Exposing the bogus arguments of politicians, priests, journalists and other serial offenders
Jamie Whyte
McGraw-Hill 2005
ISBN 0-07-144643-5
I really wanted to like this book. The dust cover states: "Applying his laserlike wit to dozens of timely examples, Whyte cuts through the haze of facts, figures and double-talk and gets at the real truth behind what they're telling us".
Being a long-time devotee of clear logic, respect for fact and reasoned argument, I expected to find much to cheer for in this book. But when I finished it, I was not happy at all. Read on for why.
The first chapter of the book starts off seemingly easily - it's entitled "The Right To Your Opinion".
Sure, one thinks - I've got opinions, and I've got a right to express them. So I obviously have a right to have them. What's not to like?
Much, it turns out. Quoth Whyte: "... my purpose here is to stop you from believing in another right that you do not relaly have, namely, the right to your own opinion". And he goes on from there by pointing out that the phrase "Everyone's got a right to one's opinion" is often used as the last ditch of the illogical in refusing to engage in further argument about a position that they have begun to suspect is not logically defensible.
My bogon detectors start ringing at this point. There's a logical step missing here - how does the abuse of a term like "the right to his opinion" invalidate the right to have an opinion, which I believe is even more fundamental to human freedom than the right to express it?
The author makes a fairly convincing argument that the statement "everyone's got a right to an opinion" has no bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of that opinion - an argument with which I happen to agree. But that's not what he started out to prove, despite having claimed to do exactly that by the end of the chapter.
I read on, basically nodding my head at the elegant demolition of bogus arguments - but still with that bogon detector ringing in the back of my head.
A few chapters later, another alarm bell goes off when he discusses the incantation of "mystery", and uses the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as an example: "It remains impossible both that three does not equal one and that the Trinity is a Unity. If you hold both beliefs, you contradict yourself. One belief must be wrong, and because it is necessarily true that three does not equal one, we know which it is." (p. 34)
Peeled an orange lately?
This is well travelled territory. As a Christian and a rational thinker, I've been over this ground before. And so, surely, has Whyte. Whatever you can logically say about the Trinity, this attack is not a decisive argument - you can't answer the question about "how many" without also answering "of what".
At this point, I realize that my discomfort with the first chapter has finally crystallized. I've seen this introduction before - as a staple of Evangelicals, brainwashers, sectarians and teachers at management classes. It's called "push your victim/mark/acolyte/reader off base" - take something fairly innocuous that people don't normally think much about, and force the reader into believing (at least for the moment) that he previously believed something untrue.
Done correctly, this will result in a feeling of gratitude from the reader/listener/victim towards the preacher/teacher/writer for teaching him the error of his ways, and an enlarged tendency to listen to and believe the further lessons to be imparted from the preacher/teacher/writer.
At this point, I realize that I'm committing the fallacy of motive (p. 11) against the author. I'm starting to believe that his motive in writing the book is not to make people better equipped to evaluate an argument critcially, it is to make the reader believe that certain things the author says are indeed so, without investigating the matter for themselves. And in a book purportedly devoting itself to exposing "crimes against logic", that's about as surprising as finding a pamphlet for "safe sex" in a Catholic bookstore.
It's with a feeling of sadness that I read the rest of the book - enjoying the savage dismemberment of the abuse of statistics in newspaper columns, the elegance of the term "sneer quotes" (which is, itself, an example of "hooray words"), and the arguments for why the fact that some people taking homeoopathic medicines get well does not mean that they get well from homeopathic medicine - but yet I can't help seeing the instances of the author putting forth his unsupported opinion on matters that I hold to be highly debatable, always with the subtext "it's obvious" - despite warning us (p. 47) against believing this very thing.
The rhetoric is elegant. The logical inconsistencies and leaps of faith implicit in the author's argumetns aren't immediately obvious to the eye. The author is a good writer. But still - I found the inconsistency between the form of the book and its content to be a constant, jarring discomfort.
"To use the Enemy's weapon is to play the Enemy's game" - I forget which book that one came from. But it's the phrase that I kept remembering as I finished this book.
One issue that Jamie Whyte does not address, but which I believe is important in order to understand how people make argument, is that debates have purposes - and the purpose is frequently NOT to "find the truth".
A huge number of debates - I'd guess at least 90% of the debates appearing on national TV - have as their main purpose to entertain. Political debates may have subtitles like getting a politician's face in front of the public, or to influence public opinion for the next Gallup poll - but the reason they get screen space is to get ratings for the TV network - and the chief commandment there is "don't be boring" - which goes a long way towards explaining why shows like Ricki Lake are on the air.....
The same goes for debate at parties - the main purpose is entertainment, not serious changing of convictions; people who offend against this unwritten rule have a problem.
Yet people seem to enjoy debate more when they can pretend it's
serious - so the form of the debate has to be kept, but interruptions,
rhetorical devices and unreasonable positions aren't generally regarded as the
criminal offenses that they ought to be in any debate where the outcome in fact
matters.
I'd enjoy the debates far more if they were in fact more serious, and had less
of those devices - but I'm not the audience that most influences the TV ratings.
It's unfortunate that people will learn from the techniques they watch in these "play debates" and try to apply them where they really matter - in parent-child discussions, in business decision-making, in the courtroom, in religious instruction and in the making of public policy. Because there, I believe that we would be better served by prizing logic well above rhetoric.
But even in those spheres, I believe it's important to recognize that there ARE times when not debating the truth-as-such is a reasonable strategy - especially in politics, the debate is not about finding the truth, it's about finding the way forward that leads to reasonable action being taken WITHOUT requiring any of the parties to change their basic beliefs. That's hard.
There are times when I believe logic and rationality must reign supreme, and where rhetorical grandstanding and fuzzy thinking is, indeed, a crime against logic - in science, in justice, in the teaching of children. But by failing to make the distinctions, I think that Jamie Whyte lessens the power of his argument.
Despite my dislike for the book, I would recommend that people read it. It's the most entertaining book I've read so far on the subject of spotting rhetorical devices and fuzzy thinking in everyday media and conversation.
But I'd very much encourage using the critical reading that the book advocates on the book itself. Don't take his word that what he's saying is true.
And don't take mine either. Read the book.
this exercise in rhetoric is the sole opinion of Harald Tveit Alvestrand. It may be quoted, or reproduced in its entirety, with appropriate attribution. Comments welcome at harald@alvestrand.no