All posts by John Casey

Blogger
David Brooks, False Dichotomy, Unqualified Authority, Weak Analogy

Chicken soup for the argument

10 Comments

Though I have no doubt David Brooks is unaware of us–especially since we almost never comment on him as he is firewalled–I was surprised to see that something of the idea of whom to ask critical questions about people places and things has crossed his mind:

>It happened just over a year ago in Key West, of all places. We’d come down for a conference organized by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and one afternoon two friends, Reuel Gerecht and Jeffrey Goldberg, squared off for a debate on the prospects for democracy in the Middle East.

>Gerecht and Goldberg are Americans whose fascination with Islam has taken them to *ridiculous places.* Gerecht, a former member of the C.I.A. clandestine service, spends an astonishing amount of time in spare rooms in Middle East backwaters talking fatwas in klatches with bearded fundamentalists.

>Goldberg has lived in a madrasa in Pakistan. His pieces from inside Hezbollah won a National Magazine Award for The New Yorker. In the fall he has a book, “Prisoners,” coming out about his time as a prison guard in the Israeli Army, and his friendships with the Palestinian detainees.

You read that right–“ridiculous places”–as if to foreshadow where we are going in this piece.

Believe it or not, these two individuals “disagree utterly about the path to Arab democracy.” But which *one* of them will be right? The Middle East is such a *ridiculous* place, so how better to resolve the dispute about its future between two ridiculously adventurous westerners (they actually went to the Middle East and talked to those people? That’s ridiculous!) than with a ridiculous analogy:

>The only way to reform the Middle East, Gerecht concluded, is by changing political institutions and enduring as the spirit of democratic self-government slowly changes society. *There will be a period of fever, but the fever will break the disease.*

What a fitting analogy! But wait:

>When it was Goldberg’s turn (the transcript is available online at pewforum.org), his first observation was that *sometimes fevers break the disease but sometimes they kill the patient*.

Zing! Excellent point Dr.Goldberg! How will the moderator resolve it?

>What this debate is really about is *the mother of all chicken-and-egg problems.* Can we use political reform *to spark* cultural change, or do we have to wait for cultural reformation before *we* can change politics?

The concept of agency at work in this piece is so 19th Century: why bother asking people from the land of the ridiculous to participate? (maybe, and this is admittedly a ridiculous suggestion, they have another view, or views). Surely they couldn’t have come up with the chicken and egg metaphor for their predicament–that’s why they’re ridiculous.

Jonah Goldberg, Op-Eds and other opinions, Unqualified Authority

Trust me

The other week or day I don’t remember which we mentioned some of the basic qualifications for meaningful participation in a discussion of the future of the middle east (and by extension and by analogy, anywhere else). We were again reminded of these when we saw this to our mind a set of important questions concerning a recent roundtable at the journal Foreign Affairs. I quote:

>Got a few questions for you:

>1. Are you Muslim? It doesn’t appear that any of you are.

>2. If you’re not, do any of you speak fluent Arabic, ie, well enough to hold a conversation, listen to al Jazeera, and read the newspapers?

>3. If not, how many of you have read the entire Qu’ran and most of the Hadith in translation? If not, how many of you have participated more than once in worship at a mosque? Sh’ia or Sunni – and can you quickly define the difference?

>4. If not, how many of you have travelled to Iraq since the occupation, how long did you stay, and where did you go?

>5. How many of you publicly opposed the invasion prior to the launch of the New Product – as the Bush administration termed the invasion and occupation – long before it was politically safe to do so, say, prior to the passage of the Senate resolution in fall of 2002? Before January, 2003?

>6. If you are not Muslim, don’t speak Arabic well, haven’t read the basic texts of Islam or participated in services, haven’t been to Iraq, and/or believed – for whatever reason – prior to the invasion that it was a smart, or at least reasonable, idea to invade Iraq – that is, if you can’t answer “yes” to a decent number of my first five questions – then why should I bother to take seriously anything you might think to say?

>I’m not saying you’re stupid or uninformed, I know you’re not. I’m asking: upon what is your expertise based, besides attending conferences, reading a lot of thick books by non-Islamic Americans, reading American newspapers and official government reports?

>Just asking.

>Love,

>Tristero

It’s wise I believe to keep such qualifications in mind before one takes seriously commentary from persons such as these:

>In the last few days there have been a lot of rumors of impending ceasefires and diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East. Condoleezza Rice, to the cheers of many, is reportedly heading to the region to head off further escalation. I hope she doesn’t go, and if she does, I hope her success is measured in photo-ops and nothing more, because Israel has a moral and strategic obligation to invade southern Lebanon.

I would add one question to Tristero’s list: do you have any experience with the realities of ground combat?

UPDATE (7/20/06): Tristero writes an apology:

>In a previous post, I questioned the credentials of the members of the Foreign Affairs roundtable on “What to do in Iraq.” Some members of that panel clearly are qualified, eminently so, to have an opinion appear under the auspices of the journal that promotes itself, by way of a quote, as “The Bible of Foreign Policy Thinking.”

>In particular, Marc Lynch of Abu Aardvark wrote to Hullabaloo: “…in addition to being a liberal blogger (www.abuaardvark.com), I do speak and read Arabic, write about al-Jazeera and the Arab media all the time, and published an op- ed opposing war with Iraq in the Christian Science Monitor in July 2002.” Marc’s clearly one of the Serious People who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Iraq; his opinions on the mess in Iraq are invaluable. Marc, a full and complete apology. I haven’t read your blog in anthing resembling a regular fashion and that has been truly my serious loss.

>And I’d like to apologize to other panel members who have garnered high-level credentials similar to Marc’s. Your comments, too, were helpful, even if I disagreed with them…no especially if I disagreed with them.

That’s good–we’re moving in the right direction for an informed discussion. But I think Tristero should ask whether any of them live in the region.

False Cause, Op-Eds and other opinions, Straw Man, V.D.Hanson, Weak Analogy

Honest Abe made me do it

2 Comments

The art of historical analogy is tricky and as such subject to dishonest manipulation. On that score, historian Victor Davis Hanson writes:

>The Bush administration can also use history to show that, despite what detractors say, its techniques aren’t so unreasonable. It’s worth reminding the American public that Abe Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and shut down newspapers; that Woodrow Wilson imprisoned prominent dissenters like Eugene Debs; and that Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese-American citizens and secret military tribunals for German saboteurs (six of whom were executed) and allowed the coverup of military catastrophes (such as the hundreds killed during training exercises for the Normandy landings).

>In other words, there’s an advantage to providing historical perspective by engaging one’s critics and answering their charges.

There’s a causal and analogical argument here. While Hanson does not say that the above mentioned things relate causally to the various military victories, he certainly suggests as much. While sorting out the causuality of these various claims might merit more serious attention, I think it’s plain to most mildly historically minded people that these claims are false. Interning Japanese and other Axis-related americans didn’t advance us militarily nor did executing German saboteurs (they were already captured). Covering up military disasters such as the one mentioned were done for purposes of concealing our plans (not our foolishness). Such things are obvious from even the most superficial History Channel surfing.

More pernicious is the suggestion that these situations are analogous to the present day. They’re not. Since they didn’t advance the cause then, analogous actions don’t advance it now.

One final point. Coming from a professor, such straw man arguments are shameful:

>The public, for example, should be informed that the accusation that the U.S. went into Iraq for oil (“no blood for oil,” as the slogan goes) is not merely inaccurate, but crazy. For starters, gas prices skyrocketed once we induced risky change in the Middle East. How does that benefit the American people? Meanwhile, because of the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s energy sector has been purged of corruption (such as the UN’s scandal-plagued oil-for-food program).

Such sloganeering inflames the passions but doesn’t constitute argument. Everyone knows that. The real arguments against attacking Iraq (not the protest march slogans) at the time were legion. It turns out, in fact, that many of those arguments were correct.

But while we’re on the subject of oil, at least one administration official (but certainly more) suggested–I think it was Paul Wolfowitz–that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the reconstruction. How are we to have interpreted that? The consequences to the Iraqi oil industry which Hanson mentions were clearly not the ones offered to the American public when the administration rolled out its new September 2003 product line. It is false to suggest otherwise.

Ad Hominem, Ad hominem circumstantial

The last refuge

2 Comments

We’ve been debating this for a while, but it’s time we took another turn through the internet tubes.

This from Instapundit, a right wing blogger, on 11/11/2005:

>The White House needs to go on the offensive here in a big way — and Bush needs to be very plain that this is all about Democratic politicans pandering to the antiwar base, that it’s deeply dishonest, and that it hurts our troops abroad.

>And yes, he should question their patriotism. Because they’re acting unpatriotically.

>

>UPDATE: Reader Kathleen Boerger emails: “Could you do me a favor and define ‘patriotism’ please?”

>I think it starts with not uttering falsehoods that damage the country in time of war, simply because your donor base wants to hear them.

>Patriotic people could — and did — oppose the war. But so did a lot of scoundrels. And some who supported the war were not patriotic, if they did it out of opportunism or political calculation rather than honest belief. Those who are now trying to recast their prior positions through dishonest rewriting of history are not patriotic now, nor were they when they supported the war, if they did so then out of opportunism –which today’s revisionist history suggests.

We’re intrigued that patriotism asks so little of the patriot: simply believe the irresponsible tripe you say. So, one might wonder, how does patriotism differ from just plain honesty?

And this underscores the general pointlessness of questioning others’ motives–the you’re just saying that because (you want to be on TV, you want sympathy, you want money, you want votes, girls, attention and so on): motives are private, often even to ourselves. The only things we can fairly and responsibly judge are *reasons*–yes, the things that compose *arguments*.

If we confined ourselves to arguments, we’d all be better off.

Charles Krauthammer, False Dichotomy

Question answered

11 Comments

Why do the Israelis fight, asks Charles Krauthammer, especially in light of the following circumstances:

>Exhibit A: Gaza. Just last September, Israel evacuated Gaza completely. It declared the border between Israel and Gaza an international frontier, renouncing any claim to the territory. Gaza became the first independent Palestinian territory in history. Yet the Gazans continued the war. They turned Gaza into a base for launching rocket attacks against Israel and for digging tunnels under the border to conduct attacks such as the one that killed two Israeli soldiers on June 25 and yielded a wounded hostage brought back to Gaza. Israeli tanks have now had to return to Gaza to try to rescue the hostage and suppress the rocket fire. [emphasis added]

I’m very much a non-expert about the region (see previous post), but I’m curious about the language Krauthammer employs.

In the first part of the paragraph, Israel is the agent–it declares it has no claim on Gaza (where’s Gaza in this? Was it agreed that the case was then closed by Israel’s withdrawl?).

Despite Israel’s action Gaza continues (unreasonably we can only suppose–at least Krauthammer doesn’t mention any reasons) to wage “war”.

In this “war” the Gazans captured a “hostage”. Typically in war one captures “prisoners.” One might wonder if Israel has any “hostages”. Or do they have “prisoners”? Perhaps like us they have “detainees.”

Now in light of the action of the Gazans, Israel is forced into the role of passive responder: they have had to–they have no choice but to–return to Gaza with tanks. As I say, I’m not an expert, but maybe there were other options.

David Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, Unqualified Authority

Question Authority

1 Comment

Especially when the authority is unqualified. From our recent excursions into the blogosphere, a not so recent (2/5/05–for us there is no expiration date) post:

>I think it is time to be frank about some things. Jonah Goldberg knows absolutely nothing about Iraq. I wonder if he has even ever read a single book on Iraq, much less written one. He knows no Arabic. He has never lived in an Arab country. He can’t read Iraqi newspapers or those of Iraq’s neighbors. He knows nothing whatsoever about Shiite Islam, the branch of the religion to which a majority of Iraqis adheres. Why should we pretend that Jonah Goldberg’s opinion on the significance and nature of the elections in Iraq last Sunday matters? It does not.

That’s Juan Cole, professor of Mid-East History at the University of Michigan. He’s a qualified authority on the Middle East. The mass of pundits so frequently called upon to comment on Iraq and Iran, are not:

>In Iraq, the American liberators [many did–just not me and my brethren commentators] didn’t understand what would happen if brutalized Iraqis were left in a state of nature, and didn’t or couldn’t impose a humane order.

That’s David Brooks, not an expert on much.

Begging the Question, Op-Eds and other opinions, Richard Cohen

Happiness

1 Comment

Richard Cohen, one of the Washington Post’s “liberals” pens a column on gay marriage: he’s for it. In arguing for it, however, he makes the following puzzling distinction:

>Gay marriage, like abortion, is a highly emotional issue and, at the moment, commands nowhere near overwhelming support. Depending on how the question is asked, and the polling organization itself, anywhere from 40 to nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose same-sex marriage. If the latter figure is accurate, permitting same-sex marriage by judicial fiat would produce yet another protracted fight over yet another social issue. Roe has been bad enough, thank you.

Then he says,

>Yet the case for same-sex marriage is so much clearer and easier to make than the complexities that produced the tortured reasoning of Roe . It is based primarily on the easily understood and widely accepted words of the Declaration of Independence: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness .” Since none of the counterarguments can prove any damage at all to society, the New York state high court missed a chance to further an education process and, justly, grant to homosexuals and lesbians the benefits of marriage so casually granted to heterosexuals. Way before getting to 316, it’s clear one of the benefits is as American as apple pie: the pursuit of happiness itself.

It’s hard to appreciate Cohen’s distinction between these two cases: abortion and gay marriage raise fundamental constitutional questions (especially when people organize to deny access to them). It’s obvious to many that gay marriage and the right to abortion follow from simple constitutional principles (and so are the proper objects of judicial review–what he calls “judicial fiat”).

But it’s not obvious to some disproportionately vocal and (at times) violent individuals. They think such things do not follow easily from the foundational principles of the constitution. While they are likely wrong, Cohen ought to show them how they are wrong. Merely claiming that gay marriage, but not (puzzlingly) reproductive rights, follow from the “pursuit of happiness” begs the question in the most textbook fashion: he asserts without argument what he needs to demonstrate.

False Cause, False Dichotomy, George Will, Straw Man

My way or the highway

After a brief excursus on the wonders of–get this–taxpayer funded interstate highways (what he would in other circumstances call “welfare”) George Will concludes:

>American scolds blame the IHS and the automobile for everything from obesity (fried food at every interchange) to desperate housewives (isolated in distant suburbs without sidewalks).

I’m beginning to think he just can’t help himself: every view of his must be presented against a completely ridiculous alternative. In what could have been an innocuous piece about the virtues of highways, turns out to be whiny piece about people who would suggest they aren’t an unqualified good:

>This senator who did so much to put postwar America on roads suitable to bigger, more powerful cars was Al Gore Sr. His son may consider this marriage of concrete and the internal combustion engine sinful, but Tennessee’s per capita income, which was just 70 percent of the national average in 1956, today is 90 percent.

So, Al Gore, who has foolishly and sanctimoniously suggested we might rethink our dependence on fossil fuels (an inexhaustible resource), simultaneously betrays his father, his home state, his country and reason. The only way to account for Tennessee’s prosperity–and the only way it could have happened, and thus the only way it can be maintained–is with bigger and more fuel-guzzling cars.

Even crazed environmentalists appreciate the freedom of the open road (well maintained with tax dollars), perhaps they just don’t think it should be the only way to get around.

Charles Krauthammer, Formal Fallacies

War is no place for logic

I find this claim very strange, even for Krauthammer:

>But no matter. Logic has little place here. The court has decreed: There is no war — or we will pretend so — and henceforth it shall be conducted by the court. God save the United States. (This honorable court can fend for itself.) [emphasis added]

Here is the reason I find it strange:

>They declared illegal President Bush’s military tribunals for the likes of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver and bodyguard. First, because they were not established in accordance with congressional authority. And, second, because they violated the Geneva Conventions.

Is it a war or not?

Here’s the answer–yes and no. Yes when Krauthammer wants it to be, no when he doesn’t. But you can’t have it both ways. In this case, it’s a contradiction.

If it’s a war, then the Geneva conventions apply. If it’s a war, then people we capture are “prisoners of war” and should be treated accordingly (if unlike the crazy John Yoo we want to abide by the Geneva Conventions). Also if it’s a war, then Congress declares it.

If it’s not a war, then the people we capture are prisoners of another kind.

These are not the same thing.

Slippery Slope

Embryonic

1 Comment

As one anonymous commentator noted, one of the problems with slippery slope arguments is that they fail to argue against the thing they claim to argue against. They seem to argue against more extreme things. To illustrate this point, two bioethicist types argue in the Washington Post:

>We have seen where this amoral logic leads us — to shameful abuses of research subjects, which surely no one wants to repeat. But we have also seen, in the stem cell debate, how moral lines erode quickly — from using only “spare” embryos left over in fertility clinics to creating human embryos solely for research to creating (or trying to create) cloned embryos solely for research. What will be next? Probably proposals for “fetal farming” — the gestation of human embryos to later developmental stages, when potentially more useful stabilized stem cells can be obtained and organ primordia can be “harvested.”

They forgot to mention soylent green. The problem, of course, is that it isn’t logic that leads us there. It’s the hyperbolized rhetoric of policy advocates, such as the authors of this piece. So, by way of illustrating the observation of the commentator, what is wrong with stem cell research as it is now (or as it is proposed by various bills)? When you answer, don’t tell us about embryo farming. But if you do tell us about that, tell us what is wrong with it. For the real slippery slope, such as this one, argues neither against the top nor the bottom of the slope.