Free Write: Enthymemic Mojo

[krinndnz]

One reason that I am the sort of person that I am, politically, is that my earliest political reading hammered home that as professions, politics, law, and economics are very, very close to one another and that it's foolish to consider a matter in one of those areas without taking into account the other two. Today that comes to mind in this form

Comments

[ff00ff]

tl;dr

Wats a usenet lol?

[kickachupacabra]

You know, I've used some variation of this joke on Krinn enough times that I feel it's no longer prudent for me to make, but I totally appreciate you doing it.

[krinndnz]

I'm going to take a moment to think worse of both of you now.

Next thing I know, you'll teach ff00ff to make the Commissar Argument at me.

[silveradept]

So, you're saying that a televised debate should be more about issues instead of personalities, with a moderator unafraid to step in and put people in their places? (Among other things). And that we could use some unbiased (or minimally biased) sources to evaluate the claims made not only by political entities, but political people and other people writing on them?

It's brilliant! It's what should have been done this whole time. And the Internet? Well, time will tell whether rational discourse or the trolls win out. Always seems to be more trolls than moderators.

[krinndnz]

So, you're saying that a televised debate should be more about issues instead of personalities, with a moderator unafraid to step in and put people in their places? (Among other things). And that we could use some unbiased (or minimally biased) sources to evaluate the claims made not only by political entities, but political people and other people writing on them?
Yeah, but I took a lot more column inches to say it!

More seriously, that's part of why this got the free-write tag - it's pretty unfocused and the original idea about the blurring of personal and public arguments gets kind of lost in seven other things on my mind.

Also:

[silveradept]

That's what I had in mind with that statement, yes. also acceptable would have been The Doctor(9) or The Doctor(10) saying it.

The blurring of public/personal arguments is one that's been going on for a while. After all, the origins of the smear (and graffiti) are in trying to insinuate that the personal qualities of the politician are a reflection of their public/policy decisions. The Catholic in the White House will obey the Pope in all his policies, and so forth.

I think this last round of elections had a significantly larger amount of those personal/policy confusions than usual.

[lhexa]

Yeah, but I took a lot more column inches to say it!

*shrugs* You established a historical and psychological context for your recommendation. That's hardly logorrhea.

[baxil]

Good point with interpersonal vs. adversarial. Thanks for the food for thought.

[krinndnz]

You're quite welcome. Thank you for recognizing the core of the thought in the middle of all that peregrination.

[krinndnz]

However, I winced every time you assigned values to one end of the political spectrum or the other. I don't think the lines are as clearly drawn as this essay makes them out to be :/

Well, assigning labels to political positions wasn't the point of the thing, so I tried to move quickly through that and probably committed errors in the process. I'd appreciate, though, if you'd quote a few stretches that were particularly objectionable?

[krinndnz]

Well, I stand by "Republicans generally have a much higher authoritarianism score than Democrats."

That's a qualified statement that makes a testable assertion. The assertion has in fact, been tested. My source for that is Robert Altemeyer's The Authoritarians. You could read just Chapter 1 and have a good idea of why I think it's acceptable to say, as a qualified assertion about testable facts, that modern American Republicans generally have higher authoritarianism scores than modern American Democrats.

Proceeding to the other: "Further, when one advocate wants to win the argument...the first advocate will just shout until the second backs down...The Shouty Republican exploits this normal human desire."I'm also pretty comfortable with that statement, but it's a much fuzzier thing than the first one. For one thing, that's talking about stereotypes of TV personalities and talking heads - and, come to think of it, a number of talk-radio personalities. It's not talking about Republicans in general, it's talking about a subset

[lhexa]

When you argue with someone, what you should be doing is advancing a proposition, presenting evidence in its favor, and refuting contrary evidence. This is pretty well-settled territory.

Nope. Argument can (and should, in some contexts) have a different structure. For instance, an approach I sometimes take to argument is what I would like to call a catalytic one. My goal at those times is to force the other person to take account of my viewpoint, and towards that end I will help him modify his own views to withstand my own. I do not aim to convince him of any single proposition, or refute (as opposed to qualify or modify) a contrary opinion.

The statement I quoted is fine as a statement establishing the theme of an entry, and would be fine as an introductory statement in a rhetoric class. As a statement of accepted fact, or a foundation for a theory of rhetoric, it is suspicious. It is a basic statement, with all of the merits and flaws that description entails

[krinndnz]

You are uncomfortably good at keeping me honest. This post's theme is one that I know that I'll come back to, so I'm going to keep your critique firmly in mind.

[lhexa]

*grins* I'm happy to fill that role. Though right now, if I can fully articulate my response to it, I may have a lot more honesty to ask from you with regard to the "Promise to Speak" post.

[krinndnz]

Oy. Another post where I have a lot more to say, and even more sprawling and poorly structured than this one. Looking forward to your response to that.