Smogging-up the Abortion Argument

I'm "pro-life." I would like to think every human is. How could anyone be anything other than for life? I also think (in fact hope) that every human is anti-abortion. (More on this in a bit.)

I know, I know: I'm being cute. We know that "pro-choice" means what it says and that "pro-life" means anti-abortion, in context of the debates. Personally, I am truly "pro-life." By this, I mean that I believe that we humans do not have a right to take life. For this reason, I do not believe in the death penalty and I would not willingly participate in killing, even in war. To me, if life is sacred (or, in non-religious terms, it is an inalienable right of the one who exists) and there is no carte blanche for the taking of life. (I do believe that taking a life can be necessary, but that it is never moral. For example, I am sure I'd kill to protect my family, but I would still consider it [there simply is no better word] a sin that I would suffer from for the rest of my life.)

Of course, when it comes to abortion, the big debate is whether or when the biological stuff in the womb is a life. But I am not sure that is relevant to my own reasoning about the subject. (Maybe I'll address this in another piece.) But my purpose here is not to argue the particulars of abortion, but more to criticize how we currently argue about abortion.

But, first off, I categorically dismiss those who label men as invalid commentators on the subject of abortion. Abortion is a human question and not just a women's question. It is primarily a women's question, for sure.

Having said this, I watched my wife carry and give birth to two children; I also watched her miscarry three times (the first time, heartbreakingly late in the pregnancy). And while I "watched" this happen, I also, on a very deep level, experienced these things. As deeply as her? Of course not; but, I think these experiences more than justify my having opinions on reproductive rights.

I actually think my being a member of the human race is justification enough, and I am surprised everyone does not feel that way. For instance:

I am ready for you, too, you, O quoters of tribal arguments. I see you checking the script for the right line, you who are ready to question (or lambaste) men who see women's issues "in terms of how they affect the men, themselves." I always see men who comment on abortion being chopped down for saying "if my daughter..." or "if my wife..." But let's put a check on our cynical natures, shall we? Many (though, admittedly, not all) of us men love our wives and daughters deeply and mean this sort of thing in an empathetic way.

When my wife suffers, I suffer. When we need to make decisions, either about her body or mine, we make them together. We're married; we are, in terms of our belief, one. So, I simply won't entertain that argument. I will not see real empathy perverted, through "canned" argument, into selfishness. (Can it be selfishness? Sure, depending on the sincerity or insincerity of the source. but it is not a man thing, it's a good vs. bad man thing.) Argumentation contains pathos, ethos and logos. Always has. How can we argue something as profound as life itself without emotion? -- without discussing how it affects us all?

That said, my real purpose here is this:

I think we do a lot of arguing around the issue of abortion these days. Current trends are to use things like barbaric legislation ("death penalty for women who have abortions" and "99 years in prison for doctors who perform abortions") as either implied or explicit arguments that being anti-abortion is barbaric. If, for instance, a school principal puts a rule on the books that children who cheat on quizzes will be punished by the removal of a finger, that just means the principal is an animal; not that cheating is any more wrong or right than it was before the rule.

It's like some weird version of ad hominum. It's as if people who use this technique would argue that cheating is okay because chopping off fingers is the act of barbarians.

Further, I have seen the pro-life stance, itself, referred to as cruel. Can laws against women who have abortions be cruel? Can a pro-lifer's very perspective on women be cruel? Of course. Can thinking one should not -- on a fundamentally ethical level -- have an abortion be cruel? I certainly don't think so. It's a concept; it's a moral belief. Cruel or not cruel is determined what one does with one's beliefs.

I would argue, further, that no one thinks abortion is a desired outcome. No one is "pro-abortion," because anyone, given the chance, would choose not to be in a position to have to consider having one. "Pro-choice" and "pro-abortion" are not the same.

But if we are arguing whether abortion is moral or not, we should really stick to the act, itself, independent of the urge to make teams out of the sexes. There is just too much fog around the issue now and people are not trying to burn it away; they are trying to take advantage of the poor visibility -- even willingly producing smog -- to make their arguments.

Once again, we see tribalism raising its head. Us against them; liberals vs. conservatives. Foolish. And, in terms of argumentation, distracting at best and crippling at worst. We attack each other and not the issue at hand. We have forgotten that argumentation's highest purpose is to find the truth and adopted the sports (team) mentality: it's all about winning.

Why Do We Know Not "Seems"?

Granted, I am unusually attached to words and perhaps over-sensitive to their fine shades when they're piled against one another in various shapes, but, it seems to me that we could change the nature of argument if everyone would open their statements of opinion with the phrase: "It seems to me..." (See what I did there?)

Hamlet, doing her Yorick
monlologue. Not what it seems, eh?

But, think about it: everything is about how is "seems" to us. Hamlet may "know not 'seems'," but the rest of us do. And if something "seems" a certain way to us, the implication is that it is an at-the-moment kind of thing. There is an unspoken admission that the speaker could actually be wrong.

Normally, I instruct my writing students to argue with a tone of absolute confidence; to leave out "I feel" and "I think." And I still believe that is important. These days, however, we might just need to allow some doubt in to our arguments for the sake of avoiding the literal and metaphoric fisticuffs that dominate the modern agumentative stage.

If the point of argument is not simply to win the argument, but to arrive at the truth, there is good reason to allow for shifts based on the perspective of how things "seem" to others...

Evil Lord Trump and the Flaming Moat

Donald Trump.

Immigration.

Build a wall to keep illegal Mexican immigrants out.

What did each of those phrases or single words do to you? Did you have an emotional reaction? What was it? Is that reaction valid? Is it a good basis for an argument?

I find Donald Trump to be a relatively repulsive human being. His face angers me. His lips are an affront to the Universe. His hair is ridiculous. His arrogance is deafening.

If I am a real thinker, however, I will be able to put that all aside when debating an issue.

The other day, Trump was interviewed by Stephen Colbert. Colbert asked him about immigration and Trump outlined his idea: Build a wall; make Mexico pay for it, because they owe us money anyway; have a door ("a beautiful, big, fat door") in the wall through which immigrants may pass, legally.

If we look for things in that idea that might set off emotion, as the words that opened this piece may have, the word "wall" seems the likely culprit. It's what they did in the Middle Ages: put up walls to keep out invaders. We have evolved past that, right? We begin to associate it with all sorts of barbaric things. Colbert certainly did.

Colbert offered a (satirical) idea: Let's build two walls, with a moat of fire in-between them and with fireproof crocodiles in the flaming moat. Of course, Colbert's aim is to point out the medieval nature of Trump's idea and to underscore, through hyperbole, how awful he thinks the idea is; to use satire to get his audience to see that Trump thinks like a feudal lord.

I cracked up laughing when Colbert did this. Is Colbert's tactic logical, though? Did he truly deal with Trump's idea? Maybe not, but such an approach can achieve its aim.

I loathe Trump. I am a descendant of immigrants. But is the idea of building a wall really so medieval? -- so barbaric?

I don't know if it is true that Mexico could be made to pay for it, but let's allow that that might be true, just for thrills. What, though, is more barbaric: building a wall that forces immigrants to move toward the door in order to enter the country legally, or for border patrol agents to have to engage in dangerous hunts and conflicts with illegal immigrants? Which way would be more efficient, a wall or the current system?

The last two questions are logically valid, once we move past our emotional reaction to the idea of a "wall." Colbert's satirical emotional appeal is a good tactic; he pulls his audience out of allowing a discussion of those two questions and draws them into a dismissal of a (now) seemingly barbaric man who is easy to hate in the first place.

Very interesting. Colbert's tactic achieves its purpose, but is it healthy for political debate? It is almost a form of red herring -- not quite, though. Very interesting.

(End note: most of my discussion on blog posts goes on on Facebook and every time I write one of these argument analyses, I cringe when I push the post button, because people tend to forget the fact that I am arguing about argumentation and not about the issue being argued. It might help to say: it is not my concern, here (though, it iis a big concern of mine), whether we should or should not build a wall but that we discuss it carefully before we make a decision. If I get yelled at for supporting Trump's idea, someone missed the point or I failed to make it clear. My intention is also to point out what argumentative tactics [whether from the base of pathos or logos] people use when they do argue.)

The Blow-Off Fallacy: From Gay Marriage to Home-Made Clocks

As a teacher of argumentation, I often refer to the "logical fallacies" in order to keep my students Spock-like in their approach to supporting a claim or idea. These fallacies include things with Latin names like ad hominem, which is an argumentative attack on the person, instead of on the issue at hand (think: Donald Trump saying that no one will vote for Carly Fiorina because of her face); ad hoc (think Ernie implying to Bert that having put a banana in his ear is the reason there are no alligators on Sesame Street) and "straw man," which is a misrepresentation of someone else's argument (building a straw approximation of it) in order to make it easier to "burn" (think of a writer attacking a senator's vote against a spending package and saying that, because that package contained an allotment of money for military helmets, that: "He voted against it because he wants our American soldiers to die!").

There are a lot more fallacies, but that is not why I am writing this. What I want to address is what I see as a cousin of the "straw man." I'll call it the "blow-off fallacy." It is becoming more and more prevalent and it really seems to have gained a foothold as a result of the gay rights movement.

(Here is where I stop and point out that I am addressing is not the issue of gay rights but the means of arguing about the issue. People can and will hold whatever stance you want to on gay rights or gay marriage; I just want them to argue about it logically.)

Probably the most common argument in favor of gay marriage is: "What do you care? It doesn't affect you!" This is the "blow-off fallacy."

I would have liked to have watch Lincoln and Douglas

Of course, gay marriage affects everyone in a society. It is a major shift in a paradigm that has existed for just about all of human time, in about all human cultures. Sure, one could argue that homosexuality has seen varied levels of acceptance in various cultures and times (think ancient Greece), but gay marriage is pretty brand new. It affects the world in a profound way.

Does the acceptance of gay marriage cause heterosexuals to fall over and die? -- does it poison the water supplies? -- does it cause hurricanes, as some religious nuts have implied? -- does it cause straight people to turn gay? No, of course not. But it, culturally, affects all of us. Using the blow-off fallacy to defend it is just bad form and, on top of that, it may just be counter-productive to supporters: it belittles the very idea and it makes that very thing being supported seem like "no big deal." Ask a gay couple, who can now get married, if it is a big deal to them. Ask parents of children (Louis CK attempts to ridicule this idea with a scathing blow-off argument) how much more difficult it is to explain sexuality, in general, to their kids, now.

Just today, the news is buzzing with a story about a high school freshman who brought a home-made clock into school. The kid got arrested. He claims the clock was something he made to impress his teachers. Ultimately, the kid got arrested for fear it was a bomb. I heard a commenter say the kid got punished for being named Ahmed Mohamed and for being creative. Well, that is a blow-off fallacy, to me (along with a few others). (I suppose it is a blow-off fallacy that dances with straw man, as well...but it has a blow-off element.)

I'm not implying the kid is a terrorist. My instinct as a teacher and as an administrator is that he is what my grandmother would have called a "nudge" (the "u" should be pronounced like the double-Os in "took") who is really smart and who probably knew he would cause a row by bringing in something that people might mistake as a bomb -- but this is all just a gut feeling.

I'll tell you one thing this incident is not; it is not "no big deal." I'm not aguing that the kid needed to be arrested, because I don't think he needed to be; a call to the parents and maybe even a police visit to look around in the kid's room, to be sure, would have been sufficient. (Not because he is a Muslim. That would be going after me with "straw man.")

I do take the safety of my kids, in my school, very seriously. This incident can't be blown off. Therefore, we can't use the blow-off fallacy to defend the kid; we need to defend him in another way, or we risk making the act of bringing in things that look like bombs seem like harmless fun -- which is it certainly not.

It is a shame that this young man is a Muslim, because that fuels the prejudice of the masses and if (note the "if") he did this (as my instincts suggest) to be a "nudge," he needs a severe talking-to by his mom, dad, or grandparents for having fed into stereotype.

Butthe fact remains that it is a big deal, as is the shift into legal gay marriage. Both are a very big deal and, for their respective reasons, need to be seen that way in order to do the issues justice.

A little ad hoc fun (ad hoc at :39, but it is all funny):

A Hard Sentence

In education (and, I would guess, in the business world) we give and are given both "formative" and "summative" evaluations. The former is an evaluation that is given in order to help in development; the latter is a kind of judgement -- a conclusive look at work done and goals achieved. A summative evaluation says: this is you, as a professional (or as a student).

It seems to me that, in the social world, there is little but summative evaluation going on. I have been thinking about this a lot: At what point (if at any) does an action or a viewpoint define a person?

Just yesterday, as a result of my post on Monday, a friend on Facebook disagreed with what he saw my position to be. I still think he misread; as far as I know he still thinks I was off the mark. As it was related to the issue of racism and he is an African American, this could have been dicey. But, here's the thing: He knows me and I know him. We have known each other for years and we are both articulate and intellectually inquisitive. In discussion with this gentleman (and I underscore "gentleman") I never fear that a difference of opinion will be a deal-breaker for our friendship. We say what we think and we say it with civility. Sometimes, we actually change each other's minds. (His comments lead to one revision in my post from Monday.)

The best part about this scenario is that we are not in contact, very much, beyond Facebook. We used to work together in the mall when we were in school. I call this "the best part" not because I wouldn't like to see him more, but because it means we don't have the kind of deep history childhood friends might have; a history that would prevent us from ruining a lifetime of shared experience at the expense of our principles. Such a relation ship might override even the worst disagreements. With us, it is simple: we know well-enough what makes each of us tick. We understand each other's good intentions. While we might evaluate each other formatively ("I think you are very wrong here") we don't judge each other summatively ("Your viewpoint makes you a horrible person and I want nothing to do with you").

Lorenzo Lotto

Conversely, I have been completely ignored by someone (on Facebook) who disagreed with my position on an issue -- on one topic. This person now no longer communicates with me, despite having once been a very active reader of this blog and a constant communicator on Facebook.

I watched two high school friends tear each other apart in a political debate and their relationship ended, forthwith. Because they disagreed and also because they allowed their disagreement to get nasty, all bets were off. I know both of them and I think they are both very good-hearted guys. Should a disagreement have ended their chance to be friends?

Two things are at work, here, I suppose: 1) People's inability to argue without losing control of their emotions and 2) a prevalent assumption that a point of view gives us a summative picture of a person and that that summation is a reason to remain or not remain friends with that person.

I could see looking at someone summatively if they were an outspoken supporter of, say, wife beating. That is not the kind of person I want to remain friends with; the position itself shows a violent nature and a disregard for humanity. But to end a relationship based on opposite political views? Nah. Even a sensitive issue (as has been proven several times with my friend above) can be discussed civilly with no damage to a friendship, so long as mutual respect exists and is exhibited.

What is pervasive is hard to defeat. I have seen a lot of use over the past few years of the phrase "horrible person" as applied to a person who said something disagreeable. That's a pretty hard sentence (in both senses of the word).

"Quick to judge -- Quick to anger -- Slow to understand

Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand."

Neil Peart, "Witch Hunt."

Weak Arguments About Valid Points

Alright. Deep breath. I'm going to do this.

I am going to set up carefully before I do it, but I know, regardless of what I say, here, someone will read this as a piece condoning the exclusion of gay people from the workforce. No. I am just trying to point out something that happens too much when people argue: flaws in reasoning.

Did everyone get that? Raise your hand if you didn't get that. Because if anyone responds to this by calling me an unfeeling monster who thinks it is okay to keep someone without a means of sustenance because of his or her sexual orientation, I am not responsible for how I may respond. No -- come to think of it, I will just delete such comments, though I have never once done that in the three year history of this blog.

So let me reinforce this: this is a post about logic in argumentation, not about a social issue, though a social issue is at the center of the argument in question. By attacking this argument, I am not saying that the gist of the point that is being made about the issue is not right. I am simply saying that the way that is is being argued is flawed.

Okay? Anyone still a little unsure? Just let me know... I'll wait.

Right. So, consider this meme I just saw on Facebook:

What Ever Happened to the Sweet Science?

from "The Bells of St. Mary's"

My friend and I were talking about fighting the other day. It began as a discussion as to when is the right time to tell one's child to fight -- to "throw down," in order to free himself from bullying or torment. We didn't come to an over-arching conclusion. But we did wander into talking about an older film; I think it was The Bells of St. Mary's, with Bing Crosby -- not sure. In it, the priest in charge (Bing) breaks up a fight between two boys. He then makes them put on the gloves and duke it out in the ring. With rules. With order.

Again, I'm not even sure how I feel about that -- about encouraging the boys to fight at all. Part of me thinks that's the whole point of civilization: to control, but not to eradicate human nature. Another part of me thinks fighting is something we need to rise above as a species. But I think, in the end, I might lean toward putting on the gloves when necessary.

Smoke Gets in Your Brain

I have no idea why this occurred to me, but . . .

Some years ago I was playing in a now-defunct bar called "Olde Grads." The band was positioned on a stage behind the bar. Looking past the backs of the bartenders, you saw shapes in a haze moving, dancing, drinking. The smoke was so thick in the place that the stage lights created solid curtains of color when they flashed.

One night, I was feeling particularly (and literally) sick of the smoke. As the drummer, I was farthest back, up against the wall. I saw a switch. Wondering what it would do, I flipped it. Immediately, the smoke cleared from the bar. It was an exhaust fan. The bartender (a guy who, I am sure, had left a few horse-heads in the beds of transgressors) whipped around with a crazed look on his face. As he searched for the cause of the clear air, he smoothed back his gray hair, chewed furiously on his soggy cigar and uttered the most unspeakable profanities. "Who the ____ turned on that  _____ fan?"

Useless Ranters

"I just have to get things off of my chest," some people say. "When I have something to say, I just have to say it. I don't care what anyone thinks."

Translation: "I am completely egocentric."

Why do people feel justified in bragging about this awful tendency? When someone says something like this, I don't know what to say. Should I respond with a sarcasm-dripping: "Wow. Awesome. You're awesome"? Or, should I praise their obnoxiousness and pretend it amounts to courage? Personally, I think, if you are going to point that out about yourself, you might as well get T-shirts printed up that say: "Hello. I am an egocentric ass. And, what's worse, I am proud of it."

The End of an Argument (A Dialogue)

Setting: An abandoned farmhouse.

At rise: Two men enter, sit at opposite sides of a table, upon old crates, and look at each other for a long time before speaking.

Man 1: What do you have to say, today?

Man 2: The same thing as yesterday.

Man 1: Then, don't bother.

Man 2: Why are we here, then?

Man 1: To talk again.

Man 2: To argue again. What do you think will happen?

A Loaded Epistle

Dear Self-Righteous Windbag:

Here are a few things that piss me off about you:

1) You support world-changing ideas with an air and an attitude that indicates that a total paradigm shift is no big deal and that anyone who disagrees with you is missing the purple, glowing elephant of Truth that just stomped into the room. See, if what you are proposing is against the grain of hundreds of years of past practices, you may be wrong or right -- I may even agree with you that a change is needed -- but your argumentative tactic of broadcasting your disappointment that everyone else doesn't see what is so obvious to your discerning, superior self is weak and, honestly, embarrassing. Stop ending sentences with a gentle snort and a slight head shake. It isn't as effective as you think it is. In fact, the only purpose it serves is to make you look like a stuck-up twelve-year-old and the only people you impress with your gestures are the other stuck up twelve-year-olds who use the same tactic. Last I checked, "acting wearily annoyed" isn't an argumentative strategy they teach in college composition classes. Honestly, it makes me want to disagree with you, even when I agree with you.

2) You are like a terrier with an old shoe, the old shoe being what you think is true -- or what you wish were true. Therefore, you disregard evidence and logic in pursuit of your toy. You also do not listen to opponents but simply wait for them to take a breath so you can jump in. In fact, right now, you are assuming that I am attacking you or your school of thought, even though I have not actually done so. You have decided that I am either a liberal or a conservative (of which I am neither), and you are drooling at the chance of commenting and labeling me as typical, but you have not heard a word I have said.

3) You try to push me into a corner by imposing your philosophy of life upon me and you call me an insensitive bully with an agenda when I push back. (You also gently snort and slightly shake your head when I get done making points.) If you shove something in my face, I am going to push it away and not worry about being polite. So either think of another approach, or stop trying to make me look like a caveman with a club when I fight back while painting yourself as the voice of reason when you use the exact same tactics.

4) Most of all, you have aligned yourself with a school of thought that has swept you away like a skier in an avalanche. You think according to the club's rules and will not dissent, because there is safety in numbers. You ignore or cannot see inconsistencies within your group's philosophy. You mumble: "Fruit is sacred and must not be harmed" with your mouth full of banana. And if someone challenges you with your obviously flawed philosophy and actions, you don't say, "You know, you're right. If I think fruit is sacred, I shouldn't chew it up." Instead, you manufacture a pseudo-logical system that makes eating bananas okay. (Simply because you find them tasty.) In short you are scared to be out on your own, yet you think only of yourself. How can a crusader for right be a scheming, selfish coward?

You are either wrong (owing to complete egocentrism) or correct, if you think this letter is meant for you. You are either wrong (owing to complete thick-headedness) or correct if you think this letter not meant for you.

Sincerely,
Chris

P.S. You might also think I should have written this letter to myself, if only because of the salutation. I can live with that.