I’m a scholar of train wrecks in public deliberation—times that communities came to bad decisions, although they had all the time, information, and counter-arguments necessary to come to better ones.
And, although they smear across eras, cultures, and particular situations (but all more or less within what is considered the “Western Tradition”), they share the same characteristic: the communities abandoned policy argumentation in favor of thinking of the variegated, nuanced spectrum of policy options actually open to them as a binary between right (loyal, ethical, in-group) and wrong (treacherous, unethical, out-group). That is, demagoguery.
There was, often, a legitimate need, a serious problem. There was also a situation in which the community had multiple—not just two—policy options available to them. But, when people tried to argue about multiple plans, the response was for people to argue that the need was great, and that we must do this thing. And they treated people who wanted to argue about the plan as people who wanted to do nothing.
That was Cleon’s argument. His opponent wanted retribution (severe, in fact) against the rebellious Mytileneans. Cleon wanted genocide, and he framed his opponents’ argument as doing nothing. Cleon briefly argued solvency (being brutal would terrify other “allied” states into submission) and the feasibility argument was pretty clear (I mean, they could kill all the Mytileneans whom they didn’t sell into slavery and raze the city—as the Athenians would in regard to Milos), but he didn’t even acknowledge the potential unintended consequences. His argument was, in an enthymeme, “We should kill all male Mytileneans and sell everyone else into slavery because the rebellion endangered the empire.” In other words, “My policy is good because the need is real.” That enthymeme has an appalling major premise: that Athenians should commit genocide against any city-state that has people whose actions endanger the Athenian empire.
Nor did he engage the arguments his opponents actually made. Diodotus, who argued against Cleon, didn’t disagree about the need–he, too, was outraged about the Mytileneans revolt; he had a different plan. He certainly didn’t advocate doing nothing.
This might all seem very weird, and very distant, but it isn’t. We are always in the world of Cleon and Diodotus–a world in which we can decide that our policies should be about exterminating anyone we think dangerous, and in which we declare any dissidents from that policy to be corrupt on the grounds that, if they disagree with our policy, they don’t care about the need (Cleon’s position); or a world in which we argue the advantages and disadvantages of our various policy options (Diodotus’ position).
After 9/11, I found myself arguing with many people about the proposed invasion of Afghanistan. 9/11 was appalling, and terrifying. It was an extraordinary act of violence against the US, but I didn’t think that invading Afghanistan would solve the problem of anti-US terrorism. I didn’t see why that was the right plan. Clearly, something had to be done, but it seemed to me that solving the problem of terrorism couldn’t be solved by invading one country, especially when it wasn’t even the country from whom the terrorists had come. I was asking for good old affirmative case construction, in which people argue on the stases of feasibility, solvency, and unintended consequences of their plan.
And, over and over, the people with whom I was arguing emphasized the need (as though I disagreed about that) and then said something like, “We must do something” and sometimes went on to argue that doing nothing was a terrible plan. I agreed with the need, and I never advocated doing nothing—I didn’t like their plan. Our situation in regard to Afghanistan was never invade Afghanistan or do nothing. It was never invade Iraq or do nothing.
In the train wrecks I study, that false frame of “do this thing or do nothing” won the rhetorical contest. Arguments about policy were thoroughly evaded in favor of rhetoric that associated one group (the real Athenians, Christians, Southerners, Germans, Americans, progressives, Democrats, Republicans, animal lovers, dog lovers, Austinites) with one policy, ignoring that that group had a lot of policy options.
Being convinced that the need is real never means that you are necessarily committed to this policy. That’s demagoguery.
We are, as citizens in a democracy, never exempted from arguing policy. To say we are is to promote demagoguery.
In my train wrecks, and my own experience trying to argue with people about why we shouldn’t invade Afghanistan NOW, people who want to argue about our policy options (rather than believe that this need means there is only one possible policy option) are told, quite clearly, that they aren’t taking the issue seriously. That’s what I was told, over and over. That’s what Cleon said to (and about) Diodotus: Cleon said that Diodotus didn’t think what the Mytileneans had done was bad. That’s what the pro-invasion media said—any dissent from this policy was only on the part of people who didn’t take the need seriously, who didn’t care about terrorism, or who actively helped it.
You either supported Bush’s very odd and problematic policy, or you supported terrorism. And that was, and always is, a false binary. A demagogic binary.
When I tried to argue that invading Afghanistan wasn’t necessarily a good policy, I was lectured about the need. Over and over and fucking over. That there is a legitimate, pressing, and even urgent need doesn’t mean this policy is right. This policy has to be defended on its merits, as opposed to other policy options—not as against doing nothing.
Diodotus wasn’t arguing for doing nothing; I wasn’t arguing for doing nothing in regard to 9/11.
At one point in time, my husband and I lived in a part of Kansas City with problematic water. A guy selling water filters came out and talked to us about how terrible the water was. He could never explain why his company’s filter was any better than our other options. The water really was bad, but that doesn’t mean his company’s filter was right. Our choice was not his policy or doing nothing.
A few years ago, a Texas state legislator argued that teen pregnancy is bad, and therefore we should ban suggestive cheerleading. Teen pregnancy should be reduced, but that doesn’t mean that banning suggestive cheerleading is a good policy. He was never able to argue that his plan solved the problem, was feasible, or didn’t have consequences worse than the problem he was trying to solve. What he could argue was that teen pregnancy was bad, and thereby frame anyone who wanted to point out how bad his policy was as a person who didn’t care about teen pregnancy (or liked suggestive cheerleading).
Anti-abortion rhetoric works by advertising the number of abortions and insisting that the only possible solution is banning abortion and restricting information about effective birth control. The number of abortions really is troubling; there is a need. But banning abortion and demonizing birth control (their plan) doesn’t solve that need. It worsens it.
Were people really concerned about reducing abortion, and were they people who considered reducing abortion the most important value, they would model policies on places that have reduced abortions. They don’t. They insist that if you don’t want to ban abortion, you don’t care about the number of abortions (when, in fact, there are better policies for reducing abortion). We don’t have a world in which we either have our current number of abortions or we ban it, but that is the world they promote. It’s a world of the false dilemma—either you agree with my policy or you want to do nothing. That was Cleon’s argument; that was the argument for invading Iraq.
I think impeaching Trump immediately is not the best policy. That doesn’t mean I misunderstand the need to impeach Trump. Showing that Trump needs to be impeached immediately is not the same as showing that Trump needs to be impeached. People who are arguing for Trump immediately aren’t supporting their case by showing that Trump should be impeached. They need to engage in the policy stases.
My belief that we shouldn’t impeach Trump for a while (perhaps as late as March) doesn’t mean I think people who believe we should impeach him immediately are bad, stupid, or irrational. That guy in Kansas City really might have had the best water filter. But his arguing need over and over didn’t show that his plan was the best. It really might be the best policy to impeach Trump immediately, and that case is made through engaging, reasonably and fairly, the arguments for engaging him later. It is not made by reasserting the need.
That Trump should be impeached is not actually proof that he should be impeached immediately. That there is a need doesn’t mean that this policy is right. And, really, that’s the larger point I’m trying to make continually: our culture needs to engage in policy argumentation. Instead, we have a demagogic world in which people argue need, and then say, if you acknowledge this need, you must support this policy. If you reject the policy, you must be a person who fails to recognize the need.
People arguing for delaying impeachment aren’t arguing for doing nothing. We aren’t arguing about whether to impeach Trump; we’re arguing about when. That’s a good argument to have. Because arguing policy is always a good policy.
Trump will get impeached, and then this argument will appear to be over. But it won’t really. The argument about argument will be with us: arguing need doesn’t exempt you from arguing plan. That there is a need doesn’t mean only one plan has merit.
[image from here: https://www.blackcarnews.com/article/train-wreck]