptly called “stealth democracy” by Elizabeth Theiss-Morse and John R. Hibbing. They argue that a large number of Americans believe that there are not genuine good faith disagreements about our policy options. Instead, they believe that there is an obviously correct course of action that should and could be taken. People who argue for other policies are doing so only because they are professional politicians, government employees, and “special interests” who do not look out for the best interest of “normal” Americans. This way of thinking about policy disagreements, it should be noted, presumes a group of “normal” Americans who have the same priorities, values, needs, interests, and policy preferences. It thereby also presumes the presence of people whose arguments should be dismissed, whose very presence is corrupting. Since we can’t argue with them (they don’t really have arguments), any political conflict with them is a zero-sum. Appealing to this perception of political conflict might initially seem to be simply evading the responsibilities of rational policy deliberation, but it’s doing more: it’s demonizing deliberation itself.

That perception baits the trap for framing a policy disagreement as an apocalyptic war of extermination. Another strategy for evading deliberation is to insist that there is an Evil and powerful out-group determined to exterminate the in-group, and this policy, party, or leader is our only choice. When people feel threatened, we are less likely to insist upon rational deliberation, so one way a rhetor can avoid having to deliberate rationally is to make an audience believe they are threatened. Since we are faced with imminent extermination, we must act now, and deliberating about our options is suicidal. And so rhetors often claim that we are already at war—real, metaphorical, spiritual, economic, political—and therefore we have to abandon normal ethical standards and political processes and exterminate the Other in preventive self-defense.

The more that there are rhetors saying that we are justified in going to war against that group because that group is essentially committed to our extermination, the more that we are committed to a war of extermination against them. The more that we are committed to a war of extermination, the more that we are endorsing the abandoning of all the norms of a civil society—the notion that simply being human means you are guaranteed certain rights, regardless of who you are—in favor of an authoritarian society in which there is only the “right” to be in-group. Paradoxically, then, the claim that “they” are already engaged in that war is used to rationalize exterminating “them” and abandoning the notion of universal rights. Communities committed to democratic deliberation have often tried to restrict this understanding of conflict as a war of extermination to foreign policy—how we treat some Other nation. Treating conflict as a war of extermination that prohibits policy deliberation eventually, and inevitably, democratic deliberation.

Rhetors don’t necessarily fall into this trap because they’re stupid or corrupt—these rhetorical strategies don’t seem like traps, or rhetors think they’ll be able to get back out, or they think that’s just how politics works. In this book, I want to show why smart people get trapped, what it means for policy deliberation, and how we dismantle the traps.

Anti-CRT rhetoric is irrational, and even its supporters know it

sign saying "I am not an oppressor"
From https://www.newsbug.info/news/nation/commentary-attacks-on-critical-race-theory-reopen-old-wounds/article_7f053c53-270a-566e-99e3-622595161329.html

The fact that no pro-GOP person appalled at CRT will read this post shows they know their beliefs are too fragile to be subjected to disproof.

The anti-CRT rhetoric makes six arguments:
1. People in K-12 are teaching CRT
2. Because they are talking about racism as an institutional and structural problem,
3. And CRT talked about racism that way, and some CRT authors were Marxist (or said things that could be characterized as Marxist)
4. Therefore, anyone who talks about racism as institutional or structural is Marxist,
5. And they are violating the principles of Christianity,
6. And promoting an ideology MLK would have rejected.

The first thing I want to say is a lot of people repeating these anti-CRT talking points are doing so because they are genuinely concerned about reducing racism, and especially racial conflict, and they sincerely want a world in which racism is just not an issue.

I argue with these people a lot. And I’ll say that they aren’t all bad people, and they aren’t necessarily stupid people. They are often people tremendously successful in careers that require considerable training. But they refuse to read anything that disagrees with them, and that makes them gullible. They believe that the truth is pretty obvious to reasonable people, that you should get your information from trustworthy sources, and that a good argument is one that has data and rings true.

What those beliefs mean, in effect, is that, if you want to be an “objective” person you should only get your information from sources that confirm what you already believe. That’s pretty much the opposite of objective.

In other words, they reason like Stalinists. As I’ve mentioned before, I was in Berkeley for a long time, so I’m very familiar with what it’s like to argue with people who only get their information from in-group sources, and who reject all other information and sources as “biased.”

If you’re reasoning like a Stalinist, you’re reasoning badly. But the problem is that people trapped in the world in which a claim is true because it seems true don’t care whether they’re reasoning like Stalinists. They tell themselves, “Stalinists were wrong, but I’m not!” Anyone can believe that what they believe is true if they only honor sources that tell them that what they believe is true.

Every one of those six talking points is false and fallacious, but no person worked into outrage about them will admit that. I think they know that the arguments aren’t rational, and that’s why they won’t read any CRT, or anything trying to point out that the anti-CRT rhetoric doesn’t make sense.

Lots of people arguing with them point that out refusal to be informed by reading actual sources, and it has no impact. I’ve only had one person try to defend themselves by citing CRT, but he obviously hadn’t read the link he’d offered. It was a law school textbook from 1995. So, it didn’t actually support his claim that CRT was being taught in K-12 now.

The argument that CRT is being taught in K-12, and that it’s Marxist and anti-Christian works this way. (And, unlike people up in arms about CRT, I’ve read the things I’m criticizing.) First, what is being taught in K-12 is that the US still racist, racism is a problem of institutions and structures and not individuals hostility, and the US has a history of racist action. CRT was a theory advocated by legal theorists, some of whom were Marxist, that said that racism was not a question of intent, but legal systems and institutions.

Therefore, and here’s one of many fallacious leaps, anyone who says that racism is not a question of individual intent, but institutional racism and systemic oppression got their ideas from CRT. Since Marxism also says there is systemic oppression, and then all people who say that there is institutional racism are Marxist. If someone teaches that, for instance, the GI Bill was applied in racist ways, or that the system of slavery was racist, or that segregation was systemic racism, then that person is teaching that there is institutional racism and therefore they’re a Marxist and teaching CRT.

That’s a way of arguing that makes absolutely no sense–it’s a combination of the genetic fallacy and the fallacy of guilt by association. And people can see that it’s fallacious when that kind of reasoning is applied to them. For instance, Marx said that capitalism relies on workers being desperate for employment, and therefore it requires that there be people who can’t survive without working. That was the GOP argument for workfare, and it’s what many GOP politicians have said is wrong with the stimulus package–that it’s making things harder for businesses. In other words, they are saying that a free market requires that there are people who can’t survive without working. Since GOP political leaders are saying something Marx said, they must be Marxist, and since CRT theorists are Marxists, Republicans are CRT!!!!!

I could go on. The first Puritan settlers in New England tried to hold all their property in common. Since that’s something Marx advocated, they were Marxist! Therefore, Thanksgiving is Marxist. Therefore, schools that put up Thanksgiving decorations are advocating Marxism.

That argument makes as much sense as the anti-CRT demagoguery.

Of course it’s a flawed argument, because it’s a flawed way to argue. If it’s a flawed way to argue about Republicans or Thanksgiving, then it’s a flawed way to argue about K-12 teachers.

So, let’s just start with the claim (which I’m happy to have disproven) that no one making the above six claims can support them with rational-critical argumentation.

In other words, the people making those arguments are consuming and repeating demagoguery.

As far as the first claim, that depends on making CRT every way of talking about racism that says it’s systematic and institutional. Since even abolitionists talked about racism that way in the 1830s, and Marx didn’t start theorizing Marxism till the late 1840s, Das Kapital wasn’t published till the 1867, and the first English translation was in 1887, then the claim that anyone who talks about racism as built into American institution is inspired by Marxism fails on its face. That takes care of 2-4.

Since critics of CRT will not themselves live by the standard they’ve set for their opposition (argument by association), they also fail at making a rational argument (again, even they think that the logic behind 2-4 is fallacious, but only when it applies to them, and not when they apply it to others).

The claim that there is institutional discrimination, and that not every individual has the same chances at success does not invalidate the principles of Christianity. It does invalidate the “just world model” or its incarnation as “prosperity gospel,” but those are very recent ways of reading Scripture, and not all Christians endorse them. So, talking about institutional discrimination might invalidate people who think Christianity and prosperity gospel are identical, but they don’t speak for all Christians. (And, really, they need to know their own history—the notion that people deserve what they get was used to justify slavery, after all.)

That these people claim that MLK would be on their side is the final thing that frosts my cupcake.

If they think that MLK never talked about institutional racism, then they’re just showing that they reason and read badly. But, really what they’re showing is that, just as they’ve read no CRT (but only things about it), they’ve read little or no MLK. In fact, MLK talked a lot about how racism was not about angry redneck individuals, but white “moderates” who wouldn’t face the institutional problems (that’s the point of most of “Letter from Birmingham Jail”). For instance, from his speech “The Other America” (which every critic of CRT should read in its entirety):

But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality, and it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good, solid job. It’s much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine quality integrated education a reality. And so today, we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality. It’s not merely a struggle against extremist behavior toward Negros. And I’m convinced that many of the very people who supported us in the struggle in the South are not willing to go all the way now. [….] I say that however unpleasant it is, we must honestly see and admit that racism is still deeply rooted all over America. It’s still deeply rooted in the North, and it’s still deeply rooted in the South. [….] In 1875, the nation passed a civil rights bill and refused to enforce it. In 1964, the nation passed a weaker civil rights bill, and even to this day, that bill has not been totally enforced in all of its dimensions. The nation heralded a new day of concern for the poor, for the poverty-stricken, for the disadvantaged, and brought into being a poverty bill. But at the same time, it put such little money into the program that it was hardly and still remains hardly a good skirmish against poverty. White politicians in suburbs talk eloquently against open housing, and in the same breath, contend that they are not racist. And all of this, and all of these things, tell us that America has been back lashing on the whole question of basic constitutional and God-given rights for Negros and other disadvantaged groups for more than 300 years. [….] But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities, as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. And in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. So in a real sense, our nation’s summer’s riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

What I learned arguing with Stalinists is that some people believe that personal certainty is objectivity, data is proof, and sources that agree with them are unbiased. The Stalinist were wrong on all counts. But, if reasoning like some group means you are part of that group (people who talk about institutional racism are like CRT and CRT are Marxist), then critics of CRT are Stalinists.

Anti-maskers’ inability to engage in rational argumentation (aka, not this shit again)

chart of texas covid deaths
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/texas?view=daily-deaths&tab=trend

If, like me, you have spent your life arguing with assholes, then you find yourself in the same kind of argument. It doesn’t matter if they’re Stalinists, Maoists (my least favorite interlocutors), crude Freudians, raw food for dog cultists, or, now, anti-maskers. Assholes aren’t restricted to any one place on the political spectrum, or even necessarily restricted to the “political” spectrum at all. By “asshole,” I don’t mean people who are unpleasant or aggressive, but people who can’t defend their position rationally, and feel no obligation to do so. Although they can’t defend their position rationally, they are certain that they are right because 1) they can find data to support them, and 2) they feel certain that they’re right.

In general, you find someone like this on every issue, but there are some issues on which everyone is like this. What I’ve found by drifting around and trying to read the best anti-mask/anti-vaccine posts is that none of them can defend their position rationally, so those are in that latter category.

When pushed to support their case rationally (e.g, hold all data to the same standards, have an internally consistent argument, be able to name the data that would cause them to change their mind, represent opposition arguments fairly, avoid fallacies) they get mad. They get mad if asked to support their case rationally, and they try to shift the burden of proof–their position is true because it can’t be proven wrong. Once again, that isn’t a rational argument.

Making a rational argument isn’t about your tone, whether you have evidence, or whether it feels true to you–anyone can cherrypick the data to make any case. I learned this watching someone present a lot of data that Stephen King and Richard Nixon conspired together to kill John Lennon–lots of data, all of it cherrypicked, none of it rationally related to the overall claim. That guy had done too much speed, and ended up in jail for stalking Stephen King. Having data that to you proves a point doesn’t mean you have a rational argument. You might have done too much speed.

For this post, I’ll talk about the strongest argument I’ve seen against masks (since it cited a study). And the first point I’ll make is that no anti-mask or anti-vax person has read this far. They do not read anything that might complicate, let alone disconfirm, their point of view. So, they fail the absolutely lowest level of having a rational position–being able to engage the smartest opposition. They don’t even engage dumb oppositions. They run away from opposition information the way I run away from snakes. It isn’t rational, but it’s what I do. If you refuse to read opposition arguments (and not what your in-group tells you are the opposition arguments) then you don’t have a rational position–it doesn’t matter what the issue is.

Anti-maskers often claim that 1) masks are ineffective, and 2) they reduce oxygen intake and exhalation of carbon monoxide. The “and” is important. On its face (prima facie) this is an irrational argument. Both of those claims cannot be true at the same time. If masks significantly inhibit inhalation and exhalation, then they would definitely inhibit the spread of and threat of infection from covid.

I recently pointed this out, and someone responded by citing this study.

This is typical. They found a study that says that masks do inhibit inhalation and exhalation. That study doesn’t solve the basic contradiction–if masks are extremely effective at restricting inhalation/exhalation, they are extremely effective at preventing the spread of COVID.

But, let’s set aside that contradiction (one present in the cited study). I’m not an epidemiologist, but I am an expert in argumentation, and one of the most salient aspects of an irrational position is cherry-picking data. (As I said, this is true of irrational positions on all issues.)

The most prominent characteristic of an irrational position–whether it’s about masks, tax breaks, raw food for dogs, my desire for a camper, whether your boss is a jerk– is that it’s about finding data to support our position, and not taking one step above, and thinking about our position in terms of whether it relies on premises and data you’d think valid if they led to opposite conclusions.

Irrational people on the internet find a study that supports what they believe, on the basis of the abstract. (They reject all studies that don’t support them, also based on the abstract.) I read the study. The person who cited it obviously didn’t. (This is typical.) But, if one study proves you right, then one study proves you wrong.

And this study didn’t even prove them right. Most of the study looked at research regarding N95 mask use among medical workers. As the study says, “Thirty papers referred to surgical masks (68%), 30 publications related to N95 masks (68%), and only 10 studies pertained to fabric masks (23%).” The study says that surgical and N95 masks are effective for preventing the spread of COVID (see especially pages 20-21), so the person cited a study as an authority that contradicts the anti-mask talking point. That’s also typical of someone who can’t support their case rationally (because they don’t read the studies they cite).

Most important, the negative consequences were associated with N95 masks, not fabric ones. So, how many people out in public are wearing N95 masks? I asked the person who posted this study what she thought of the following paragraph. She never responded. Also typical of someone defending a position irrationally.

“In addition, we found a mathematically grouped common appearance of statistically significant confirmed effects of masks in the primary studies (p < 0.05 and n ≥ 50%) as shown in Figure 2. In nine of the 11 scientific papers (82%), we found a combined onset of N95 respiratory protection and carbon dioxide rise when wearing a mask. We found a similar result for the decrease in oxygen saturation and respiratory impairment with synchronous evidence in six of the nine relevant studies (67%). N95 masks were associated with headaches in six of the 10 studies (60%). For oxygen deprivation under N95 respiratory protectors, we found a common occurrence in eight of 11 primary studies (72%). Skin temperature rise under masks was associated with fatigue in 50% (three out of six primary studies). The dual occurrence of the physical parameter temperature rise and respiratory impairment was found in seven of the eight studies (88%). A combined occurrence of the physical parameters temperature rise and humidity/moisture under the mask was found in 100% within six of six studies, with significant readings of these parameters (Figure 2).”

To be clear, the study expresses skepticism about mask-wearing generally, but their meta-research doesn’t support that skepticism. When they get to the part of the argument in which they want to say that wearing masks is harmful, the authors abandon their meta-research (because meta-research wouldn’t support their position) and start citing various individual studies that suggest that fabric masks might not be very effective. So, on the whole, the study shows that fabric masks might not be effective but aren’t harmful, and N95 are effective but might be harmful. Not an argument against wearing masks.

And the “harms” the study identifies for the N95 masks are far preferable to the harms of getting COVID. When it gets to the harms of fabric masks, the study starts arguing syllogistically, and seems to be assuming that people are not washing their masks. (Yeah, if you wear a fabric mask and don’t wash it on a daily basis, you’re likely to get acne. If this is news to you, we need to talk about your underwear.)

I could make other points about the study, such as that they didn’t include the variable of social distancing, none of the authors appears to be an epidemiologist, and it isn’t clear that anyone is a statistician, but the most important point is that the study as a whole doesn’t support the claim that masks are useless, let alone that masks are useless and harmful. What it does show is something that experts have been saying for a while: wearing a fabric mask (especially if, as the authors assume, one keeps wearing a fabric mask without washing it) is not a guarantee in and of itself (helllooooo, social distancing!) and might have problems. That is something that research has been saying for at least a year. Wearing a mask and engaging in social distancing is probably a good strategy:

“Evidence for efficacy of face masks against the first SARS virus, SARS-CoV-1, implies that they may be effective against the current outbreak of SARS-Cov-2 virus. This is important as mathematical modeling suggests that even small reductions of in transmission rates can make a large difference over time, potentially slowing the pace of viral pandemics and limiting their spread. Perhaps the strongest argument for the use of masks is that countries with early adoption of masks have tended to see flatter pandemic curves, even without strict nationwide lockdowns.[…] Improvised masks are less effective than medical masks, but may provide better protection than nothing at all.”

I picked this study because it’s over a year old, and pretty typical of what studies of fabric masks had and have been saying for a while. It also includes the issue of social distancing–a variable the anti-mask study didn’t include. This study says that a person wearing a non N95 mask can still expel droplets 20 cm. (That’s about eight inches.) So, social distancing is an important factor. This study doesn’t support a claim that masks are guaranteed to prevent infection, just as seat belts won’t magically prevent a person from injuries in a car wreck (and a person might be injured by the seat belt, albeit less injured than if they weren’t wearing one), but it does give good reason to think that wearing a mask, coupled with social distancing, will reduce COVID infection rates.

The anti-masker position is irrational because its advocates can’t put forward arguments that meet the lowest standards of a rational argument. They fail at the most basic level of: 1) having an internally consistent argument; 2) engaging the best opposition arguments; 3) holding themselves and their oppositions to the same standards of proof; 4) avoiding major fallacies.

Here’s how an anti-masker or anti-vaxxer could prove me wrong: identify the data that would cause you to admit you’re wrong; put forward an internally consistent argument that holds all data to the same standards; engage the best opposition arguments.

The fallacy and fantasy of obstructionism as principled decisiveness: Ridley’s 1980 Statement on the Falklands

screenshot of falklands/malvinas from google maps

It’s common for people to complain about obstructionism and political paralysis in the abstract, and to blame politicians (or political parties) for those problems, but we rarely see how we, as voters, are rewarding obstructionism and thereby guaranteeing political paralysis. Obstructionism in a democracy only happens when it’s rewarded by voters, so, if we want it to stop, we have to stop rewarding it.

Of course, obstructionism only looks like obstructionism when the out-group engages in it. We don’t see our political party or leader engaged in obstructionism, but principled resistance. There are times when refusing to compromise is principled and good, but it’s rare that refusing to deliberate is principled. Yet it can present itself that way, particularly on issues that voters have made impossible for politicians to deliberate. Too often, political leaders declaring themselves so irrationally committed to an irrational policy that they refuse to engage in rational deliberation is seen as principled and decisive. It’s neither.

How we (not they) reward obstructionism is neatly exemplified in the December 2, 1980 session of the House of Commons, when Nicholas Ridley, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK, gave a statement regarding what the British called the Falkland Islands.

Background. The situation regarding the Falklands/Malvina was murky—both Britain and Argentina claimed sovereignty, and the issue had never been litigated in a world court. After the UN passed Resolution 2065 in 1965, recognizing that sovereignty was disputed, and calling on the two countries to find a solution, the UK couldn’t be certain that any such litigation would result a favorable decision. The UN Resolution framed the issue in terms of colonialism, specifically mentioning Resolution 1514, which was a “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples” (XV). Regardless of assertions on both sides about their indisputable right to claim sovereignty, the claims were disputable, since they were being disputed (this point will become sadly important).

It was also murky as to what policy Britain should pursue. This is also sadly important. Loosely, there were two kinds of action political leaders could advocate: formally acknowledge Argentine sovereignty of the region, or commit to “Fortress Falklands” (that is, openly commit to holding onto the islands, by military force if necessary).

Within each of those large categories were numerous other options. For instance, Britain might opt for a leaseback with Argentina while granting all islanders “patrial” rights (that is, the right to move to Britain as a British citizen), or a leaseback without those rights (which would mean about 200 of the 1800 or so islanders would not have British citizenship). The leaseback might be as short as twenty years or as long as eighty; islanders might be recompensed for their property, or not.

The “Fortress Falklands” option similarly had variations. The basic notion was that Britain would cease negotiating about sovereignty, an action that would require that the islands be fortified at least enough to deter Argentina from sending troops to occupy the area—such as regular navy patrols (so expensive that the Thatcher government had fought hard for the only ship in the area to be scuttled and for the UK to have no naval presence at all) or a standing military force on the islands. The airport would have to be expanded such it would be useable in case of an attempted occupation. The island economy would also have to be strengthened so that the islanders could be independent of Argentina in case it tried some kind of economic embargo.

The problem was that almost every possible long-term policy that involved British insisting on sovereignty was expensive, ranging from millions to billions of pounds, at a point when the Thatcher government was advocating a neoliberalist economic policy of cutting government expenditures back to the bone. Advocating spending, for instance, 7 million pounds on an airport for the 1800 islanders, when coal miners were told to stuff it, was not an argument likely to go over well with the large swaths of the public. And that estimate was a minimal expenditure.

Meanwhile, arguing for acknowledging Argentine sovereignty would mean either changing the recent law regarding “patrial” rights (which seemed unthinkable at the time, but ended up getting changed) and that had implications that were controversial among anti-immigration voters in the UK.

In short, there was no obviously perfect policy option, but a variety of choices with varied costs and risks. Therefore, in a perfect world, or even just a deliberative one, the House reaction to Ridley’s statement would have been to insist on deliberating the relative strengths, weaknesses, costs, and risks of the various options. It is, after all, supposed to be a deliberative assembly. That isn’t what happened.

There was one thing about the situation that was perfectly clear: an ambitious politician could not advocate any of the policy options without enraging some group. Insisting upon rational deliberation about the long-term costs and likely outcomes of any option did nothing other than offer a cue to an ambitious politician to rant and rage and strike poses like a bad actor in an amateur production of Shakespeare. The temptation was there because it looked as though the one non-controversial position (that would look good to many people and outrage no one) was to insist upon the principle of self-determination for the islanders without advocating any of the policies necessary to make that self-determination meaningful. And politicians of every party took that cue when it was offered. Lawrence Freedman snarkily summarizes the political rhetoric on the issue: “There was an obligation to accept that the islanders’ wishes were paramount when it came to negotiations with the Argentines but not when it came to expenditures” (Official I:151). And that is what happened when Ridley made his statement.

One of many strange things about political discourse is that, the more uncertain the situation, the more likely it is that politicians and pundits will insist there is no question at all. The answer, they insist, is obvious. For instance, several speakers insisted that it was obvious that Britain’s sovereignty claim was indisputable (as I said, it was disputed, so it was disputable). Ridley began his statement says, “We have no doubt about our sovereignty over the islands.” Yet Peter Shore criticized Ridley’s actions as though he was weak on the question of sovereignty, saying that even discussing leasing was “a major weakening of our long-held position on sovereignty.” Bernard Braine similarly characterized Ridley’s position as “yielding on sovereignty” and thereby undermining “a perfectly valid title in international law.” Of course, the title might have seemed to Braine to be “perfectly” valid, but that’s hyperbole. A title that has never been tried in international law is not perfect.

Ridley also said in his statement that “Any eventual settlement would have to be endorsed by the islanders and this House.” That’s an unambiguous statement, yet various speakers replied as though Ridley had waffled on the question of the ability of the islanders to veto any foreign policy they didn’t like, regardless of what the majority of British citizens felt. I emphasize that disproportionate amount of power because it would have been reasonable to say that some compromise is necessary. In 1977, the “Ridley Report” advocated harsh measures regarding workers in various industries, with comments like, “It must eventually be taken for granted that in order to meet the obligation plants must be closed and people must be sacked” (4) and “Effective action might mean that men would be laid off, or uneconomic plants would be closed down, or whole businesses sold off or liquidated” (4). Ridley’s report assumed that strikes were inevitable, and included estimates on how long the country could withstand strikes. So, when it came to workers in the UK, Ridley himself had no trouble telling far more than 1800 people that their wishes and desires could be completely ignored—neither he nor the Conservative Party was committed to the principle of self-determination, or unwilling to force people into compromises they didn’t want.

But, having said that he would give the islanders veto power, Ridley was treated as though he’d said the opposite, and various speakers from different parties asked leading questions (statements and speeches are prohibited in these circumstances, and only questions are allowed) demanding that Ridley take a hyperbolic stance on the issue. Peter Shore (Labour) said, “Will [Ridley] reaffirm that there is no question of proceeding with any proposal contrary to the wishes of the Falklands Islanders? [….] Will he, therefore, make it clear that we shall uphold the rights of the islanders to continue to make a genuinely free choice about their future, that we shall not abandon them, and that, in spite of all the logistical difficulties, we shall continue to support and sustain them?” (emphasis added) In other words, Shore was demanding that Ridley say that he will be an irresponsible political leader—a responsible leader sets limits on policies, largely on the basis of logistical difficulties. Political leaders (and voters) should pay careful attention to logistical difficulties, especially if those difficulties might require spending millions or billions of pounds.

Shore, a member at that time of the Labour Party, would hardly claim that it’s responsible to spend at least 17 million pounds on the Falklands and endanger relations with Argentina, at a time when “current and pending contracts with Argentina [were] worth over £240 million, as well as investment worth £60 million” (Freedman 49) and the UK economy was in such trouble. William Shelton (Conservative), David Lambie (Scottish Labour), James Johnson (Labour), Viscount Cranborne (Conservative) made similar demands for statements of intransigence. One of the most irresponsible statements was Douglas Jay’s “Why cannot the Foreign Office leave the matter alone?” As explained above, and as every member of Parliament knew, Britain had choices, it wasn’t obvious which one was best, and none was perfect, but something had to be done.

As various scholars have argued, and was admitted at the time, Argentina would eventually trigger war by occupying the islands because of misunderstanding the very mixed signals sent by Parliament, Thatcher’s government, and the Foreign Office. The way political leaders talked about the issue led to war when diplomacy might have solved the problem.

It’s quite likely that the speakers taking a bellicose stance had no desire for war over the islands, and I’m sure they didn’t realize that they were setting such a war in motion. But they were, not just by their posturing about a rigid stance on the issue of sovereignty, but by the combination of a rigid stance and no policy that would make a refusal to negotiate about sovereignty a plausible course of action. They had nothing to gain, politically, by arguing for any policy at all and much to lose. But, they had a lot to gain politically by arguing against any policy. In other words, they were engaged in obstructing not only any policies oriented toward a long-term solution to the situation, but any deliberation of the policies.

Newspaper reports the next day describe Ridley as having been “mauled” by the House, but I don’t feel sorry for him. He had several moments at which he could have been more honest and more accurate about the situation. He never mentioned the practical costs of improving the situation for the islanders, or of the costs of Fortress Falklands. At one point, a member (Frank Hooley) says, “Is not the Government’s argument that the interests of 1,800 Falkland islanders take precedence over the interests of 55 million people in the United Kingdom?” It’s an accurate characterization of the Thatcher approach to the situation, and of that advocated by Labour members like Shore. At that point, Ridley could have reminded the House of the costs of the course of action necessarily connected to what they were advocating, but instead said, “There need be no conflict between the two, especially if a peaceful resolution of the dispute can be achieved.” However the conflict was resolved would be expensive, and that means money would have to come from something that some other UK constituency wanted. Of course the interests conflict because interests conflict.

The members’ obstructionism was rewarded in the media. The Parliamentary Correspondent for The Times, for instance, repeated the arguments, endorsing them along the way, and said,

Seldom can a minister have had such a drubbing from all sides of the House, and Mr Ridley was left in no doubt that whatever Machiavellian intrigues he and the Foreign Office may be up to, they will come to nothing if they involve harming a hair on the heads of the islanders. (December 3, 1980, p 8)

Too bad The Times wasn’t so worried about the islanders’ hair that it advocated a reasonable discussion of policy options.

But, again, I don’t blame The Times, or the Members. Newspapers print what gets them readers, and politicians say what gets them votes. It was, ultimately, the voters who rewarded this kind of obstructionism. It is, also, voters who eventually pay for it. In the case of British voters, it was 288 dead, and 777 wounded, and at least 2 billion pounds. The UK gave the islanders patrial rights, and, in 2011/12, was spending 46 million pounds on the islands yearly.

But the miners could stuff it.





Chapter summaries of the Deliberating War book

cat scratching at writing

[Various folks have asked about the book I’m currently trying to write, so I decided I’d post the part of the latest draft of the introduction that is the draft of the summary of the chapters I’ve drafted. You might sense a theme here. As it stands, the intro begins by talking about the Corinthian speech at the “Debate at Sparta” and then moves into these summaries.]

It’s conventional to think of rhetoric as changing the minds of an audience—gaining their compliance to one’s main claim or set of claims. Thus, to look at the rhetoric of the “Debate at Sparta” is to look at what strategies rhetors used to gain (or try to gain) compliance to their argument about whether to go to war with Athens. While those present eventually voted for a resolution that was implicitly a decision for war with Athens, it isn’t clear that they did so because the speech for war (the Corinthian’s) changed their minds. This chapter uses the Debate at Sparta and Alexander the Great’s speech at the Beas River in order to make two major points: first, what matters about rhetoric surrounding a decision to go to war is not whether it persuades listeners to go to war, but how the way the war is defined in the course of the discussion: what kind of war it is (e.g., preventive, pre-emptive, limited, total), and, closely connected, what the goals of the war are (in other words, at what point can we say that the war was successful, and can therefore be ended). Second, the strategies that are the most attractive to a rhetor who is simply looking for short-term gains in persuasion are ones that constrain policy deliberation and, therefore, threaten the long-term best interests of the community as a whole. Among the most effective—in the short-term—strategies is to deflect away from pragmatic disagreements about policy options by describing the situation as an existential battle between two entities, a description that can trap a culture into either a war of extermination or endless war.

The second chapter considers Charles Cambreleng’s speech in Congress in February of 1835 and several articles about the 1873 controversy concerning the ship Virginius. Both situations enable thinking about the relationship of factionalism, hyperbole, threat inflation, and bargaining. While presenting a situation as a zero-sum conflict of such intensity that we don’t have time to deliberate is rhetorically powerful (threat inflation), it isn’t always oriented toward starting a war. There are considerable benefits under various situations, including one of hyperfactionalism, in looking as though one is panting for war, even (or especially) when war is unnecessary and unwise. The problem is that appealing to the triumph of faction as a good in and of itself encourages communities to make “Vladimir’s Choice.” While the agonism of factionalism can function to ensure that there is disagreement, and that therefore policy proposals are disputed (“interrogated” is the term often used), it can paradoxically mean that irrational loyalty is admired and emulated. Thus, factionalism can either function to improve or prohibit policy disagreement, and even deliberation. The final point in the chapter is that our tendency to think in terms of binary paired terms (that is, assuming that all issues can be mapped as terms that are consistently opposed to some and associated with others) means we assume that our rich and varied spectrum of political commitments can not only be reduced to two opposing ones, but that they are opposed in every way and at every point. The more factional a community, the greater the pressure to present policy commitments as grounded in principle, and the less likely it is that they are—appeals to principle become sticks with which to whack the opposition, and not legs on which beliefs stand.

This book is an exploration of how communities do and don’t engage in effective public deliberation about war. But, I won’t rely on any very precise use of the term “war”—this book includes discussions of conflicts that never happened (such as the US going to war with France or Spain), conflicts in which war was never formally declared (Vietnam, the Falklands/Malvinas), failed attempts to prevent a war (appeasing Hitler, the Falklands/Malvinas), and times that people claim something is metaphorically war (factional politics as war). The third chapter focusses on the April 3, 1982 debate in Parliament, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in the unenviable position of having to announce that Argentine troops had occupied the long-disputed islands of Malvinas/Falklands. Although the islands were not of strategic or economic importance to either Argentina or Britain, diplomatic negotiations over the future of the approximately one thousand people on the islands had sputtered without noticeable progress for almost twenty years. Oddly enough, neither Argentina nor Britain wanted a military conflict over the territory, and both governments thought they could avoid such a conflict almost until the moment that British troops arrived. Since the area was primarily of symbolic importance, and neither side wanted military conflict, it’s interesting to wonder how they ended up in a war neither wanted. In this chapter, I’ll argue that the situation exemplifies some of the ways that factionalism can create untouchable third rails in politics, and then we have the train wreck of a war no one wanted. Or, to mix my metaphors, the short-term gains of refusing to negotiate Falklands’ sovereignty coupled with the high costs of rational deliberation about the long-term policy options meant that pundits and politicians who hoped to keep their jobs were willing to take the gains and avoid the costs.

Paradoxically, that we believe that the correct course of action is obvious to us, and would have been obvious to us had we be in the charge at various moments in the past, keeps us from learning from the past. It enables us to tell a story about gullible, oblivious, benighted, and possibly corrupt fools who ignored the obviously right policy. There are several errors in that narrative—the notion that there is a correct course of action, that it’s obvious to good people, that we are the exactly the good sort of people who see it, and that anyone who disagrees with us (or who took a different course of action in the past) did so because they are failed and flawed. The third chapter, about the Falklands War, and the fourth, about appeasing Hitler, are both about instances in which there was not an obviously correct course of action that all people of good sense and goodwill recognized immediately for what it was; more important, that there were people believed in a right answer, obvious to them, and obvious to everyone, and that disagreement about what should be done was unnecessary at best and villainy of some sort at worst, is precisely what led to decisions communities later regretted.

There’s a saying attributed to Santayana, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” The problem with that saying is that there is an awful lot of history to know, and we don’t know which past incident we should take as our model. As will be discussed in the fourth chapter, we think that appeasing Hitler was an obviously stupid policy—not just given what we now know, but given what was obvious at the time. And so the supposedly obvious mistake about Hitler is frequently, even compulsively, applied as the obvious parallel that should make it clear that we should respond with maximum aggression to this provocation. But it is also obvious to many people (and was obvious to many people in the 1920s and 30s) that the Great War had been caused by responding with excessive aggression, thereby provoking Germany and Austria. It is (and was) obvious to many people that appeasing Austria would have been the wise choice. Thus, history does not tell us that appeasement is always an obvious mistake. In fact, it isn’t even clear that the example of Hitler is a case of political leaders making a choice which was to them obviously wrong. I think they made the wrong choice, but not an obviously wrong one, and it may have even been that they made the choice they did because so many people believed that the correct political option is always the obvious one. That is, the tragedy might have come about at least partially because people thought not only that they were right, but so obviously right that they could dismiss out of hand any disconfirming information or arguments.

Throughout the book, I argue that rhetors are tempted to avoid policy argumentation because it’s hard, not particularly popular with audiences, even less popular with most media, and often obligates them to talk about their policy or party in ways that will expose flaws. As mentioned above, one of the flaws might be that the case is rhetorically difficult and the audience is unlikely to see the situation as meriting much concern. In 1947, Harry S Truman wanted Congressional approval for providing support for an anti-communist (and problematic) government in Greece, and for Turkey. Worried that the “ill” of his case would seem remote, and the aid risky (since it might lead to another European war), Truman and his speechwriters chose the same strategy as had the un-named Corinthian: make the conflict not a limited dispute but an existential and inevitable battle between two identities. This move put the specifics of Truman’s policies above the realm of pragmatic rational policy argumentation—if we’re facing extermination, it’s frivolous to count pennies or dispute data. If the situation is urgent, then asking for democratic deliberation helps the enemy. The fifth chapter looks at the rhetorical problem presented by this framing of American foreign policy arguing that it wasn’t possible for this remain a frame only for foreign policy. It must, inevitably, become the way that domestic deliberation about foreign policy would be handled, and it was.

If we are in an apocalyptic battle between Good and Evil, then there is no such place for the everyday politics of compromise, deliberation, fairness, reciprocity. The conclusion argues that what initially seems to be an effective solution (hyperbole and demagoguery) to an immediate rhetorical problem—how do I persuade people to adopt a policy (or support me) without relying on policy argumentation, since that probably wouldn’t work?—is a trap. At some point, hyperbolic rhetoric becomes threat inflation, and then that inflated threat becomes the premise of policies, both foreign and domestic. And then agreeing as to the obvious existential threat posed by the Other and uniting behind the obvious policy solution is a necessary sign of being on the side of Good. Thus, the rhetoric of existential war inevitably has as one its major casualties democratic discourse itself. And democracy without democratic discourse isn’t democracy.








I was an idiot at 18 (aka, compromise and incrementalism and progressivism can work together)

gaetz shouting
Image from: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/10/politics/donald-trump-impeachment/index.html



When I moved to Berkeley at the age of 18, I was frustrated by various lefties who had, I thought, “given up” on their convictions. They were working for short-term gains and willing to compromise. I believed that they had been worn down by years of political activism, and that their mistake was having abandoned their pure faith in the right policies—they should have continued to insist on settling for nothing short of what is right.

I believed that political change happens because there are people who are so purely committed to the right thing that evil capitulates to the people who refuse to compromise. I wasn’t entirely wrong. And yet I was.

There were four errors in how I thought. First, and most important, I thought that my perspective on what was “the right” thing to do was correct. I began from the premise that someone died and made me Kant. I believed that there is a perfect policy on every issue because people don’t really disagree, and/or that the people who disagree don’t count or don’t understand their own real interests. I was a toxic populist.

Toxic populism is profoundly anti-democratic and implicitly authoritarian, since it denies the value of inclusive democratic deliberation by saying that only one perspective is right. It isn’t necessarily “left” or “right” or even “political.” As Jan-Werner Muller says,

But above all, [populists] tend to say that they — and only they — represent what they often call the real people or also, typically, the silent majority. Populists will deny the legitimacy of all other contenders for power. This is never merely about policy disagreements or even disagreements about values which, of course, are normal and ideally productive in a democracy. Populists always immediately make it personal and moral. They also suggest that citizens who do not share their understanding of the supposedly real people do not really belong to the people at all. So populists always morally exclude others at two levels: party politics, but also among the people themselves, where those who do not take their side politically are automatically deemed un-American, un-Polish, un-Turkish, etc.

Second, I believed in hope. I remember that I decided that I must like George Berkeley’s philosophy because I was told he was an idealist. I had no clue what that meant in philosophical terms, and I’m not sure I understood what little of him I tried to read, but I had some vague sense that it meant something like holding onto your dreams even when things are bad. I believed that ignoring your past in favor of what you hoped might happen in the future was positive, and, to be blunt, it was very positive in my life. My high school life had not been good, and I needed to believe that that past life was not a prediction of my future life. It wasn’t. And it can be literally life-saving to believe in hope. Believing in hope is good.

But, third, for reasons I still don’t understand, I came to believe that believing in hope is enough to make things happen. What I didn’t understand is that hope is necessary but not sufficient for good things to happen when they haven’t been happening. Hoping is good, and having hope makes it more likely that you’ll take advantages of opportunity; it’s necessary for change and achievement. But success is not guaranteed to people who hope, no matter how much you hope. We have to be hopeful enough to look at the past honestly.

I was engaged in magical thinking about politics. There are lots of kinds of magical thinking when it comes to politics—the just world model, prosperity “gospel,” Social Darwinism, politics as eschatology. [1] What they all have in common is the notion that we shouldn’t learn from the past—we should reject it in favor of what we hope for the future, as though hope is all we need.

I also saw compromise as in an inverse relationship to hope I thought that, if people refused to compromise, and hoped more, something would magically happen. I believed that the universe rewarded uncompromised hope. [2]

And all of these errors are included in the fourth, which was that I thought there was one way that people should try to enact political change, and that we should find that one way. I thought that political change had happened because of one person or one group and their one policy to which they were unanimously and completely committed. (Granted, that’s how US history is taught, so my idiocy wasn’t venal.)

In other words, I was unidimensional in my thinking about politics—I thought there was one perspective that correctly saw the policy that was right for everyone, and to which every reasonable person would assent. I thought disagreement was failure to have the right perspective. I thought that’s what history showed to be true.

For instance, I thought abolition happened because abolitionists refused to compromise, segregation ended because Civil Rights workers refused to compromise, women got the vote because suffragettes refused to compromise, but that isn’t what happened at all. All the abolitionists made compromises of various kinds, MLK was condemned for making too many compromises, and the suffragettes rhetorical compromises in terms of racism are just unbearable.

There are so many things I didn’t understand. Among them is no major change happens because of one individual or one group. Political change happens because there are lots of groups working toward the same end and using lots of different methods. I didn’t know that because we don’t like history to be that way—we like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or David v. Goliath; we like stories in which individuals, by standing up for their beliefs, changed everything. There are admirable individuals who made big changes in our world, but they were always part of a group, and that group was part of a coalition of groups, and they never got all that they wanted.

No one person, and no one group, makes significant change happen. Political change happens because there are people who are willing to compromise, and people who think that compromise is the first step in more changes. Incremental change works to move a big community toward major changes when the people who want more work with those who negotiate incremental changes and vice versa. It doesn’t work if we see politics as bargaining, in which we reach an agreement and we’re done. It does work if we see each compromise as incremental movement toward a goal—if it becomes the place from which we climb higher.

What I didn’t see (but what’s pretty clear in much history) is that people who demand more need to be part of the conversation, and need to make their demands clear, and need to agitate for those demands aggressively, and they need to push hard on the people who want incremental change without making incrementalists the enemy. Those people are absolutely crucial in political change. And incrementalists need to think of what changes they’ve achieved as not nearly enough. When incrementalists get an incremental achievement, those people who dislike the compromise need to push for more.

DADT—which was incrementalist–turned out to be a good move. At the time, I didn’t think it was. LBJ’s very incrementalist Medicare was a good move. So was the Voting Rights Act, insofar as it stayed in place for a while, but it wasn’t the basis of even better incremental changes. The Civil Rights Act was the basis for more changes. I still think Obamacare was good incrementalism, but I worry that it’s in the Voting Rights Act category.

In any case, our world is a little better for those compromises, so incremental can make things a little better. Our world is much worse, however, because of the incrementalist compromises in the GI Bill, the 1876 resolution of the disputed election, the Missouri Compromise, compromises about Workfare and “tough on crime” initiatives of the 90s, and so many compromises that FDR made with racists. Incrementalism isn’t always good, and it isn’t always bad, but even when it’s good it’s good only if it’s seen as a step from which we will move. Because we hope for more.

I was right to think that hope is good; I was wrong to think hoping means you never compromise. In fact, useful compromises require tremendous compromise.



[1] I have to point out the heartlessness of any of these ways of magical thinking. They’re all versions of the “bad things only happen to people who deserve them” lie, as though slaves just had to hope more and…what…slavery would have evaporated? Slavers would have said, “Oh, shit, what we’re doing is unjust!”? People who get cancer didn’t hope enough? Sometimes our desire to erase uncertainty from our loves is the basis for extraordinary cruelty.

[2] Refusing to compromise is a great and effective strategy under certain circumstances–it’s useful for someone who has all the power, or who has enough power to stop anything from happening if they don’t get their way, someone who wants to burn down the system, someone who is fine with how the system is working, and spoiled children.

Patricia Roberts-Miller cv

Patricia Roberts-Miller, Professor Emeritus
Department of Rhetoric and Writing
University of Texas at Austin
patriciarobertsmiller@gmail.com
patriciarobertsmiller.com

Scholar of pathologies of deliberation—that is, how communities persuade themselves to make decisions they later regret, although they had all the information necessary to make other decisions (e.g., demagoguery, propaganda, racism).

Education: University of California at Berkeley, Rhetoric PhD (1987), MA (Distinction, 1983), AB (Highest Honors, 1981)

Selected Books: Speaking of Race: How to Have Antiracist Conversations That Bring US Together (2021), Rhetoric and Demagoguery (2019), Demagoguery and Democracy (2017), Fanatical Schemes: Proslavery Rhetoric and the Tragedy of Consensus (2009), Deliberate Conflict: Composition Classes and Political Spaces (2004), Voices in the Wilderness: The Paradox of the Puritan Public Sphere (1999).

Selected Recent Articles and Book Chapters
• “Who Says What Is…Always Tells a Story”: White Supremacist Rhetoric, Then and Now” Nineteenth-Century Activist Rhetorics. Eds. Patricia Bizzell and Lisa Zimmerelli. MLA. 2021. 279-289.
• “How to have more productive conversations about racism: Stop focusing on individual intent.” Salon (February 15, 2021)
• “On Not Bullshitting Yourself, or Your Teaching.” Composition Studies, 48:3, 129-131, 2020.
• “Demagoguery, Charismatic Leadership, and the Force of Habit,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 49:3, 233-247, 2019. DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2019.1610638
• “Why “I don’t like his rhetoric, but I like what he’s doing with the economy” is not a good reason to support any leader.” Washington Spectator. September 25, 2019.
• “Ocasio-Cortez Exploited as Clickbait and Outrage Porn Magnet.” Washington Spectator April 2, 2019.
• “Trump’s Demagoguery.” Washington Spectator March 11, 2019.
• “Charisma Isn’t Leadership” Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us About Donald J. Trump. Ed. Ryan Skinnell. Societas, 2018.
• “Demagoguery vs. democracy: How “us vs. them” can lead to state-led violence.” Salon (June 10, 2017).

Selected Recent Invited Lectures/Presentations
Rhetoric Society of America (co-leader of seminar on “Rhetoric in Dark Times,” 2021), University of Georgia Athens (2020), University of Pennsylvania Law School (2020), “Unbecoming a Democracy.” Open Mind (2/10/2020), University of Maryland College Park (First Year Book 2019), Penn State University (Kenneth Burke Lecture, 2019), “Demagogues are More Common Than You Think.” Democracy Works (May 20, 2019), “Demagoguery and Democracy” Pardubice University, and Clemintinium National Library, Czechia (2019), University of Nevada-Reno (2019), Scranton University (2019)

Referee/Reviewer (presses and journals): Canadian Journal of Political Science, CCC, College English, Composition Studies, JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Journal of the History of Rhetoric (formerly Advances in the History of Rhetoric), Lexington Books, Oxford University Press, Penn State University Press, Political Studies, Praxis, Profession, Review of Politics, Rhetorica, Rhetoric Society Quarterly; Southern Illinois University Press, Texas A&M University Press, University of Alabama Press, University of Pittsburgh Press

Reviewer (promotion and tenure): Arizona State University, Cal State Los Angeles, Carnegie Mellon University, Florida State University, Iowa State University, Michigan State University, Simon Fraser University, Syracuse University, Temple University, Texas A&M University, University of Georgia, University of Illinois, University of Kansas, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, University of Oregon, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, University of Texas San Antonio, Wayne State University

How myths about snakes can tell us a lot about how not to think about politics

Photo of Americans being sent to concentration camps
https://anchoreditions.com/blog/dorothea-lange-censored-photographs

I grew up in an area that had a fair amount of non-landscaped areas, and so there were things like snakes and coyotes. Every year, the local fire department (who had, I think, not enough to do much of the time, but when they were needed, they were really needed) would come to my elementary school and engage in what is called “threat inflation” about snakes. I’m certain they felt justified—there were rattlesnakes in the area, and kids can be idiots about trying to tease or catch a snake. And, so, in order to prevent some kids who might be tempted to mess with snakes to be more careful they deliberately tried to terrify all of us about snakes (in rhetoric, this is called the problem of the “composite audience”). They persuaded me that rattlesnakes were under every rock and would at every chance try to leap out and attack me. I was terrified of snakes. There were gopher snakes in that area who looked a lot like rattlesnakes and, who, if in dry leaves, could seem to make a rattling sound. (I would later hear the real rattling sound, and it was completely different. Luckily, I had a dog who was better at identifying the danger of the real rattling sound.)

As I’ve often lived or hiked in areas with snakes, and so I’ve been told many things about them, all of which I believed. Here are some of the things I was told by people who seem authoritative.

• Venomous snakes have a triangle-shaped head, as opposed to beneficial snakes.

• Here’s how to identify a coral snake:

Red Touch Yellow – Kills a Fellow
Red Touch Black – Venom Lack
Yellow Touches Red – Soon You’ll Be Dead
Red Touches Black – Friend of Jack

• On my neighborhood mailing list, during a summer when water for wildlife was scarce, someone posted a warning that they had been standing on a pedestrian bridge that is twenty feet above a creek and saw at least a dozen cottonmouths congregating.

• Since many of my dogs have been only slightly smarter than slime mold, I’ve worried about them interacting even with a non-venomous snake (since they will bite), and have seen various commercial products that claim to repel snakes from your yard, as well as home remedies like using moth balls.

• Another person on the mailing list posted a picture of what she insisted was a Burmese Python that had been living in their shed until disturbed. When various other people said that the photo was a Texas Rat Snake, the poster insisted it wasn’t, since the person who said it was a Burmese Python was a Texas native, and therefore knew Texas snakes.

I believed all of these things (except the Burmese Python thing), and I am very well-educated. The person who insisted on the Burmese Python was also highly educated. Believing things that are completely wrong, even choosing to die on the hill of being wrong—all of that has very little to do with being educated or smart.

All of these ways of being wrong exemplify many of the ways all of us—not matter how well-educated—are wrong. But it’s wrong not because people are stupid when it comes to snakes, or beliefs about snakes are peculiarly prone to wrongness in some way. The way that these beliefs are wrong exemplify how people reason badly about all sorts of things, including politics.

Let’s start with the last way of thinking ineffectively, since it’s also the first, and it has to do with what constitutes expertise. Firefighters aren’t necessarily experts in snake behavior, and, in fact, having lived in Texas (or wherever) one’s whole life doesn’t necessarily mean that one’s identifications are correct. A person can spend a lifetime being wrong. What makes a person a reliable identifier of venomous snakes isn’t whether they’re certain about it being venomous, and especially not how often they’ve identified a venomous snake, but how often they’ve identified a non-venomous and yet similar-looking snake.

Of course, the firefighters weren’t trying to give accurate information about snake behavior. The snakes in that area are protective, not aggressive, and I suspect the firefighters knew it. But they also knew that kids are dumb, and would probably provoke snakes. The firefighters were engaged in threat inflation in order to try to get dumb kids to be a little less dumb. The problem with threat inflation as a rhetorical tactic is that it only works if the audience doesn’t realize it’s threat inflation, and so, unless someone comes along and explains that rattlesnakes will not go out of their way to attack a human, that person will spend a lifetime over-reacting to rattlesnakes, real and imagined. People who have been persuaded that rattlesnakes are out to get us will try to kill all rattlesnakes, and even all snakes who look like rattlesnakes.

And they are likely to make a lot of mistakes because it isn’t all that easy to distinguish venomous v. non-venomous snakes consistently.

It turns out, for instance, that quite a few non-venomous snakes have triangle-shaped heads, the rhyme about yellow v. black doesn’t work outside of the US, in the US (west of the Mississippi) there are four non-venomous species who would be misidentified as venomous by the rhyme, and there can be what are called “aberrant” individual snakes all over the US that don’t fit the rhyme (meaning venomous ones that wouldn’t appear venomous, and non-venomous ones that would appear venomous).

Take two water snakes in my area: cottonmouth and various kinds of nerodia, but especially the Diamond-Backed Water snake. Telling the difference between the two of them involves seeing their underside, their eye shape, and seeing how they swim (and the last isn’t foolproof). I mentioned someone who posted that there were cottonmouths gathering, but there is no way that the person on the bridge could know whether they were looking at cottonmouth or nerodia, since they weren’t watching the snakes swim, and they were too far away to see the eye shape. Even if they spent their whole life in Texas.

We tend to think in binaries, especially about something frightening (like snakes), and the basic binary we have is good v. bad. That’s generally a mistake, but it especially is when we decide that beings are good or bad. And, so, we talk about venomous v. harmless snakes (or more explicitly “bad v. beneficial” snakes), but that isn’t how nature works. (That isn’t how the world works, in fact.) Cottonmouths aren’t entirely harmful—they are beneficial in an environment—but a person with dogs or small children might legitimately feel that their yard is not a place in which their benefits outweigh the various serious problems. On the other hand, nerodia aren’t “harmless” if we believe that harmless is the same as good and friendly. So, oddly enough, if we talk about venomous v. harmless snakes we’re likely to set someone up to make bad decisions about whether to handle a nerodia. Harm is a question of degrees, and it’s contextual.

There are better and worse reasons that someone might be frightened at the prospect of a yard with snakes. The more that one lives in an area with a lot of backyard wildlife, the more likely there will be snakes. The various ways of making a yard inhospitable to snakes are a little complicated—essentially don’t create habitat. For people who have chickens, it’s even more complicated. And various products and home remedies are a waste of money and possibly even unsafe. Furthermore, there is no way to make a yard friendly to “good” snakes (e.g., rat snakes) and not “bad” snakes (e.g., venomous ones), because nature isn’t divided into good and bad. And if one succeeds at creating a yard that is entirely snake free, there might be more problems with other kinds of “bad” critters.

Just to be clear: what I’m saying is that the desire to divide snakes into “good” and “bad” and to find simple ways of purifying our community of the “bad” snakes (through expelling or exterminating) just sets us up for giving our money to grifters, exterminating “good” snakes, and making the whole situation worse. If we add to the mix relying on simple ways of identifying the good v. bad snakes (and simple solutions include relying people whose authority comes from their experience of believing themselves continually confirmed in their ability to identify “bad” snakes), then we are pretty much guaranteed to make a mess.

You can take that paragraph and substitute various words for “snakes”—people, political parties, nations, voters, and so on–and see what is wrong with how we tend to think about politics and policies. That there is something bad (dogs getting bitten by snakes) doesn’t mean that our problems are caused by there being bad beings in our world, nor that it can only be solved by ridding our world of those bad beings, let alone that there are simple ways of doing so.

When people make the argument I’m making (the situation is not a binary, there are various solutions and the ones most likely to be effective aren’t simple), the response is too often, “Oh, so you’re saying we should do nothing?” or “So you don’t think venomous snakes leaping out from under the couch and attacking babies is a problem?”

This post is already too long, so I can’t explain this part very well (a different post, I guess, although I say that a lot), but saying, “Your simple solution based on a completely false binary won’t work” is not the same as saying, “Let’s do nothing.”

I have had dogs for years, and have always had at least one who was barely smarter than many (but not all) rocks. I have no doubt they would be in grave danger if we had a venomous snake make a home in our yard. I think having a venomous snake take up residence in a yard with dumb dogs, small children, or adventurous older kids is a big problem that should be taken seriously. That I agree there is a problem doesn’t mean I endorse ineffective solutions grounded in misunderstandings of the situation–when it comes to snakes or politics.