The Politics of Politics
Though we weren’t taught killer debate techniques, I had enough peasant cunning to throw “Brett” off. When our face off came, I threw all sorts of rhetorical tricks at “Brett” to make him concede that his positions were erroneous. I managed to be on offense even when I was technically on defense. My cross-examination peppered “Brett” from all sides. I’m sure my mid-tier dazzle was sufficiently dazzling.
It turns out being an offensive lineman is good preparation for LD debate. “Brett” did not counter-punch much and his counter-punches were ineffective but, in the end, it didn’t matter: Brett stolidly held his ground against my rush and conceded no points. I conceded no points because I was on offense the entire time. So it was a draw. We both got an A.
The argumentative hypothesis of human reason advanced by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber suggests that, as it goes in LD, it also goes in life: the purpose of human reason is not truth but victory. It not an disinterested search for ultimate enlightenment. It is an intensely self-interested search for wins.
And, as in LD, to win victory, you don’t yield on points. We reason to generate arguments. Weaponizing arguments is the highest calling reason. If reason produces arguments that win through an accurate approximation of the world as it really is, truth and victory align. If victory requires arguments that are more truthful than factual, truth and victory may never align.
Politics is the division of power. It divides through reinforcing cycles of fragmentation and consolidation. Fragmentation creates political opportunity by opening cracks in the division of power that can be selectively widened until they break off and you can grab your share of the fallout. Consolidation forecloses political opportunity by sealing cracks in your division of power so others can’t take power away from you.
A human trait is universally condemned by contemporary opinion is “confirmation bias“. Confirmation bias is commonly portrayed as a “bug” in our mental software since our first instinct is to search for evidence that reinforces our existing worldview rather than evidence that disproves it.
I disagree. If the argumentative hypothesis is valid, confirmation bias is no more a bug than “Brett” holding his position in the offensive line against a pass rusher is a “bug” or “Brett” holding his position against my cross-examining aggression is a “bug”.
In divying up power, any crack in your own power is a bug: they are an open opportunity for others to increase their power at your expense. Since argument is just one more means of dividing power, its consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds to some but its inconsistency is a danger to minds of any size and the power they think they command.
Violent argument may seem the polar opposite of verbal argument but the underlying logic of seeking to fragment the power of others while consolidating your own is the same for both verbal and violent argument. The writings of the 19C French military theorist Ardant du Picq convincingly demonstrated that more battle casualties happen after one side breaks and runs then when both sides are holding their position. When one side breaks and runs, the other side can run them down and easily kill them from behind. If both sides stand and fight, casualties are lower: they face each other’s protected, up-armored front. (Poor du Picq later died from wounds suffered during a French battlefield defeat that ended in retreat during the Franco-Prussian War c of 1870-1871).
The victor in battle was the side that stayed consolidated while making the other side fragment. Sometimes the winning side uses a ruse to cause fragmentation: one favored tactic of cavalry generals from William the Bastard to Genghis Khan was feigning retreat before suddenly turning and attacking now that, in their instinctive rush to run down a fleeing enemy, their enemy was suddenly out of position.
Page 2 of 5 | Previous page | Next page