{"id":5365,"date":"2017-10-09T18:14:32","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T23:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5365"},"modified":"2017-10-09T18:14:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T23:14:32","slug":"an-argument-with-an-expiration-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5365","title":{"rendered":"An argument with an expiration date"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The talk-show host Sean Hannity had a segment the other day about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153exploitative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d nature of rushing in after mass shooting events to score \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political\u00e2\u20ac\u009d points. You can watch a video of him here: <!-- TAG START { player: \"Embed Player\", owner: \"Embed Company\", for: \"Embed\" } --><\/p>\n<div class=\"vdb_player vdb_5688f66de4b040e17d9912265688f5c1e4b0f2c97f395156\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/delivery.vidible.tv\/jsonp\/pid=5688f66de4b040e17d991226\/vid=59d3e72fdbbc2537b7cfbff0\/5688f5c1e4b0f2c97f395156.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p><!-- TAG END { date: 10\/09\/17 } --><\/p>\n<p>And<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediamatters.org\/video\/2017\/10\/08\/NRAs-top-lobbyist-Chris-W-Cox-Discussing-policy-in-wake-of-gun-violence-goes-against-commo\/218174\"> here&#8217;s a link to an NRA lobbyist<\/a> saying the same kind of thing.\u00c2\u00a0Though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m skeptical of the sincerity of these sorts of arguments, (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/trevor-noah-sean-hannity-las-vegas_us_59d474cae4b06226e3f487a8)\">here<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for a sort of rebuttal), if not for the sole fact that running a spot on how others have violated norms in a time when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not supposed to be scoring points seems like an attempt to score points, I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worthwhile to take a closer look at what might be a reasonable version of taking things on too soon.<\/p>\n<p>The first question is this: what does it mean to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153politicize\u00e2\u20ac\u009d something or to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153score political points\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? My guess is that the events are going to be used as a premise in a policy argument. Something like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153the events of the other day have policy implications a, b, and c.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Simple enough, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more to this. Much hinges on what we mean by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political points\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153politicize.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My guess is that what makes these particular issues \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is that those policy implications are (1) already well-known, (2) the subject of intense dispute, and (3) unresolved or in a kind of argumentative stalemate. By \u00e2\u20ac\u0153argumentative stalemate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I mean that the positions of each side are well known and well defined, not that the sides have exhausted the possibility for resolution. The dispute is still live. Oddly, the only example I can think of is gun violence. Maybe readers can suggest different cases.<\/p>\n<p>Now consider by way of counterexample that the injunction does not apply to one-off events where most people have not occupied ideological positions. Should there be, for instance, some kind of random event tomorrow with casualties, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to guess that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll immediately discuss the policy implications. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do so before anyone is buried or all the wounded are accounted for. The injunction against politics is not universal. It only applies to certain debates.<\/p>\n<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a second thing to notice about such debates: the side that invokes the injunction will typically be the side that has the most to lose by the added evidence. This was covered (satirically) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thewhiskeyjournal.com\/now-not-time-for-gun-control-debate-because-i-would-lose\/\">here<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Or, if not invoked by them, it will be invoked by others on their behalf.<\/p>\n<p>Their concern might not be an entirely unreasonable one, but it underscores the somewhat limited scope of the injunction. They might fear rhetorical disadvantage by the tendency of people to run with latest piece of evidence adduced in deciding a question (by, in other words, availability bias). The politicization of the debate, or the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cheap points scoring\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is therefore winning rhetorical advantage without working for it or by taking advantage of the temporary set-back of the other side.<\/p>\n<p>This brings us to the key feature of such arguments: the invocation against talking \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too soon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a temporal restriction rather than a content one. The presumption is that we can talk about it later, just not now. This can take a couple of forms. One argument is that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the bodies are not in the ground, and the people have not had time to mourn\u00e2\u20ac\u009d among other claims. This is a sensitivity claim. Arguing about the policy implications are alleged to be (1) insensitive to the people affected and (2) bad form for the participants, as their thoughts should be directed elsewhere. These don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to be entirely unreasonable.<\/p>\n<p>A second, and I think more problematic, version of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too soon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d injunction concerns the management of evidence \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too soon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This is an epistemological concern: we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had time to learn the relevant facts or mull over the meaning of the evidence. Besides, as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already noted, remarkable new evidence might bias us. Our haste will undermine the quality of our discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Neither of these concerns is essentially unreasonable. We do care, after all, about the quality of our evidence and there is something to be said about hitting the pause button on civic disputes to focus on the needs of the large numbers of people affected. But, I might add here in closing as this has gone on longer than I meant, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something of a conflict between the state of the argument (stalemate) and the regularity of the need to hit the pause button. I think, furthermore, this takes concerns about making hasty decisions or corrupting our evidence off the table. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen all of this before. And our requiring frequent pauses to bury the dead seems to underscore the need to bring this thing to a resolution. If anything, this suggests that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too soon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d argument has an expiration date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The talk-show host Sean Hannity had a segment the other day about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153exploitative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d nature of rushing in after mass shooting events to score \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political\u00e2\u20ac\u009d points. You can watch a video of him here: And here&#8217;s a link to an NRA lobbyist saying the same kind of thing.\u00c2\u00a0Though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m skeptical of the sincerity of these &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5365\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An argument with an expiration date<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1657,2235,1562,265,2236],"class_list":["post-5365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-argumentation","tag-las-vegas-shooting","tag-nra","tag-sean-hannity","tag-too-soon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5366,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365\/revisions\/5366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}