I’ve been toying for a while with the thought that there’s a rhetorical device that works in the following pattern: you point to an uncontroversially positive concept and emphasize its importance, and in the process import your own controversial conception of that concept over the course of talking about its importance.<\/p>\n
For example, we all think fairness is good and important, so it’s uncontroversially positive.\u00c2\u00a0 But we may have different conceptions of that concept. I may think that impartiality is sufficient for fairness, so favor blind lotteries to determine what people get. Others may think that need may determine what’s fair. You may think that equality of outcome is what’s fair.\u00c2\u00a0 You get the point.\u00c2\u00a0 So even if we all agree that fairness is good, we all have different conceptions of fairness.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’d be an error on my part to import my conception without acknowledging that we need to move from concept to conception.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why semantics matters – anytime someone says “it’s just semantics,” they’re intellectually lazy and probably trying to prevent their own conceptions from being challenged. It’s effectively an attitude that equivocation isn’t troubling.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s stupid.<\/p>\n
Now, we all agree that civic virtue<\/strong> is important.\u00c2\u00a0 And we all agree that we should encourage it.\u00c2\u00a0 But, not surprisingly, civic virtue is a contested concept.\u00c2\u00a0 Some think that individualism and independence are civic virtues – not being a burden on others and ensuring that others are not burdensome. Some think that civic virtue is about making oneself intelligible to others and ensuring that the cultural system of significance is maintained.\u00c2\u00a0 Some think that being informed and politically engaged are the central civic virtues. Some think that ensuring that others have sufficient means to survive and thrive are the core virtues. Some think that acknowledging diversity and reasonable disagreement (especially about contested concepts) is a core civic virtue. See? Contested concept.<\/p>\n Michelle Malkin’s new essay<\/a> over at National Review Online<\/em> commits this fallacy.\u00c2\u00a0 I call it\u00c2\u00a0contested concept equivocation.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>She starts with the universally acknowledged value of civic virtue and that we are in sore need of more of it these days:<\/p>\n We have forsaken the observance, in any systematic and deliberate public manner, of one of our most fundamental duties: fostering civic virtue in each and every one of our citizens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n She invokes the founders noting the importance of virtue to the fledgling republic:<\/p>\n And Thomas Paine said it best: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So far, not controversial.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, but then the contested conception comes in:<\/p>\n Calvin Coolidge, profiled in Why Coolidge Matters<\/em>, a terrific new book by Charles C. Johnson, echoed the Founding Fathers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 emphasis on virtue, restraint, and work ethic. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If people can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t support themselves,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he concluded, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to give up self-government.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Add militant identity politics, a cancerous welfare state, entitled dependence, and tens of millions of unassimilated immigrants to the heap, and you have a toxic recipe for what Damon calls \u00e2\u20ac\u0153societal decadence \u00e2\u20ac\u201d literally, a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfalling away,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 from the Latin decadere<\/em>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Civilizations that disdain virtue die.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Did you see the move?\u00c2\u00a0 The contested conception got introduced with this notion of self-support, independence.\u00c2\u00a0 If that’s what civic virtue is, then of course the welfare state and all the other nanny-style stuff the government does will not only fail to encourage virtue, but positively retard it.\u00c2\u00a0 And so those who promote the liberal welfare state must disdain virtue.\u00c2\u00a0 They are terrible people, rotting civilization from the inside out.<\/p>\n But, you see, the move was from uncontested concept to contested conception.\u00c2\u00a0 And those who promote progressive taxation and the social safety net aren’t disdaining virtue; they are promoting their own conception of it.\u00c2\u00a0 Surely someone who values liberty should be able to acknowledge the value of that.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless, of course, they disdain liberty.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been toying for a while with the thought that there’s a rhetorical device that works in the following pattern: you point to an uncontroversially positive concept and emphasize its importance, and in the process import your own controversial conception of that concept over the course of talking about its importance. For example, we all … Continue reading Contested concept equivocation<\/span>