Category Archives: Other problems

Problems other than specific logical fallacies–poor explanations, things that are false, and so forth.

Bad Explanations, Contradictions, General discussion, Michael Gerson

Irresistible

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In the blind squirrels and nuts category, here's Michael Gerson today:

In the past few weeks, Barack Obama has learned the political perils of condescension.

His Philadelphia speech on race was filled with it. People who don't share Obama's views were not refuted, they were explained.

Lower-income whites, he argued, "feel their dreams slipping away," and so they turn to resentment against busing and affirmative action, "anger over welfare" and "fears of crime." And Obama not only understands these angry and manipulated souls, he defends them. They should not, after all, be labeled as "misguided" or "racist."

This is the same argument, expressed more bluntly at a San Francisco fundraiser, that Obama made about bitter, small-town Americans who cling to guns and religion. He does not even admit the possibility that these folks might have actual convictions on issues such as affirmative action, welfare, crime, gun ownership or the meaning of the universe. The only thing more insulting than being attacked is being explained.

He's right about this (and we've complained about this a bunch).  And he would have been even more right had he said that his page at the Post is fully of explanations rather than arguments (rather than take a few words out of context from Obama).  But then Gerson inexplicably (hee hee) writes:

But black liberation theology takes this argument a large step further — or perhaps backward. The Rev. Wright's intellectual mentor, professor James Cone of Union Theological Seminary, retreats from the universality of Christianity. "Black theology," says Cone, "refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him." And again: "Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy." And again: "In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors."

This emphasis on the structural evil of white America has natural political consequences — encouraging a belief that American politics is defined by its crimes, a tendency to accept anti-government conspiracy theories about AIDS and drugs, a disturbing openness to anti-American dictators such as Castro and Gaddafi. It explains Wright's description of the Sept. 11 attacks as a "wake-up call" to "white America."

What would explain Gerson's condescending explanation of Reverend Wright?  Maybe the impulse to condescension is irresistible. 

David Brooks, specious comparisons, Things that are false

Let’s go medieval

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David Brooks seeks escape from the campaign in the wonder of the Middle Ages.  He writes:

Over the past 15 months, I’ve been writing pretty regularly about the presidential campaign, which has meant thinking a lot about attack ads, tracking polls and which campaign is renouncing which over-the-line comment from a surrogate that particular day.

But on my desk for much of this period I have kept a short essay, which I stare at longingly from time to time. It’s an essay about how people in the Middle Ages viewed the night sky, and it’s about a mentality so totally removed from the campaign mentality that it’s like a refreshing dip in a cool and cleansing pool.

The essay, which appeared in Books & Culture, is called “C. S. Lewis and the Star of Bethlehem,” by Michael Ward, a chaplain at Peterhouse College at Cambridge. It points out that while we moderns see space as a black, cold, mostly empty vastness, with planets and stars propelled by gravitational and other forces, Europeans in the Middle Ages saw a more intimate and magical place. The heavens, to them, were a ceiling of moving spheres, rippling with signs and symbols, and moved by the love of God. The medieval universe, Lewis wrote, “was tingling with anthropomorphic life, dancing, ceremonial, a festival not a machine.”

If the connection between the Middle Ages and the present campaign Brooks has done such a rotten job of thinking about appears tenuous, you're not alone.  But what is even more baffling is his comparison of the view of relatively well educated "Moderns" with uneducated medieval people.

As many historians have written, Europeans in the Middle Ages lived with an almost childlike emotional intensity. There were stark contrasts between daytime and darkness, between summer heat and winter cold, between misery and exuberance, and good and evil. Certain distinctions were less recognized, namely between the sacred and the profane.Material things were consecrated with spiritual powers. God was thought to live in the stones of the cathedrals, and miracles inhered in the bones of the saints.

The world seemed spiritually alive, and the power of spirit could overshadow politics. As Johan Huizinga wrote in “The Autumn of the Middle Ages,” “The most revealing map of Europe in these centuries would be a map, not of political or commercial capitals, but of the constellation of sanctuaries, the points of material contact with the unseen world.”

For educated Europeans in the Middle Ages, such views were as silly as young earth creationism (a view which many educated people believe today). 

If you want a world filled with magic and ignorance, in other words, read Bob Herbert's column (in the same paper) about the state of the American educational system–or just continue reading David Brooks's columns.

specious comparisons, William Kristol

Movement of the People

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Here are more things that don't really go together:

I might add that both Democratic campaigns missed an opportunity last week. They seem not to have noticed that the date of the first Seder, April 19, was also the 233rd anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord. So, a few days before Pennsylvanians vote, the candidates could have commemorated not just the Exodus from Egypt but also “the shot heard round the world,” thus identifying themselves all at once with political liberation, religious freedom and — yes! — the right to bear arms.

The story of Exodus involves, at the very least, a movement of a large mass of people from one place to another, better one.  The story might fit the Pilgrims, what with their desire to live religiously pure lives in someone else's country, but that didn't have a whole lot to do with religious freedom–or at least the freedom of religions other than their own.

David Brooks, General discussion, specious comparisons

Shared values

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I wonder what the value question is here:

Then there are the cultural issues. Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News are taking a lot of heat for spending so much time asking about Jeremiah Wright and the “bitter” comments. But the fact is that voters want a president who basically shares their values and life experiences. Fairly or not, they look at symbols like Michael Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry’s windsurfing or John Edwards’s haircut as clues about shared values.

When Obama began this ride, he seemed like a transcendent figure who could understand a wide variety of life experiences. But over the past months, things have happened that make him seem more like my old neighbors in Hyde Park in Chicago.

Some of us love Hyde Park for its diversity and quirkiness, as there are those who love Cambridge and Berkeley. But it is among the more academic and liberal places around. When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them. Obama has to address those doubts, and he has done so poorly up to now.

What else can one say?  One of these things is not like the other. 

Michael Medved, Religion, Things that are false, Weak Analogy

State religion

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It's Sunday, but instead of complaining about George Will's complaining–we'll do that tomorrow maybe–let's just read Michael Medved and marvel:

Actually, there’s little chance that atheists will succeed in placing one of their own in the White House at any time in the foreseeable future, and it continues to make powerful sense for voters to shun potential presidents who deny the existence of God. An atheist may be a good person, a good politician, a good family man (or woman), and even a good patriot, but a publicly proclaimed non-believer as president would, for three reasons, be bad for the country.

Hollowness and Hypocrisy at State Occasions. As Constitutional scholars all point out, the Presidency uniquely combines the two functions of head of government (like the British Prime Minister) and head of state (like the Queen of England). POTUS not only appoints cabinet members and shapes foreign policy and delivers addresses to Congress, but also presides over solemn and ceremonial occasions. Just as the Queen plays a formal role as head of the Church of England, the President functions as head of the “Church of America” – that informal, tolerant but profoundly important civic religion that dominates all our national holidays and historic milestones. For instance, try to imagine an atheist president issuing the annual Thanksgiving proclamation. To whom would he extend thanks in the name of his grateful nation –-the Indians in Massachusetts?

Well, he probably ought to thank the Indians in Massachusetts, but that's another matter.  The more basic point is this: last time I checked, there is no "Church of America," so that analogy does even rise to the level of weakness.  Solemn occasions are somewhat like church–you can't get up and go to the bathroom, you sit or stand watching a podium where someone talks–but that's about it.  Besides, if those things make something "church," if only analogously, then as one who talks somewhat ceremoniously to a group of people who may or may not have to go to the bathroom, I'm a priest. 

Inexplicable, Op-Eds and other opinions

Is it wrong?

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This story reminds me of a conversation I had with my great uncle at Bob Evans in 1990.  First the story:

MATTHEWS: He’s [Sen. Barack Obama] not that good at that — handshaking in a diner.

SHUSTER: No —

MATTHEWS: Barack doesn’t seem to know how to do that right.

SHUSTER: — he doesn’t do that well. But then you see him in front
of 15,000 people in some of these college towns, and that’s why, Chris,
we’ve seen Chelsea Clinton and Bill Clinton in Bloomington and South
Bend and Terre Haute. I mean —

MATTHEWS: What’s so hard about doing a diner? I don’t get it. Why
doesn’t he go in there and say, "Did you see the papers today? What do
you think about that team? How did we do last night?" Just some regular
connection?

SHUSTER: Well, here’s the other thing that we saw on the tape,
Chris, is that, when Obama went in, he was offered coffee, and he said,
"I’ll have orange juice."

MATTHEWS: No.

SHUSTER: He did.

And it’s just one of those sort of weird things. You know, when the
owner of the diner says, "Here, have some coffee," you say, "Yes, thank
you," and, "Oh, can I also please have some orange juice, in addition
to this?" You don’t just say, "No, I’ll take orange juice," and then
turn away and start shaking hands. That’s what happens [unintelligible]
—

MATTHEWS: You don’t ask for a substitute on the menu.

SHUSTER: Exactly.

Bob Evans is or was (do they still exist?) a kind of diner/family dining place with a country sausage inspiration.  My great uncle, then his late 80’s, took me out to breakfast there one morning around Christmas.  He ordered one egg sunny-side up and one pancake.  There must have been sausage with that order, but I don’t remember.  He then proceeded to put the egg on top of the pancake and cover the whole thing with syrup.

I had never seen such a thing.  When I asked him what he was doing, he fixed his eyes on me and said: "is it wrong?

Inexplicable, Michael Gerson

You’re living in the past

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I’m impressed by Michael Gerson’s attempt to turn someone’s having been right about something into a liability.  He concedes the point that Obama has been right about Iraq in the past–it seems, according to Gerson (himself one of the chief rhetorical motivators for invading Iraq), that invading Iraq was a colossally bad idea.  (Good for him, good Christian that he is.  But there ought to be some penance involved in that admission–especially on account of the key role he played in making it a reality.  Maybe he ought not to seek the credulity of the reading public.  But I digress.)

Back to the argument.  Since Obama cites having been right about Iraq as a credential when he now argues about Iraq, he’s "living in the past."

The situation in Iraq, as Gen. Petraeus insists, is "fragile and
reversible." But the debate has moved far beyond a candidate’s initial
support for the war. This has led to an odd inversion of the
generational battle. Young Obama’s strongest arguments are focused "on
the failures of the past." The older man, by insisting on victory, is
more responsible and realistic about the future.

This has the air of a sophism about it.  Judgments about the future rely on the past in two ways.  (a) One who has a record of being right in the past will justifiably point that out as a credential; (b) what is going to happen can only be determined on the grounds of what has happened.  So naturally in order to decide resolve what to do in Iraq, one will have to focus on the failure of the past–failures, Obama would point out, John McCain’s keen political judgment is responsible for. 

So the question, "who is more responsible and realistic about the future" depends, of course, on the past.  For, "who has been more responsible and realistic [on this specific problem, by the way] in the past?" seems to be a rather reasonable way to resolve who will be more responsible in the future.

But what do I know.  I was right about Invading Iraq.

Plain Bad Arguments, Richard Cohen

In your head

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One cause of sloppy reasoning is fixing the argument around the position rather than the position around the argument.  When you’re settled about what position you must hold, then your options close in around you.  To that end, there is an interesting article on the Monty Hall problem in the New York Times (by John Tierney of all people).  Another cause of sloppy reasoning is simple incoherence.  Richard Cohen, liberal pundit for the Washington Post, is sometimes guilty of this.  Today, for instance, he returns again to the issue of race and Obama.  Here is how he closes his argument:

From time to time, Obama is likened to John F. Kennedy
— both charismatic and inexperienced politicians when they launched
their presidential campaigns. But Obama could be like Kennedy in
another way as well. Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, and no Roman
Catholic had ever been elected president. In the 1960 Wisconsin
primary, he ran into a version of Cohen’s Law. He won the state but did
poorly in Protestant areas. A month later, he won in overwhelmingly (95
percent) Protestant West Virginia and did so because he bought a half-hour of TV time and confronted the religion issue head on. It was a landslide.

Maybe Obama’s Philadelphia speech on race served the same purpose. The results from the upcoming primaries, particularly Pennsylvania,
will tell. My guess is that he still has not put the race issue to rest
— maybe because he failed to do what Kennedy did in West Virginia. In
that speech, Kennedy told Protestant West Virginians that when
presidents took the oath of office, they were swearing to the
separation of church and state. A president who breaks that oath is not
only committing an impeachable offense, he said, "but he is committing
a sin against God." In other words, he told West Virginians that their
major fear was baseless.

Obama in his Philadelphia speech said nothing as dramatic. On the
contrary, when it came to the perceived threat posed by young black men
(one out of every nine is in criminal custody), Obama built a fence
around the issue by citing his grandmother’s "fear of black men who
passed her by on the street" — suggesting it was comparable to what
his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had said. He did not confront white fears. Instead, he implied that they were illegitimate.

This is not 1988, and much has changed. For one thing, the GOP
nominee is going to be an aging foreign policy hawk with no coattails
to run on. But if the upcoming Pennsylvania primary simply echoes
earlier racial divisions, Obama has to give yet another speech — this
one directed not at the pundits he so enthralls but at the very people
who have so far rejected him on account of race. Will it matter? John
Kennedy proved a long time ago that it might.

In the first place, who are the pundits Obama enthralls?  And why do pundits like Cohen use the word "pundits" as a term of abuse?  He must not consider himself a pundit.  Or maybe he thinks you’re not a pundit if you use the word pundit to describe pundits.  Besides this, he clearly doesn’t read the pundits, for they’re not enthralled with Obama.  They, the pundits that is, often claim that we’re supposed to dislike Obama on account of his popularity among people, not pundits.

Besides this, there is a rather significant disanalogy between race and religion.  Kennedy could cease at any time to be Catholic (and, if the gossip is true, he ceased quite often and with different women), Obama cannot at any moment cease to be black.  No amount of swearing on the Bible will lay to rest fears that he’s going to continue to be black. What is Obama supposed to say?  "I’m not, you know (wink wink), one of those people"?

category mistake, Jonah Goldberg

Ixthus

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Jonah Goldberg is determined to outdo himself in the category of dumb:

I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there’s the smugness. The
undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less
sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.

The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to
bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing that "hate is not a
family value." But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance;
similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as
bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims.

He’s right about the undeniable message.  But I don’t think it’s saying what he thinks it is.  For evolutionists, the fish represents the connection between life in the sea and mammalian life.  According to their story, God ordered the fish to rise up from the sea and walk on earth, so that, eventually, the fish would become man (without the God part).  This is an alternative to the literal creationism of some Christians which has a couple of different stories each involving a sea.  I would even venture to guess that many Darwin fish cars are owned by Christians–many of whom are dedicated evolutionists. 

The ridiculous thing about Goldberg’s remark is the charge of hypocrisy.  The point, obviously, of the Darwin fish is to insist on scientific evidence over the unsupported factual assertions of a religious text.  The evolutionists, in other words, challenge fact with fact–the literal creation story (which for some reason very many Christians believe isn’t true at all).  Many Christians do believe this story, however.  They believe it with such a vengeance they think it ought to be taught as fact in science classes in place of or at least alongside of the evolution "story."  In some places, they have even succeeded in undermining the teaching of evolution on the grounds that it’s just a "theory."  That view, of course, is absolutely preposterous–and ignorant and intolerant of basic scientific knowledge. 

Here’s the really dumb thing. To believe in the literal truth of Genesis in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence is not the same as being black, female or Muslim–unless being those things involves embracing obviously false assertions about reality.  To believe in the literal truth of Genesis (and the sometimes consequent belief in the immorality and falsity of evolution) is not even the same thing as being Christian.