If there is a logic to the arguments of politicians, I don’t know what it is.\u00c2\u00a0 A vote for a politician involves a complex web of commitments whose primary objective is action, not belief.\u00c2\u00a0 So when politicians\u00c2\u00a0violate the rules of argumentative propriety, it’s hard to complain too much.\u00c2\u00a0 You know their ads are going to go ad hominem, too often egregriously so, when they’re not distorting the record, or otherwise strawmanning, hollow manning, or weak manning their opponents.<\/p>\n
Columnists in the newspaper, on the other hand, play\u00c2\u00a0a different kind of game.\u00c2\u00a0 Well some of them do.\u00c2\u00a0 They advance reasons for believing proposition x or proposition y.\u00c2\u00a0 We can, I think, hold them to a higher standard.<\/p>\n
So for instance, today George\u00c2\u00a0Will\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0argues that Democrats are desperate in the face of the march of obviously moderate, reasonable, non masterbating<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0Tea Party candidates.\u00c2\u00a0 His argument is bad.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s how it goes:<\/p>\n P1.\u00c2\u00a0 The\u00c2\u00a0Democrats have accomplished nothing that people like;<\/p>\n P2.\u00c2\u00a0 They have\u00c2\u00a0plans for more stuff people don’t like;<\/p>\n C.\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore they now wrongly\u00c2\u00a0characterize grass roots, very reasonable, centrist small-government\u00c2\u00a0people as “extremists.”<\/p>\n Just for the record, I think\u00c2\u00a0P1\u00c2\u00a0is very\u00c2\u00a0questionable, and a partisan operator such as\u00c2\u00a0Will ought\u00c2\u00a0to offer better evidence (he\u00c2\u00a0doesn’t\u00c2\u00a0offer any).\u00c2\u00a0 P2\u00c2\u00a0is weak for the same reason.\u00c2\u00a0 Now if those premises were true, which they aren’t, maybe that conclusion would follow.\u00c2\u00a0 But the conclusion is false anyway–because the candidates in question stand far from the center of American politics.\u00c2\u00a0 That is not to say they’re wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just to say they are not unfairly criticized as on an extreme.\u00c2\u00a0 Time to take that word back extremists.\u00c2\u00a0 Embrace it.<\/p>\n Now Will moves to a more serious objective: a logical critique of Democrats in general:<\/p>\n Democrats, unable to run on their policies, will try to demonize the opponents with Tea Party support as unstable extremists with personality disorders. They have ridden this hobby horse before<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As I argued above, this is a vacuous critique.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s hilarious, because it’s an attempt at logic criticism–and Will sucks at this.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s how is argument goes for that conclusion:<\/p>\n In response to a questionnaire from a magazine, 1,189 psychiatrists<\/strong>, none of whom had ever met Goldwater, declared him unfit for office — “emotionally unstable,” “immature,” “cowardly,” “grossly psychotic,” “paranoid,” “chronic schizophrenic” and “dangerous lunatic” were some judgments from the psychiatrists who believed that extremism in pursuit of Goldwater was no vice. Shortly before the election, Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter <\/strong>published in Harper’s an essay (later expanded into a book with the same title), “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” that encouraged the idea that Goldwater’s kind of conservatism was a mental disorder.<\/p>\n On the eve of the convention that nominated Goldwater, Daniel Schorr of CBS<\/strong>, “reporting” from Germany, said: “It looks as though<\/strong> Sen. Goldwater, if nominated, will be starting his campaign here in Bavaria, center of Germany’s right wing” and “Hitler’s one-time stomping ground.”<\/p>\n Goldwater, said Schorr, would be vacationing near Hitler’s villa at Berchtesgaden. Schorr further noted that Goldwater had given an interview to Der Spiegel “appealing to right-wing elements in Germany” and had agreed to speak to a gathering of “right-wing Germans.” So, “there are signs that the American and German right wings are joining up.”<\/p>\n But as Andrew Ferguson of the Weekly Standard has reported, although Goldwater had spoken vaguely about a European vacation (he did not take one), he had not mentioned Germany, and there were no plans to address any German group. Der Spiegel had reprinted an interview that had appeared elsewhere.<\/p>\n The relevance of this for 2010? There is precedent for the mainstream media<\/strong> being megaphones for Democratic-manufactured hysteria.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nonsense.\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s reconstruct this.<\/p>\n P1.\u00c2\u00a0A bunch of psychiatrists\u00c2\u00a0thought Barry Goldwater was crazy in 1964.<\/p>\n P2. Richard Hofttadter wrote the “Paranoid Style in American Politics”<\/p>\n P3.\u00c2\u00a0 A reporter for CBS (recently deceased) is alleged to have slandered Goldwater.<\/p>\n C.\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore, the Democrats<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0“have\u00c2\u00a0ridden this hobby horse before.”<\/p>\n Gee, he doesn’t even really try here.\u00c2\u00a0 It just doesn’t follow that the “Democrats” have done any of this–various unrelated people have.\u00c2\u00a0 But anyway, Charles Krauthammer, a non anonymous psychiatrist who shares the Post’s op-ed page with George Will, said the following of candidate Al Gore<\/a>:<\/p>\n KRAUTHAMMER: Crying for help, you know. (LAUGHTER) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a psychiatrist<\/strong>. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He does that all of the time and he sits in the cubicle next to Will at the Post.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s not a Democrat.<\/p>\n If there is a logic to the arguments of politicians, I don’t know what it is.\u00c2\u00a0 A vote for a politician involves a complex web of commitments whose primary objective is action, not belief.\u00c2\u00a0 So when politicians\u00c2\u00a0violate the rules of argumentative propriety, it’s hard to complain too much.\u00c2\u00a0 You know their ads are going to … Continue reading I don’t usually practice psychiatry in my blog<\/span> \n