So, far I’ve argued that the neighborhood mailing list exemplifies two deeply problematic ways that Americans think about political deliberation:
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- For every policy question, there is one policy oriented toward the public good; all others are advocated by people representing special interests; [corollary: to the extent that we modify the policy that is in the public good in order to take into consideration the arguments and demands of other groups, we are compromising good on behalf of special interests (and their gullible stooges)]
- That the public good is universally good means that any good policy is really in the best interests of everyone, and so interlocutors should universalize their claims (even if the policy is really in service of very particular needs) [corollary: people arguing from a place of fear, anger, and so on should not argue that they feel threatened, but that the Other is threatening.]
Both of these positions are strongly influenced by a kind of epistemological selfishness—my position is the only legitimate because it is mine. But they’re also influenced by the rational/irrational split. And, just to be clear: I object to the rational/irrational split, and how it’s taught and reinforced in argumentation courses, not because I think there is no useful distincti0ni to be made between rational or irrational argumentation, but because that distinction isn’t a zero-sum binary, and it isn’t the muddle 0f intention, emotionalism, data, tone, truth, identity, affect, and all sorts of other unrelated (or, at best, orthogonally related) criteria that attach to conventional notions about the rational/irrational split.
I’m arguing for what I think is a better, and much more limited, way to think and talk about what makes an argument or a claim rational, irrational, or something somewhere in the range between the two. (And I’m also saying that not all of our beliefs have to be, or even can be, rational, and I’m far from the only one making this argument.)
There is a third recurrent argument on my neighborhood mailing list (and nextdoor) that exemplifies another serious problem with how we imagine political deliberation: some dog walkers, on the day that the trash will be picked up, scoop up their dog’s poop in a plastic bag and put that plastic bag in the trash bin that is about to be picked up. And that enrages some people.
While the people arguing that putting plastic bags of poop into their trash is wrong make a lot of arguments, and they sincerely believe that they are making a rational argument, they aren’t. (And, just to be clear, my husband and I generally don’t put poop bags in anyone else’s trash, but, if we do, only in cans that belong to people we know walk their dogs.) Their arguments are hilariously irrational. But sincere.
The people who have someone else put poop in the bin they think of as theirs sincerely believe that their property has been violated. They have trouble making that argument rationally, though. Sometimes they try to argue that it’s robbery, since they pay for garbage pickup, and someone is putting something into their garbage. Since they aren’t charged for garbage by the ounce, they are not getting charged any more for someone putting a bag that contains dog poop, so this isn’t a rational argument. The bin is not actually theirs, but belongs to the city, so this is an even more troubled argument.
They argue that they are acting from a sense of public service (the public good) in that they’re worried about the additional work for garbage collectors (no kidding, that argument gets made). That’s irrational, in that they aren’t saying that people shouldn’t put plastic bags with poop into any trash can—only theirs. They don’t argue that people shouldn’t put used diapers in the trash. S0, their policy doesn’t really protect garbage collectors. At least one person argued that they tried to keep their trash bin clean, and plastic bags with dog poop … it got a little vague.
It does no harm to the public, or the trash collectors, or anyone, if a person puts a plastic bag with dog poop in a trash bin on the day that trash will be collected. The harm is to their sense of purity of the trash bin they think of as theirs.
This isn’t about a rational (falsifiable, with internally consistent premises, and standards across interlocutors) argument. But it’s sincere insofar as they sincerely believe that they are harmed by having plastic bags with dog poop in the trash bins they believe are their property.
It’s a purity argument. It’s an argument grounded in an irrational belief that some people have that they must keep their personal possessions pure of contamination. This is about poop. Putting poop, even in a plastic bag, into their bin means putting poop into a part of their realm they want to keep poop-free. Of course, poop is in their realm, and they probably have some pretty gross things in their trash, so this is a taboo.
I get that there are taboos. I don’t like the unopened box of (obviously, unused) poop bags to be on a kitchen counter or dinner table, but I don’t mind a box of plastic bags in the same places. That’s an irrational position; it’s a taboo.
I don’t think people are bad for having taboos, nor do I think people incapable of advocating their position through rational argumentation should be dismissed from our world of argument.
I think we should admit we are reasoning from an irrational position, and I think we have a world that is big enough to give fair consideration to taboos. But we shouldn’t try to pretend that taboos are universally valid premises—later I’ll mention how acknowledging the particularity and irrationality of the poop-bag-in-the-trash position can lead to better solutions than will ever be achieved by pretending it’s an issue of the violation of a universally accepted public good.
I think this problem, of a not very helpful frame, is at least related to the media’s tendency to frame harms a issues of someone being “offended.” The media (and too much public discourse) framed Trump bragging that he sexually assaults women as a problem because it “offended” some people; HRC claiming that many of Trump supporters were “deplorable” “offended” some people; someone using a racist slur “offends” someone.
Serious issues about institutional racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry are reframed as issues of individual people being “offended.” In an informational culture in which a person hearing a racial slur is offended, as is a person who discovers someone has put a plastic bag with poop in it in their trash, the two actions seem to be the same importance. Framing actions as harmful because they “offended” someone inevitably leads to false equivalencies
Hearing a racial slur is offensive (to some people), but racism isn’t bad because it offends people. It’s bad because it harms people. It harms our world.
As long as we have a culture that irrationally makes policy issues about feelings, then people who think from a place of epistemological selfishness can sincerely believe that their being offended at someone putting poop in their trash bin is just as important as someone who has to listen to racial slurs.
So, the third thing that the neighborhood mailing exemplifies about toxic democratic deliberation is how our culture (and media) falsely frame policy arguments, not as arguments about policy, but about the feelings of the people involved. You might feel offended that someone might put poop in your bin; if I have to behave differently at work because the norms of appropriate behavior are different for men and women, I might feel anger about that. But that doesn’t mean those two feelings are equally valid, nor that the policy argument about either issue (poop v. gendered norms) is usefully reduced to who is or is not offended.
A reasonable world of public deliberation is not one in which those two feelings are treated as equally valid, nor one in which they’re both dismissed, but one in which we argue about their validity and relevance and the policies. I can make a rational argument that it matters that women are held to different standards than men at the place at which I work; a person arguing that no one should throw plastic bags with poop in them can make lots of arguments, but not a rational one. They’re just offended because it violates their sense of purity about their trash bin.
That you are offended does not mean the act is offensive.
Believing that you are harmed by someone putting plastic bag with poop in it in “your” trash bin on the day it’s going to be picked up is irrational, but that doesn’t mean your strong beliefs about poop and the trash bin you think of as yours should be dismissed or ignored.
They don’t want plastic bags that contain poop in their trash. Instead of trying to pretend that their position is universally valid, and everyone should agree, they could instead appeal to neighborliness. They could put a sign on the trash can saying, “Please don’t put dog poop bags into our trash can.” I think that would work pretty well.
Paradoxically, being willing to admit when our preferences can’t be rationally defended can enable us to have better policy arguments.
And it might also keep us from arguments grounded in false equivalency, in which issues of systemic discrimination are falsely framed as individuals (or a special interest) being offended.