Much to my disappointment, I notice that I, on occasion, passionately hold opinions about matters of which I have little to no knowledge. On these occasions, when I come upon a view contrary to my own, I almost instinctively draw my sword, raise the banner, and launch a thousand ships, ready to battle in a fit of Homeric rage. Of course, my opponent has but to breathe the slightest breath in support of his position, and my sword is shattered, my banner is torn, and my fleet is lost to the stormy sea. I retreat and seek shelter in the labyrinths of Wikipedia or Google, hoping against hope that I might find some posthumous support for my uninformed opinion.
I take some comfort in knowing I am not alone. Walking down the street in my neighborhood would bring me into the presence of people who hold adamant and various views on climate change but who couldn’t tell me the difference between climate and weather. I would not have to look far to find advocates and opponents of same sex marital unions who couldn’t tell each other anything substantial about the institution of marriage. I need only peruse the Internet for a short while to come across defenders and detractors of socialism who couldn’t precisely define social without the aid of a dictionary.
Why am I known, on occasion, to spout uninformed comment? Looking back on such occasions, I observe that I have sometimes repeated the views of someone I trusted without bothering to understand those views. I find myself hearing an opinion that suits me well, that perhaps fits with my fashionable worldview, and, because I hold the speaker or writer as an authority, I put in on and wear it with pride. If asked where my new suit was made, I am at a loss. If questioned about the fabric, I cannot say with certainty, though I might hazard a guess based on the feel. If asked why I wear the suit, I can at most respond by saying that I got it from an authoritative tailor who sews only those fabrics of the good and true. I’m not always right about this tailor, though.
My wife and I watched the movie Thank You for Smoking over the weekend. In the film, the protagonist, a smooth-talking lobbyist played by Aaron Eckhart, discusses argumentation with his school-age son. He shows him that some arguments you can’t win the conventional way, so you have to switch from debating the agreed upon subject and show instead that your opponent is wrong in some larger sense. While his son defends chocolate ice-cream as the best and all he needs, he admits to needing more than chocolate, more than even vanilla. He says he needs freedom, choice when it comes to ice-cream, liberty. “But that’s not what we’re talking about,” his son objects. “Ah! But that’s what I’m talking about,” Eckhart’s character retorts. He then explains to his son that to win the argument, he didn’t need to prove that vanilla was better than chocolate, he only needed to show that his son was wrong because he opposed liberty. “But you still didn’t convince me,” his son remarks. “It’s not you I’m after. I’m after them.”
I would like to say that I am never susceptible to such rhetorical tricks, that my mind always and everywhere functions in a logical and analytic manner. I would like to say that I am never one of “them,” but I cannot say that truthfully. I have fallen for fallacious reasoning because I liked the conclusion. I have shouted statements to the heavens without having done the work to determine if they are true. I have sought attention by agreeing with what sounded like it could be true. Yes, to my disappointment, I am, on occasion, one of them.
Many books have come out recently about the way we think, and how often we deceive ourselves. For example, there’s Jonah Lehrer’s book How We Decide, which I read recently. Here’s the PW review from barnesandnoble.com:
Another book on my list is is A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives by Cordelia Fine. The Scientific American review at Amazon is fascinating.
When I’m in a debate here on Vox Nova, I do sometimes ask myself how it’s possible that I can be so right all of the time. On the other hand, not too long ago I read the annotated version of Alan Sokal’s essay Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, in his book Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture. As most probably know, Sokal, a physicist, decided to write a “postmodern” paper filled with utter nonsense, which he got published with no trouble in Social Text, Duke University Press’s postmodernist cultural studies journal. I realized that when I try to read something that is totally intimidating and seems way over my head, and I think there are some things I just can’t understand, it’s possible that it may be meaningless nonsense. (Of course, it may also be very profound and truly way over my head.)
Kyle,
A very fine piece of writing.
I too have gone through (still not enough times, it seems) the humbling process of realizing that I often get passionate most about what I know the least.
Even with such insight, the inclination is there to still get spirited most about what is familiar, pleasing opinion to me, instead of knowledge.
And the defenses and rhetorical maneuvers I seem all too willing go through to belittle an opponent are astounding.
What does this say about how hard true love of wisdom is and how much metanoia we must go through to come on kindly terms with the Truth?
There’s another book I forgot to mention — On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not by Robert Burton.
An interesting question, of course, is whether when two people disagree (here on Vox Nova, for example). Is one of them right and the other wrong? They could both be partly right. They could both be totally wrong. Or they could be disagreeing on things that are matters of opinion. (And I am not saying here that there is no objective truth. There may or may not be, but even if there is, not every disputed question has an objective answer — e.g., is blue a prettier color than red?)
I’ve long felt that most argument is a Potemkin village disguising conclusions in search of reasons.
Most of my friends and family consider me an arguer with an deadly capacity for identifying quickly the Achilles’s heel of many arguments, including my own – I do consider incumbent on good arguers to be at least as familiar with the weaknesses of their arguments as their opponents should be. (Preferably more familiar.)
But the reason for this capacity of mine is funny, and so not linear: it’s because I am a synaesthete – I read in color and to a lesser extent hear in color. And synaesthesia is a tremendous asset in making leaping cross-connections generally, because (at least according to neurology studies I’ve seen described) it gives added dimensions of memory. (I won’t even going into neurological studies that show that how our “intuitive” processes help us see faster than our ordinary physical sight processes.) Anyway, what I realized over time is that, when people complimented me on a particularly “logical” argument or dissection of argument, I had pretty much composed it according to color patterns. While I don’t think everyone’s a synaesthete (though it appears to be more common than formerly though), I do suspect that a lot of what passes for argument has roots in things that are not quite linear as we commonly understand it.
I just wish growing realization of this would encourage greater epistemological and rhetorical humility in argument….
Mark,
Thank you. You raise a good question. I would answer it in part by saying that our relationship to truth is at best one of pursuit, and not one of complete possession.
David,
Thanks for the book recommendations. I agree that not every question has an objective answer, and even when answering questions that do have an objective answer, we understand and frame that answer in ways that stem from our subjectivity.
Liam,
Very interesting points about synaesthesia and argumentation. Where could one learn more about this topic?
Liam, I, too, would like to know more about your topic.
Richard Cytowic is a neurologist who has written some popularly-accessible works on synaethesia, though my observations about logical argument are simply my own.
Liam,
Have you listened to the work of Messiaen at all? He had synaethesia as well and composed his works according to different color schemes. I cannot even begin to imagine what that would be like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_synesthesia
Br Augustine
Each synaesthete is more or less unique in his or her cross-sensory associations, though they are durable within each person.