PARVUM OPUS

 

Number 194

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ARGUING IS HARD WORK

 

So many well-meaning people despise each other simply because they don't know how to argue. And they don't know what they're really arguing about. I try to break things down to tiny little units for clarity, and remember that one tiny little unit does not imply everything else in the world that comes to mind. This is not to say that we would all agree with each other if we only were clear about our terms and premises. But it would help. First, we should agree on what an argument is. Maybe you've seen the classic Monty Python Argument Sketch, which distinguishes between argument, contradiction, and abuse. The client who wanted pure argument undoubtedly had been to the Socratic Argument Clinic. The Socratic method uses

Socratic questions that draw out (ex duco > education) answers from the arguee. Socratic argument used to be part of a classical ~ that is, liberal ~ education, and was even referred to in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

 

Another good arguer was Thomas Aquinas, whose rules for a convincing argument stipulated:

 

It should define the problem.

It should note the most important positions that other people have taken on the problem and not hide from their best counter-arguments.

If there is precedent for the author's position in others, it should note that.

It should however provide its own case and not just lean on the authority of others.

It should answer the objections of the counter-arguments.

 

On top of all this, people who argue have to agree on facts. It helps if they have read the same sources. So who has the time to argue?

 

THE BRITISH CORNER

 

The phrase "a fair cop" appears In the Monty Python argument skit (Man: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says. Other Man:

It is NOT!) and I just read "a fair cop" (re-read it actually) in Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night. It means a legitimate arrest. The phrase also turned up in the script of Monty Pythons Holy Grail, Scene 5, where a woman was tried as a witch and executed on the basis of insane logic, with which the accused concurs:

 

BEDEMIR:  Exactly!  So, logically...,

VILLAGER #1:  If... she.. weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood.

BEDEMIR:  And therefore--?

VILLAGER #1:  A witch!

 

CONSIDER EVIL

 

Deborah Hastings of The Associated Press wrote this about the heinous murders in an Amish schoolhouse: "...he brought violence to a place that considers it evil." Why would she phrase it this way? Does she mean that the non-Amish do not consider what he did to be evil? Do you? Here are definitions of "evil" from yourdictionary.com:

 

1. Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.

2. Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.

3. Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens.

4. Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation.

5. Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper.

 

Even the most extreme relativist couldn't argue with 2 through 5. It's the first definition that Hastings must have had in mind, if only unconsciously. The word "moral" probably tripped her up. We all know that the effects of the murders were ruinous; and if Charles Carl Roberts IV didn't have a bad reputation, he does now; and he was angry. But who are we to call him or his acts evil, Hastings seems to suggest. Only the Amish would be so judgmental. The rest of us, rational, enlightened beings, know that perhaps he's sick, his acting-out was excessive, maybe he had a chemical imbalance. In other words, no morality is involved because the person does not have a choice. I think if you don't have a choice, you are little more than a machine.

 

But who are we to judge?  We know the Amish won't take vengeance. But they might use the E-word. I wonder if the people who suffered from the other recent school shootings, from Colorado to Montreal, consider those murders, or the murderers, evil, the result of an immoral choice.

 

LOGIC  –101

 

(That would be minus 101, a negative number.) The Pope's planned visit to Turkey has prompted Turkish Muslims to offer to arrest him when he goes, because: "They said the pontiff had violated Turkish laws upholding freedom of belief and thought by 'insulting' Islam and the Prophet Mohammed."

 

Freedom of what? What of belief and thought?

 

So, his comment that Islam teaches violence is met with ... riots and the murder of a nun in Africa. Laws upholding freedom of belief and thought do not permit insults to Islam. Maybe it's just saying what you think out loud that's against the law.

 

(By the way, it seems that the fellows who hijacked the Turkish plane flying to Italy were not protesting the Pope's visit after all. They wanted political asylum; at least one of them, a Christian, wanted to avoid being forced to join the mostly Muslim Turkish army.)

 

Some reporter said that the Pope had said that Turkey is not "fit" to join the European Union, but what he actually said was something like, Turkey would not fit into Europe, they are too different. What makes Europe, Europe, anyway? It's called a continent but look at a map and you can see that it is not a continent separate from what's called Asia. It's the only so-called continent that is not defined by its land mass. It is defined by a history and a culture. There's a good article, "Socrates or Mohammad?", in the October 2 Weekly Standard by Lee Harris on Joseph Ratzinger's remarks on the importance of reason in the West, starting with the Greeks. Read it, there will be a test. Maybe not here, but there will be.

 

Lebanese-born Brigitte Gabriel is circulating a petition urging that Saudi madrassas (Islamist schools) not be allowed in the United States. She says an 8th grade text, for instance, teaches that Allah cursed the Jews and the Christians and turned them into apes and pigs. That's certainly not scientific or reasonable. I wonder what the teachers and the students actually think when they read and repeat this. You look at a Jew or a Christian and you don't see an ape or a pig, so do they mean spiritual apes and pigs? Gabriel uses an interesting quote from Thomas Mann: "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil."

 

Speaking of reason, it's time for a poem, called "Reason" by Josephine Miles:

 

Said, Pull her up a bit will you, Mac, I want to unload there.

Said, Pull her up my rear end, first come first serve.

Said, Give her the gun, Bud, he needs a taste of his own bumper.

Then the usher came out and got into the act:

 

Said, Pull her up, pull her up a bit, we need this space, sir.

Said, For God’s sake, is this still a free country, or what?

You go back and take care of Gary Cooper’s horse

And leave me handle my own car.

 

Saw them unloading the lame old lady,

Ducked out under the wheel and gave her an elbow,      

Said, All you needed to do was just explain;

Reason, Reason is my middle name.

 

Remembering these bits is what justifies my college education.

 

 

 

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The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is not composed of atoms, but stories.

The physicist Werner Heisenberg said the universe is not made of matter, but music.

 

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