On: The Unassailable Truth.
Since this journal isn't doing much otherwise these days, pardon me while I pontificate a bit.
Some years ago, after another argument with someone online ended the way all arguments online do, I tried to pen a journal entry on the art of argumentation. I'd recently come across what I thought was a very good description of how a logical argument is formulated, in an academic way. Since it was found in a class about scholarly writing, it made a lot of sense. I tried to distill it down to the bare essentials and gave it to someone for a review, and the review was: tl;dr.
"tl;dr" is something of a cancer in our society. It began as the realization of the fact that one does not have enough hours in the day to read everything that is put in front of one's eyes, which is reasonable, and casts no judgment on the piece of writing. One is simply unable to process it. But somewhere along the way it morphed into anything that requires effort to read is somehow robbed of its intrinsic value, that whatever arguments are inside are invalid or inapplicable because one cannot be bothered. And it has led to not exactly the rise but the entrenchment of The Unassailable Truth.
I made a remark the other day, after someone else mentioned a news story about some depressing thing about the current state of the world, that "it is becoming increasingly hard to want to vote." This then turned into a discussion about voting. Let me share a few quotes:
Two things right off the bat. One, please do not start a discussion about why someone should or should not vote. That's a subject for another time. And two, these are somewhat out of context, but these are the kinds of retorts I have heard anytime not voting is suggested, and so they really require no context.
But this is a good example of an unassailable truth I've encountered that isn't based in religious faith, about how everyone must vote. Truths based in religious faith are the obvious examples of this, but those are just a bit too easy to go after.
Back to the bit about logical argumentation. The way scholarly argument works, and for simplicity's sake let's just suppose it is an argument between two people, is that both establish a baseline where there is no controversy: a set of truths that are agreed upon. From thereon, every assertion that is a source of controversy is introduced, supported by evidence, which is then examined by the opposite party. Through this iterative process, a consensus should eventually be able to be reached: either assertions are confirmed, corrected, or dismissed as unprovable. The key element is that both parties should arrive together at this consensus. The modern scholarly process is this generalized writ large; a scholarly paper is effectively beginning from the established canon of a discipline, and the argumentation of an assertion arrived at by the introduction of evidence accumulated via that established canon. This argument is then examined by the community and either affirmed, corrected, or discredited. I'm simplifying, of course, but just drawing out the elements pertinent to this discussion.
A necessary part of this process is the examination of argumentation and the arrival at an uncontroversial shared basis. My personal experience is that arriving at an uncontroversial shared basis is where all sorts of arguments (or, if we're being kind, discussions) go awry. What often happens is that emotion takes over from reason, and the argument becomes about the people involved rather than the assertion under examination. Especially when conducted live, it becomes more important to be right and save some sort of face, and the discussion transforms from one thing into the next until both parties can somehow declare some sort of victory. This frequently seems to derive from one of these unassailable truths: a truth which is too painful to actually examine. It's a disappointing, reptile-brain reaction, shrinking away from an unpleasant sensation rather than using the higher brain functions one has evolved. Just as often the reaction is to dehumanize the one who does not share the unassailable truth. We see this all the time from those who believe in religious truths, but the snippets above denouncing those who do not vote as "douches" and other epithets are just as much this sort of reaction.
I've tried to reduce as much as I can my own number of unassailable truths. I view doing so as the pursuit of science in its purest form. A common response from those who are religious is that science too is a religion. This assertion is invalid on its face, and is a great example of an argument morphing into something different where one can hope to salvage ego. But this does lead to an interesting point: in science, we too rely on axioms. Axioms are things we take as granted, because there is no way to prove that they are. The most basic sorts of axioms are philosophical things like: what we observe are actual things happening, as opposed to our being plugged into the Matrix. We accept the rules of logical deduction because so far they seem to work. Rules like modus ponens, which says that if you prove some proposition A is true, and you prove the statement "if A then B" is true, then you can conclude that "B" is true. At the risk of treading beyond my field of expertise and into philosophy, this is a rule which makes sense, and seems to work, but it is a rule that has been collectively agreed upon as valid rather than arrived at through some more well-founded means. Really, it's an unassailable truth. I'm relying upon axiomatic logical discourse in writing this.
Now, did you just read that and think, "Well, if all of science is based on unassailable truths, doesn't that mean anyone's unassailable truths are equally valid?" If you thought that, take a lap around the Internet as punishment. The key difference here is science strives to minimize this set of axioms, and relies upon those where there is no controversy. Everything is then built from that point through the process of argumentation I sketched above. One arrives at facts through a process that can be examined, and if found faulty, torn down (or, hopefully, corrected). If one cannot or will not do this, then the process breaks down.
What's the point of this rumination? A call to examine my own unassailable truths, and for you all to consider what might be yours. I have some thoughts on why this phenomenon is a detriment to society, but I'll save that for another entry I may or may not get to. We have a number of common ones in our society, apart from ones I think we could agree to classify as religious. The one above about voting is one example. Smoking is bad, child molesters should all be locked up for life for the good of society, you should recycle for the good of the planet, and so on. In a way, I do a bit of disservice by calling these unassailable truths, because they really aren't. They may even be actual truths. Outside of matters of opinion, all of these assertions can be rationally examined and should be. You can talk about the tangible benefits or harms of smoking, just to name one example. But the next time you have one of these visceral reactions to something you take as an unassailable truth, try to stop and ponder why. Try to think about a deeper meaning for why such a thing is true. And do your best to overcome your fear of admitting you don't know, because then you can begin to assail your unassailable truths. And they might even stand up to it.
Some years ago, after another argument with someone online ended the way all arguments online do, I tried to pen a journal entry on the art of argumentation. I'd recently come across what I thought was a very good description of how a logical argument is formulated, in an academic way. Since it was found in a class about scholarly writing, it made a lot of sense. I tried to distill it down to the bare essentials and gave it to someone for a review, and the review was: tl;dr.
"tl;dr" is something of a cancer in our society. It began as the realization of the fact that one does not have enough hours in the day to read everything that is put in front of one's eyes, which is reasonable, and casts no judgment on the piece of writing. One is simply unable to process it. But somewhere along the way it morphed into anything that requires effort to read is somehow robbed of its intrinsic value, that whatever arguments are inside are invalid or inapplicable because one cannot be bothered. And it has led to not exactly the rise but the entrenchment of The Unassailable Truth.
I made a remark the other day, after someone else mentioned a news story about some depressing thing about the current state of the world, that "it is becoming increasingly hard to want to vote." This then turned into a discussion about voting. Let me share a few quotes:
- "If you don't vote, you don't get to complain."
- "Voting is both a right and a civic duty. If you decline to participate in civics, you are contributing to the problems about which you complain."
- "Not [voting] makes you a douche."
- "I would agree though that anyone who does not vote is a cad and a douche."
Two things right off the bat. One, please do not start a discussion about why someone should or should not vote. That's a subject for another time. And two, these are somewhat out of context, but these are the kinds of retorts I have heard anytime not voting is suggested, and so they really require no context.
But this is a good example of an unassailable truth I've encountered that isn't based in religious faith, about how everyone must vote. Truths based in religious faith are the obvious examples of this, but those are just a bit too easy to go after.
Back to the bit about logical argumentation. The way scholarly argument works, and for simplicity's sake let's just suppose it is an argument between two people, is that both establish a baseline where there is no controversy: a set of truths that are agreed upon. From thereon, every assertion that is a source of controversy is introduced, supported by evidence, which is then examined by the opposite party. Through this iterative process, a consensus should eventually be able to be reached: either assertions are confirmed, corrected, or dismissed as unprovable. The key element is that both parties should arrive together at this consensus. The modern scholarly process is this generalized writ large; a scholarly paper is effectively beginning from the established canon of a discipline, and the argumentation of an assertion arrived at by the introduction of evidence accumulated via that established canon. This argument is then examined by the community and either affirmed, corrected, or discredited. I'm simplifying, of course, but just drawing out the elements pertinent to this discussion.
A necessary part of this process is the examination of argumentation and the arrival at an uncontroversial shared basis. My personal experience is that arriving at an uncontroversial shared basis is where all sorts of arguments (or, if we're being kind, discussions) go awry. What often happens is that emotion takes over from reason, and the argument becomes about the people involved rather than the assertion under examination. Especially when conducted live, it becomes more important to be right and save some sort of face, and the discussion transforms from one thing into the next until both parties can somehow declare some sort of victory. This frequently seems to derive from one of these unassailable truths: a truth which is too painful to actually examine. It's a disappointing, reptile-brain reaction, shrinking away from an unpleasant sensation rather than using the higher brain functions one has evolved. Just as often the reaction is to dehumanize the one who does not share the unassailable truth. We see this all the time from those who believe in religious truths, but the snippets above denouncing those who do not vote as "douches" and other epithets are just as much this sort of reaction.
I've tried to reduce as much as I can my own number of unassailable truths. I view doing so as the pursuit of science in its purest form. A common response from those who are religious is that science too is a religion. This assertion is invalid on its face, and is a great example of an argument morphing into something different where one can hope to salvage ego. But this does lead to an interesting point: in science, we too rely on axioms. Axioms are things we take as granted, because there is no way to prove that they are. The most basic sorts of axioms are philosophical things like: what we observe are actual things happening, as opposed to our being plugged into the Matrix. We accept the rules of logical deduction because so far they seem to work. Rules like modus ponens, which says that if you prove some proposition A is true, and you prove the statement "if A then B" is true, then you can conclude that "B" is true. At the risk of treading beyond my field of expertise and into philosophy, this is a rule which makes sense, and seems to work, but it is a rule that has been collectively agreed upon as valid rather than arrived at through some more well-founded means. Really, it's an unassailable truth. I'm relying upon axiomatic logical discourse in writing this.
Now, did you just read that and think, "Well, if all of science is based on unassailable truths, doesn't that mean anyone's unassailable truths are equally valid?" If you thought that, take a lap around the Internet as punishment. The key difference here is science strives to minimize this set of axioms, and relies upon those where there is no controversy. Everything is then built from that point through the process of argumentation I sketched above. One arrives at facts through a process that can be examined, and if found faulty, torn down (or, hopefully, corrected). If one cannot or will not do this, then the process breaks down.
What's the point of this rumination? A call to examine my own unassailable truths, and for you all to consider what might be yours. I have some thoughts on why this phenomenon is a detriment to society, but I'll save that for another entry I may or may not get to. We have a number of common ones in our society, apart from ones I think we could agree to classify as religious. The one above about voting is one example. Smoking is bad, child molesters should all be locked up for life for the good of society, you should recycle for the good of the planet, and so on. In a way, I do a bit of disservice by calling these unassailable truths, because they really aren't. They may even be actual truths. Outside of matters of opinion, all of these assertions can be rationally examined and should be. You can talk about the tangible benefits or harms of smoking, just to name one example. But the next time you have one of these visceral reactions to something you take as an unassailable truth, try to stop and ponder why. Try to think about a deeper meaning for why such a thing is true. And do your best to overcome your fear of admitting you don't know, because then you can begin to assail your unassailable truths. And they might even stand up to it.