It’s a real disservice that the notions of “rhetoric” and “argument” have been muddled together in our society. American discourse has been diseased with the idea that argumentation is somehow not a good way to establish truths about our world. The unfortunate conclusion of this condition is that people hold to positions that have been undermined by a sound argument, when they have every reason in the world to change their minds. This comes down to basic misunderstandings about what an argument is and what it can accomplish. Quite a lot of people (in fact, a saddening proportion of the population) liken arguments to mere rhetoric; if you demonstrate to them how their assertions are logically impossible, they dismiss your arguments as a bunch of “fancy words.” But are they just fancy words? Of course not; sound arguments work because of some interesting facts about how our logical intuitions coincide with the world around us.
Mathematics, for instance, is a protracted extension of logic. Through math, humans have discovered an interesting oracle of sorts. We can predict the contents and behavior of the world around us, and the predictive power of logic makes this possible.
So goes the sound argument. In a similar way, logic is used in a verbal argument to produce the same predictive effects. Let’s take a simple, sound argument to illustrate this (although on a small scale).
Consider “we beat UNC at men’s basketball last Saturday or it is not the case that we beat UNC at men’s basketball last Saturday.” This is certainly true, or what is called a logical truth. There is no way for the statement not to be true, as the fact of the matter must be one way or the other.
Logical truths are hardly the centers of controversy. It is logical falsehoods that typically surround controversial issues. Take the opposite (negation) of the previous argument: “we beat UNC at men’s basketball last Saturday and it is not the case that we beat UNC at men’s basketball last Saturday.” This is impossible, no matter what, as are all contradictions. Semantics aside, something cannot both be the case and not be the case.
And this is precisely the issue that drives people to reject logic as a means of describing our world. Many times we want to have our cake and eat it too. Few are able to look within and search for contradictory assertions; sometimes we prefer to embrace both halves of a contradiction, even though they cannot stand together in reality.
Once someone can willingly embrace a contradiction as true, there is no limit to what falsehood that person will adopt. A populace that’s willing to accept propositions that are surely, logically false is hardly prepared enough to make important policy decisions.
What we lack is a willingness to listen to the arguments of others, and a lack of willingness to change our own opinions. Even in the face of a bold contradiction, people stick to their guns. This is partially our society’s fault.
Anytime we concede in debate, it’s viewed as a weakness. Anytime we introduce rational, honest doubt into the inquiry or statement of our positions, it’s seen as being wishy-washy. Every so often, discourse becomes personal — we stop listening because of who’s talking, or because of the personal consequences of what is being said.
What we need is people who are courageous enough to challenge their own assumptions and honest enough to change their positions in light of reality. We need people who realize sound arguments for what they are — descriptions of our world. What we need is rationality.
E-mail Mike your argument at [email protected].
