Category: General

One debates the other side in a rational manner until pushed into a corner. Then one simply drops the argument and slips away, pretending that one has not fallen short of reason but instead transcended it. The irreconcilability of one’s belief with reason is then held up as a great mystery, the humble readiness to live with which puts one above lesser minds and their cheap certainties.

— B. R. Myers

I came across the above quote while reading Jonathon Safran Foer’s book “Eating Animals”. It is from a review of Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. It refers to a common criticism of Pollan, who after having gathered many facts that point toward adopting a vegan diet simply drops reason and pretends that the argument he just inadvertently made does not exist. If you don’t accept that then you are just missing something between the lines.

I first encountered this type of rhetorical dodge when I was in college. I had a job with many politically enthusiastic co-workers. Having been a philosophy major at the time I asked people a lot of questions about their beliefs. Usually such an activity makes a person well liked. Being interested in what someone thinks has the effect of mild flattery in most situations. What I didn’t realize at the time was that asking too many follow up questions has the reverse effect. That is, asking people how their points are supported by the facts and asking them why alternative explanations wouldn’t fit their views. That doesn’t have the effect of flattering people, for most people it is received a challenge. I’m not on a high horse. I roll that way too.

What I found interesting was at some point in asking people why they thought what they though they would crinkle up their faces and tell that I just didn’t get it. They were privy to some kind of understanding that could not be verbalized.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized that they lost the “argument”. Only that their emotional attachment to their views would not let them see it or admit it. I also think many intelligent people can’t distinguish between “feeling” right and “being” right in some situations.

It is a rare person who can say on the spot that they have been introduced to new information or arguments that they don’t have an answer for and that they are simply not ready to move in another direction yet. Myself included.

Last week George Washington University complied with a request by Muslim students to schedule a female only swim hour at the campus pool. This would allow female Muslims to swim without violating tenants of their religion. In the comment section of a blog where this was discussed a woman wrote that initially she thought that this was a nice idea. It would be nice to take a swim without men checking her out. Then she changed her mind stating that it wasn’t worth encouraging sexual segregation. That would be a step backwards for women overall.

Another poster replied to her stating that calling it a step backwards was “offensive to Muslims”.

I asked that poster if that thought was supposed to shut down the debate. That “we shouldn’t go there”, that we shouldn’t discuss a relevant factor in the issue because it would hurt people’s feelings who hold an idea.

I didn’t get an answer, but later in the day I started reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins where I found these interesting quotes:

“The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification. The rest of us are expected to defend our prejudices. But ask a religious person to justify their faith and you infringe ‘religious liberty'”.

snip ….

A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts – the non-religious included – is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offense and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect that any human being should pay to any other.

Douglas Adams put it so well, in an impromptu speech made in Cambridge shortly before his death, that I never tire of sharing his words:

Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? – because you’re not!’ If somebody votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say, ‘I respect that’. Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows – but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe . . . no, that’s holy? . . . We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you’re not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn’t be.

I’m not an English teacher. I don’t play one on TV. My writing skills are about average. However, I would bet that the habit of writing the phrase “more about that later” would be considered to be lousy writing. Especially, if the writer does not actually get back to “that” later.

That is one way this habit is irritating. It is also disorganized. It is the “goto statement” of human languages, well, at least for English. It is easier for people to remember what someone writes or speaks if they don’t jump around on topics. My opinion….

Have a good weekend!