There is a tendency in politics and religion (as elsewhere) to link a weak argument with a stronger one, hoping that the strong argument will carry the weak one. Here are a few examples I could think of from politics and religion:
- Tea Party Movement. There were some in the Tea Party movement, largely a movement for fiscal conservatives (e.g. people who don’t want tax hikes for social programs), who claimed that the Tea Party also needed to espouse social conservative principles (e.g. people who want everyone to live by their personal flavor of Christian principles, espousing family values. Oh, and guns).
- Earmarked legislation. It’s a common practice to add a weak piece of legislation (e.g. one that’s of specific benefit to an individual senator’s constituents only) to a stronger piece of legislation. The hope is that no one will notice the weak legislation or oppose it because of the strength of the larger leslislation.
- Polemic faith arguments, such as “it’s all true, or it’s all false.” This is a very broad statement, but has the same problems as the first two examples. It’s not all true. It’s not even defined.
Does this approach strengthen or weaken an argument? I believe it pulls the whole argument into question, IOW, it weakens the strong argument rather than strengthening the weak one. It’s a trick of the eye akin to dangling shiny keys in front of a toddler, distracting him from the fact that you just shoved nasty creamed carrots in his mouth. It’s fine if he likes creamed carrots as well as shiny keys, but otherwise, you’re going to have some creamed carrots spit right back in your face.
So, why do people do this?
- True believers. I believe it’s because they personally accept both the weak and strong thing, so they are hoping others will, too. It’s a simplistic way to bypass disagreement, insisting that you already agree.
- Bolster supporters. If you really only have 50 supporters for your cause, but there are 1,000 people who support another cause, you can link the two and say that there are 1,050 who support the other cause including your cause.
- Impulse buys. Like a shopper who sees that pack of gum or tabloid magazine, you’re already primed to do something (shop), so why not quickly throw one more thing into the cart?
What do you think? What other weakly linked arguments have you seen? Why do you think people link a strong argument with a weaker one? Do you ever do this? Does the link to a weak argument cause you to discredit the stronger argument? Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
That is nicely said. And yes, the weak arguments hurt the strong ones.
Universities and collegiate athletics.
anyone who brings up Nazism to support their arguments is following this fallacy you note. John Stewart had a great piece on this, on how prevalent it is from the Fox News crowd.
Generally those that try to back up their weak argument by tying it to some “stronger” argument do it because they know their own argument doesn’t hold much water. I’m pretty sure I’ve done this, as practically everyone has. It won’t necessarily weaken the established stronger argument but generally it should weaken the argument made by those who attempt the link.
However, in the case of comparing one modern group to Nazis, for instance, it seems, ironically, that if the comparison is made frequently enough, the weak argument tends to be tied to the stronger argument, even though everyone knows it is a weak link. It is almost as if, at least in this case, we want the link to match whether it does or not.
Following Paul,
Politicians and honesty
Financial Community and public interest
Personal safety and guns
It even follows the laws of physics to some degree. You use your heavier objects to build the base and the lighter object on top, such as a foundation or a wall.
Jeff Spector and anything approaching intelligence.
Thanks for the insult, buddy.
Intriguging post, HG. I think you’re charitable with the use of the word argument. Often it’s just two ideas set next to one another (as in the Tea Party expansion to “Christian” values and guns, or even ear marks). It’s as if weak idea hides in the shadow of strong idea hoping no one will notice and get to go along for the ride.
As for your third example, sometimes the all-or-nothing approach is not an argument in itself, but rather a factor of the testifier’s simply not knowing enough to know what he doesn’t know, yet. More naive than the other two, in my view.
BTW, children master this same linkage early in their negotiating with parents. (If you trust me, you’ll let me stay out late…blah, blah, blah.)
The linking of arguments forms the basis of the whole missionary program:
Good feeling reading some portion of the Book of Mormon -> The Book of Mormon is true and was translated from the Gold Plates by the power of God -> Joseph Smith was a prophet -> The Church he established is the only true Church -> Thomas Monson is our prophet today -> The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS is the only true church on the earth today -> You should therefore be baptized a Mormon
The strength of the whole process relies on the fact that EVERY step in that process is a strong link.
And as members, we make equally tenuous links of logic: starting with JS was a prophet above -> JS gave the Word of Wisdom -> The WofW suggests avoiding hot drinks -> The WofW BANS hot drinks -> Hot drinks means coffee -> Coffee is banned because it has caffeine -> Caffeine is in Coke -> Coke is banned.
While most LDS folks don’t follow that chain of logic (including David O McKay and President Monson) there are members who follow logic chains like this.
I think we all do it to an extent.
Mike S: “The strength of the whole process relies on the fact that EVERY step in that process is a strong link.”
Yes, you are right. When we really are linking arguments (vs simply hiding one under another), there “chain” is only as strong as the weakest linked argument.
And I think you’re also right: some members (many, even) develop their own fences based on those argument chains.
Good post HG. I too was very sorry to see the Tea Party movement get linked to conservative social values and guns (though I do love my guns!!). Also, I think Dan has a good example with the whole Nazi characterization and FoxNews (great segment from Stewart, btw).
As for members, I agree that it seems to be a form of ignorance more than anything. It’s interesting though because some members I know who follow those chains actually do know a fair amount about real church history, but the logic chains still hold up. I’m still puzzling over that a bit. I think it’s sort of a disconnect between what the history says and the reasoning it ought to imply. Sort of like a math equation. You can digest a complex mathematical expression without really understanding what this means in a physical context.
Oh, and Paul (#5) I think you misread Jeff’s comment. I don’t think he was insulting you. I think he was adding to your list (hence the comma and newline after “Following Paul”).
Read carefully my good man!
PaulM,
“Jeff Spector and anything approaching intelligence. Thanks for the insult, buddy.”
Uh?
Mike S, #7,
Your second logic chain is right on, not so sure about the first one. 🙂
Stephen
When you say weak arguments hurt strong arguments it sounds as if you wish certain people wouldn’t contribute because you don’t think they are intelligent. In my opinion, not only is that rude, but it is also disrespectful as well as condescending to those who are participating in the discussion. Wwho are you or anyone else for that matter to say what is a strong argument,or what is weak argument. I believe everyone has something to contribute.
My experience may not be the same as yours or others but that doesn’t make my contribution worth any less.
Jeff:
Looking back at my comment, I didn’t mean to imply that the first chain is tenuous, although I can see it being read that way.
I still hold that a basic tenet of missionary work, at least from my time in the mission, was to get people to read the BofM -> explain that the feelings they felt were the spirit -> explain that that confirmed that Joseph Smith was a prophet as he brought forth the BofM -> explain that that meant the Church that JS established was the one true Church -> explain that the church is still lead by a prophet today -> suggest that the investigator become baptized.
Perhaps the program is a bit different now, but that is the logic chain we were supposed to use.
Using a hunter in Belarus that accidentally shot himself as an argument for tighter gun control in the U.S. (that one was in response to the gun control post…) also using the a segment from the Daily Show to argue a point. super.. weak.. in any case the Nazi/fascist comparisions got worn absolutely threadbare from 2000-2008 to the point that it’s virtually meaningless.
As somebody who is currently going through a disaffection of sorts, people try to follow this line of logic all the time with me. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: Despite many, many years of dedicated church service, I can’t get an answer to my prayer about the Book of Mormon or anything else for that matter.
Them: Did you ever feel good while at church or while giving service to somebody?
Me: Of course.
Them: Well, that was your answer right there! You just need to recognize it.
They try to link a good feeling about the church, or the idea that the church does some good with the notion that the church is is the one and only true church.
If only it were that simple.
Mike S.:
Your revised logic chain in 14 is actually a bit more precise than your earlier version. Of course, I was taught to use exactly the same logic chain as a young priest to introduce people to the RLDS / Community of Christ. Shows the logic chain breaks down somewhere after “was a prophet as he brought forth the BofM”.
1+1=2 Right! 2+2=4 exactly, see we understand numbers now give us your money and we’ll invest it wisely,
thank you Mr Sachs here’s my money.
Why do we get doped by it?
The religious forms of bad logic chains are tragic. The thing that must be understood is that religion, faith and the experience of the divine are beyond reason, and I mean that in a VERY positive way. If God and faith were a matter of logic (good or bad logic it does not matter) the issues would have been settled long ago.
The problem is the dang-nabit Greek influence in Christianity and our modern culture. It sells people this self serving, uncritical idea that our contemporary standard of rationality is the only standard for rationality that matters and everything should be subjected and subverted to it.
Imagine a naive “at first blush” rationality as the grandest transdential signifier there is. It makes me sick. And not because I am anti-reason or rationality, but because this view of rationality is so a-historical, so pompus and so ignorant all at the same time. We live in the 21 century people! Have we already forgotten the brilliant critiques of rationality that defined the modernism of the 19th and 20th centuries?
This historically blind, uninformed rationality seems to be running amuck here on Wheat&Tares which is one reason I am less and less interested in posting comments here.
As for #16, I don’t know why some people have spiritual experiences and some do not. But maybe trying to get answers to prayers is just the wrong way to go. Maybe the structure of the world is such that all people who receive answers to prayers are merely whispering to themselves in voices they do not recognize. And yet at the same time, there is a divine presence, and that mystery and awe, and ethics, and poetics, and wonder are all there pulling on us, asking to move in a certain direction that can find brilliant expression in a life of faith and devotion to a specific religious practice.
Or on a different track maybe the question isn’t “Why can’t I get an answer to my prayer?” Maybe the question is “What kind of person do I want to be?” Or maybe the answer is that faith is a decision we make not an answer we receive. Levinas said something to the extent that creativity is to answer a call one did not hear. Maybe faith is the same thing.
I imagine that if you go looking for logic, or rational answers to questions of faith you will end up leaving the church. This is not your fault of course because so many people feel that being in the church is a matter of certainity, that it is reasonable, that it is logical. Someone like me might try to tell you that the reason to be in our church, or any other for that matter, is exactly because it is so unreasonable, because one can’t be certain, that there is no logic capable of capturing the meaning of our relationship to the Totally Other. In these things lies the real potential of a life of faith.
Doug:
Your points are well taken. My only reply is the conviction that the Totally Other made me what I am. I even became a physicist because I was commanded in what I believed was a divinely inspired dream to do so at a key decision point in my life. Perhaps that proves God has a sense of humor, but my unreasonableness about reason comes from a long way back.
OK Hawkgrrrl level with us all.
What is your agenda? What weak argument are you planning to pin to this well written and persuasive piece of writing?
One “logic chain” that has always bugged me because the steps make no sense is in 2 Nephi 2:13:
Mike S.
“Perhaps the program is a bit different now, but that is the logic chain we were supposed to use.”
No, I don’t think the logic tree is any different now then before, I just think it goes more like this:
Read the BOM—> The positive feelings are the Holy Spirit—–> the Holy Spirit is telling you the Book is true scripture—-> Joseph is a true Prophet—–>He restored the True Church to the Earth—>The LDS Church is that True Church—->Which contains all the ordnances pertaining to Eternal Life—You need to be Baptized a member of the LDS Church
Just a bit different take on it.
22 Mike — I’m not sure that verse of scripture is intended as a logic chain or simply a discussion of fact as the prophet understands it. And so we might ask ourselves, what am I to learn about God from that discussion? That God is the creator of all things (without whom things would not have been created) and that the eternal laws under which He operates include laws and the pairings of sin and righteousness, happiness and misery.
Re: #19
Pray tell, what exactly are those “brilliant critiques of rationality”?
Nothing quite like condemning the whole group with nothing but incredibly broad one-liner with no links, no quotes, no information, no nothing. Now, that’s a brilliant critique of the “historically blind, uninformed” rationality if there ever was one. And, am I to take it that you just happen to be one of the historical, informed visionaries that happen to be lacking here?
#19 Douglas Hunter
I actually quite like your statement that Or on a different track maybe the question isn’t “Why can’t I get an answer to my prayer?” Maybe the question is “What kind of person do I want to be?” Or maybe the answer is that faith is a decision we make not an answer we receive.
I think many people are trying to answer the question this way, and are trying to live with the awe you suggest is a part of a religious life. I think the issue is that for some people, the honest life FOR THEM does NOT lie in the LDS Church, despite them having been in the church. This is irrational to many active members, who feel that these people are “apostate” as opposed to seeking what is best for them individually.
Regarding the “historically blind, uninformed rationality seems to be running amuck here on Wheat&Tares”, this site certainly allows for healthy discussions from across the entire spectrum of interests, beliefs, activity levels, denominations, etc. People disagree with each other all of the time, yet there is a certain level of respect.
Additionally, like many other sites, Wheat & Tares, often runs Guest posts. I’d encourage you to put together something that you feel is different than this discussion to show what you mean, and submit it. Throw it out there and let people comment on it.
#25- I am barely historically informed, and certainly no visionary. I was speaking in short hand, assuming a certain level of education on the part of the reader. Are you completely unaware of the intellectual history of modernism? I doubt it. Are you unable to produce your own list of thinkers, artists, historians, etc who’s work helps erodes broad assumptions about rationality, what it means and its thresholds? I doubt that too. Come on man, even the obvious tension between the Hebrew and the Greek in our scriptures can serve as part of this project. Or at least help us see that “making sense” is only one project among others within Christianity. If you really need one I can provide a list, but from the nature of your comment I suspect your intention was merely to be obnoxious. But you should feel free to correct me if I am wrong about that.
Mike S.
#22- That chain is of interest, I’d say its as much an argument for western dualism as it is an ontological or logical chain; which is a rather odd coming from a guy who’s home town is Jerusalem.
#26- “I think the issue is that for some people, the honest life FOR THEM does NOT lie in the LDS Church, despite them having been in the church. This is irrational to many active members, who feel that these people are “apostate” as opposed to seeking what is best for them individually.”
I do agree that what path one takes needs to be left to the individual. But not entirely to the individual. In that if we are seeking to find a religious practice or institution with which we are comfortable, we are missing out on an important aspect of religion. I think religion needs to disturb the believer, needs to keep us on our toes, keep us working through problematic ideas, keep us refining our beliefs and spiritual practice. Discomfort is very helpful in that regard. From a certain point of view faith and religion need to be a matter of risk. If they are not then they are ideology not religion, and yes there are many people in the church who clearly seek a faithless ideology on which they can hang the name “religion”.
That being said even if the church is a tough place for a lot of people to be (I empathize and know what that feels like), working through the question of HOW to be a Mormon –rather then the question of IF I should be a Mormon– can be very productive. I would hope that people would start with the question of “how” to be a Mormon and if working on that isn’t spiritually productive, then of course they should move on.
The fact that there are members who accuse others of being apostate for such reasons as you mention is a tragic fact and shows the limit of their understanding.
#20- I would love to spend some time in the presence of the person who can take the idea that God has a sense of humor and really run with it. Taking it as far as it can go.
I like the fact that you suggest that your rationality has mystical origins, that is a beautiful paradox.
Perhaps you are right Douglas. Seems to me that the knife cuts both ways. Sure there are critiques against rationality. So what? What does that mean? Are you discounting it altogether? How do we measure the worth of a particular ideology or philosophy? If logic, and rationality are in any way the basis of modern science then I think it does pretty good, pedantic philosophical arguments be damned! On the other hand, the mystical, magical, mythological philosophies have value as well, and as you rightly point out, might be aloof from rational arguments. I think that’s fair.
If that’s the case though, then I would expect a much softer response to the question of cosmological truth. Yet I don’t know any prophet who has hesitated to declare in no uncertain terms the certainty of this Gospel. If the critiques against rationality are so well founded, I can’t help but wonder why God, in LDS theology, appears to inspire his prophets to often make rational claims. Have you ever read “A Rational Theology” by John A. Widstoe? Seriously, are we trying to rational here or not? Seems to me we explicitly try to walk in both worlds. Otherwise, we might as well throw all our marbles in with the astrologists!
But I’m no philosopher that’s for sure, and probably not as historically well learned as you.
I suspect that I know who keeps checking dislike on all of my comments here on Wheat and Tares and you know what, its’ really childish.
#23 – Jeff, I believe the logic chain you’re employing probably seems appropriate to many members, but I disagree that it’s the one employed by the missionary program. We were explicitly taught that we should use the “soft commitment” after the first discussion. It went like this:
Q: If you pray about the book of mormon and feel the spirit, what does that say about it?
A: That it’s true.
Q: If it’s true, then what does that say about joseph smith?
A: That he was a prophet.
Q: If he was a prophet, then what does that say about the church he started?
A: That it’s true.
Q: If there is a true church on the earth, wouldn’t god want you to join it?
A: Yes
Q: Will you commit to pray about the book of mormon, and if you feel the spirit, will you be baptized?
The best part about this is that the whole idea of “feeling the spirit” is defined so loosely that unless the person has an actively negative feeling after reading, they’re essentially told they have had a confirmation from the spirit that it’s true. And because we had already locked them in beforehand to be baptized if they had that experience, we could now hold their words against them.
One more thought in response to Douglas’ comment.
I think this is one problem I have with religion in general. I don’t mind, and in fact love, mythology, symbolism, and living beyond rationality’s reach once in a while. But if that is the basis for religion, that God does not at all respond to our seemingly inherent need for some rationality, then I suppose I could do without said god. Why should I believe that the god that allegedly made me would not be responsive to the multi-faceted learning and development of my mind? In other words, why is it unreasonable to expect that God, his teachings, his answers, his ways, would not appeal to my rationality?
Or am I misreading you?
#29 – Not sure if you were referring to me, Diane, but I was the one who checked dislike on your comment, and I don’t know if I’ve ever checked one of your comments before. The reason I disliked it was because, without putting words in Stephen’s mouth, I thought your harsh comments directed at Stephen were not warranted by the comment to which you were referring, especially since his comment was a direct response to a question posed by the OP. Just my feeling.
Diane, I was actually thinking of a mistake I made in arguing a motion to a judge recently where I had a weak argument in with a very strong one. I should have just dropped the weak argument.
I actually want to encourage comments, including yours.
Sorry to all that I’ve been too busy to comment more, recently. It is January 26, and I’ve been just really buried with things that had to be done. Taking work home, briefly single parenting it while my wife went out to see a sick relative, just the usual part of life.
But no one should think I meant that some people should not comment. A discussion grows by the comments in it.
Paul, I’ve actually trained my kids, to the extent they were willing, to argue and persuade more effectively when they were trying to argue with me. It is good for them.
Douglas — the question of “how” to do something is a very good question. It often leads to answering the “why” question. Maybe you could submit a guest post on that question.
Douglas,
I appreciate your thougtful reply.
As my disaffection has been happening now for going on 3 years, I have already thought a lot about the points that you bring up. I have spent many hours pouring over what kind of person I want to be, and feel like I can just as good of a person independent of the church.
My wife echoes a similar sentiment that faith and belief are largely a matter of choice, and I should just choose to believe. Given everything I have learned about the church and religion in general that is so problematic, I just can’t bring myself to do it without a further spiritual manifestation of some sort. I agree with your statement that using logic and rational thought alone will likely lead me out of the church.
What I don’t understand is why most people of faith I interact with don’t understand this. People that try to convince me to stay continually pile on one logical fallacy after another in their reasoning. They see me as illogical for having problems with believing. Very rarely will they admit that faith is largely a product of a person’s subjective, personal experience(s). Things that require faith by definition don’t have sufficient evidence to be proven. If they did, they wouldn’t require faith in the first place.
#36: “Very rarely will they admit that faith is largely a product of a person’s subjective, personal experience(s). Things that require faith by definition don’t have sufficient evidence to be proven. If they did, they wouldn’t require faith in the first place.”
Nicely said, Aaron.
Aarron
“feel like I can be just as good of a person independent of the church,”
Absolutely, 100% agree with you on that one. I think sometimes church is just so ingrained on people’s psyche that people who have grown up with church really do view others as less than and or not as good as. To which I say hogwash. Take for instance the phrase,”born in the covenant.” It sounds like they believe children who are not born in the covenant to be just as good. Nonsense.
jmb #28- “Sure there are critiques against rationality. So what? What does that mean? Are you discounting it altogether? ”
No of course not, I use reason, and rationality all the time!
🙂 Reason and rationality are important features of the intellectual landscape, but they are not the totality of that landscape. Alas, when one lives in the shadow of a mountain its difficult to say what lies on the other side of ridge.
I don’t see human life as an either or choice between two different poles, but when it comes to religion, and scripture and what these marvelous old books contain I have to work in a realm that is not limited by what can be proven, or known, or understood by contemporary rationality. To place such a limit would be pretty much the same as saying that ethics and poetics and theology are of no value. For me they are the main source of value in religion.
#28- “If that’s the case though, then I would expect a much softer response to the question of cosmological truth. Yet I don’t know any prophet who has hesitated to declare in no uncertain terms the certainty of this Gospel.”
Right! and there is the rub! We have people who believe things that are in excess of reason and yet who want to make such strong claims for the rational certainty of their beliefs. There are any number of ways we could describe the reasons they do this or even the necessity of their doing this to be more generous, but you don’t need to be a scientist or a philosopher to see that by our current standards of rationality there has never been a rational explanation for the idea that God created the universe. Among many others.
” Have you ever read “A Rational Theology” by John A. Widstoe? Seriously, are we trying to rational here or not?”
Yea, I’ve read Widstoe, I’ve also read Talmage’s The Articles of Faith. We can assess the strength of their argumentation, as they are both making arguments. Their aspirations for the rationality of their beliefs, is not well served by the content and structure of their arguments. Or do you disagree?
Are we trying to be rational? I guess the most fair answer is that its up to the individual, but I have no interest in doing the intellectual gymnastics necessary to make the claim that poetry is scientific and to pretend that doing so makes poetry more valid. That project is intellectually and spiritual bankrupt.
Especially in response to something Douglas wrote in comment 27, I always wonder, “Maybe I should become Scientologist or Muslim.” I have no doubt that that would cause me some tension. It would disturb me. It would have problematic ideas that I would have to work through.
Douglas wants people to look at the question HOW to be Mormon (rather than IF). But why not look at the questions of HOW to be scientologist or HOW to be Muslim instead?
What I think a lot of people don’t want to admit is that, at some level, they are going to say that something makes more sense to them about Mormonism than the others (and for a Scientologist or a Muslim, it would be different).
I don’t deny that we need to grow, and growth is a painful process. But the selling point of a religion isn’t the pain. It’s the growth; the appeal to growth that seems persuasive to someone. If someone doesn’t have that, then I don’t see that the “disturbances” of that religion or the “problematic ideas” pay the price of admission. In fact, THESE things are part of the detractions.
That being said. I like a lot of what Douglas has to say. I think that many people take “rationality” and “logic” at face value waaaaay too uncritically (especially not taking into account culture and history. I guess this has the potential to derail the conversation, but the emphasis on “objectivity” or “objectivity in science” or whatever has a big part in this historical blindness…we think, “Well, rationality and science are objectivity…they are the same now, in the past, and forever.”)
And I am interested in reading about ideas from people like Levinas…different ways at looking at faith. But there are two things that give me pause. 1) I’m not entirely sure that looking at it in a different way would give me that much of a different answer (e.g., if I’m answering “What kind of person do I want to be?” or “Faith is a decision we make” then I’m not sure I have any personal reason to make this decision in the Mormon way, to want to be the Mormon ideal of a good person) and 2) I feel like looking at it in a different way would just put me at ends with most other people I’d be talking to (e.g., so suppose I said, “I have faith.” But it’s not meant in anywhere near the same way that most members would mean.)
@34)
I can see how you might think it would be wise to teach your children how to “argue” with you when discussing issues, but have thought how frustrating it might be for them. I don’t know how old your children are, but is it really fair for you to make them,”argue” points from the stand point of a lawyer? I don’t think so.
re 41,
Diane, have you read the article about “Tiger moms.” I’m sure that’s really frustrating for them too, but Chua’s (the author’s) argument was, “Yeah, so? They can handle it. And when they get through it, they’ll savor the accomplishment.”
Aaron, most logical arguments through time rely on logical grammers that have huge holes in them. Studying old logical arguments for things like the existence of God makes that glaringly obvious. In our world, with different structures, the missing supports for the arguments don’t exist.
The same is true for many religious arguments.
On my mission I could take elders through times they had felt the Spirit bear witness to others. That, on reflection, would provide them with (a) the Spirit, (b) a witness to the truth of something. That it was directed to someone else rather than themselves suddenly seemed less important.
In your circumstance, I might suggest trying positive agnosticism which is a sort of choosing to believe, or to act as if something is true until the opposit is proven, as an accomidation to the needs of your wife.
That allows you to live a moral life, to support your family’s needs, yet not to affirm things you have issues with. It is a choice that many can make.
My experiences with studying twelve step fellowships has been very interesting. The start of “the God of our understanding” is a huge step in many people finding a spiritual connection that they missed before.
It seems to indicate a willingness by God to accept an amazingly wide range of understandings by people.
Diane, arguing like a lawyer wouldn’t work with me at all …
What I do, is when a child has decided to argue with me, pick a moment I can gently respond with suggestions for approaches that will be more persuasive.
When the child uses them, I then agree with the child, who gets what they were seeking.
In general it is much less frustrating for my kids, or has been, than what I see with other kids arguing with their parents.
“Dad, can I …”
“I don’t think so.”
Kid, “well … [bad kid argument]”
Me, still thinking. Hmm, maybe that is not such a bad idea. “That isn’t a good reason, but if you were to suggest that …”
Kid “But Dad [repeats argument that I’ve suggested in their own words]”
Me “You know, i agree with that, lets do [what child asked for]”
Alternatives would include “You asked for .x. but if you had asked for .y. and if .z. was your reason, that would make sense.”
(e.g. Can “I have a milkshake at McDonalds for dinner if I don’t have anything else” “After all, that way I won’t ask you to spend that much money” “Well, if you asked for Annies [a brand of mac and cheese that is a favorite], Sprouts is on the way home and I could pick it up and make it for you, and it would be healthier, and your health is more imporant than my time or the money involved, all in all”)
Re Douglas #39
Very well said Douglas. I agree with you completely, and this is how I view it generally as well. Fits right alongside my “tools in the toolbox of life” metaphor.
I suppose then, there are really a couple ways to look at this. Most religious people I know implicitly assume that the events in the Bible took place as stated (same for the BoM). Yet, as per what you’ve written above, that claim is not only unjustified but completely unnecessary. This is precisely how I view it. But, and this is where so many people get up in arms, why make claims otherwise. If you put yourself in the rational realm, and make testable claims (which Mormonism does as do most religions), you better be prepared to accept the results or get laughed off the stage if they don’t add up.
OTOH, if we humbly state our mythology, our faith, as they really are – untestable, unquantifiable experiences then we wouldn’t be able to make grandiose claims about the nature of the world or the absolute morality of various social ills.
To me, this is the basic problem with modern-day organized religion. It can’t humbly accept the uncertainty of its claims and treat them accordingly. Personally, I have no problem with religion getting the beating it is currently receiving. It has been the source of so many deaths, oppression, pain, and suffering it deserves what it has coming. I hope it survives the beating. But if it emerges badly bruised, broken, and a bit more humble specimen then I think the world will be better off for it.
No, I think you’re exactly right. But I think it’s an interesting example of how, at least in Mormonism, we have tried desperately to incorporate rationality into virtually every facet of our theology.
Kid “Well, Annie’s would be more work for you, and you would have to make a special stop for it, but it is healthier and I really like it. Why don’t you get Annie’s for me on the way home Dad?”
When they are younger (around 7) it is more clear “That argument won’t work with me, but I could be persuaded. Lets talk about how to persuade your parents.”
Older would be even more gentle. The point is that I’m not so much forcing anything on them, I’m pointing out the way to what they want and working on it with them, in a relatively short and painless pattern.
Generally I’m trying to shift them from arguing to persuading. If they are asking for something that no amount of persuading will change, I don’t encourage them to try.
“Dad, would you turn the spa on and let me play in it instead of taking a bath tonight?”
Me “No. It is 8:00 p.m., it would not be warm enough to use until 11:00 p.m. and that is much too late on a school night. Now go take your bath.”
I don’t want argument for the sake of argument, or true argument at all, but I do want my children to think with better logic and to seek things in ways that are more productive.
@ Andrew
I am familiar with the article and book that you are referencing, and I can certainly appreciate where both you and Stephen are coming. That being said, in an interview with a national correspondent Chua herself stated that the book was not a how too raise a child in fact she wrote it as a how not too.
Not all children can handle that kind of pressure, nor should they, especially if they already have communication issues such as speech disorders. Being made fun of at school all day is one thing. home should be a respite. Don’t get me wrong I’m in no way saying, nor advocating that we shouldn’t encourage our children, I’m just saying not every child can handle that kind of pressure and one should act accordingly.
I agree with Douglas Hunter and jmb275 about the rationality of religion. I think religion should be a vehicle to experience the divine, to sense the unknown, and to be pushed toward discomfort personally and within a community. Those whose basis for belief is logic or “proof” are going to leave eventually, which is the real meaning of seeking for signs, IMO. If you want a sign or proof of your faith, then you don’t really have faith. If you want knowledge, maybe you haven’t yet learned to value faith for what it is. Maybe those who profess knowledge will grow more if they are thrown for a loop and experience some cog dis. If you ask me, faith is better than knowledge in many ways, and most “knowledge” is just faith + flawed logic that someone considers proof.
Re Andrew #40
Having already said that I agree with a non-polarized view of religion and the world in general, I gotta put on my engineer’s cap for a minute. I think you’re right that our demand for objectivity may color some fields of study. OTOH, we owe SO much to that very objectivity. It is what enables you to type your comments, drive your car, talk on your phone, post to FB, fly in an airplane, etc. etc. Is it really that unreasonable to apply a tactic so wildly successful in understanding the nature of the world to things of the world (e.g. history, morality, society, etc.)? Perhaps it is unfair to apply that objectivity to things not of this world, but the thought itself is absurd given we are in the world and everything we perceive is as well. Why would we naturally assume that our spiritual experiences, thoughts, emotions, etc. are anything other than within the realm of the natural world?
In any case, it is worth noting that in your comment you pointing out that we take for granted that things are the same now, in the past, and forever. But if we have a system that, itself, takes time into account, along with its various abnormalities, how do we know it’s not? Besides, so far that assumption is holding up pretty well at least in the mathematical limit as a time step goes to zero.
brjones,
“Jeff, I believe the logic chain you’re employing probably seems appropriate to many members, but I disagree that it’s the one employed by the missionary program.”
Well, I don’t come from a negative view of the Church so my perspective is different by default. And even though I was a Ward Mission Leader and A Stake/Ward Missionary twice, what do I know about how we trick people into joining the Church?
#50 – Lol. Jeff, it’s been some time since I was a full-time missionary. I should rephrase to say that it wasn’t the one that was employed when I was on my mission – at least not in my mission. And I never said the church was trying to trick anyone. That said, anyone who has served a full-time mission can probably attest to the fact that many of the tactics that are used by the full-time missionaries are nothing more than traditional pressure sales tactics. That doesn’t make the church untrue, but just because the church is true doesn’t mean all the tactics used to convert people are necessarily divinely inspired. I don’t think anyone would say at this point that “baseball baptisms” were either inspired or advisable.
“I find every Sect, as far as Reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, ‘Tis matter of Faith, and above Reason.” — John Locke
Regarding the “brilliant critiques of rationality,” the ironic thing is that these supposedly brilliant critiques were themselves constructed rationally. And so they end up refuting themselves.
Reason, like Math, is Hard. Even the best people frequently get it wrong. But like capitalism and democracy, reason is probably the least worst means of accessing those truths reason is capable of groping towards. The other proposed means — “faith,” intuition, whatever — have proven over and over again to be just one outbreak of nuttiness, or one PMS session, away from catastrophically bad decisionmaking.
And I should clarify that when I use the term “faith,” in quotation marks, to refer to the use of something called “faith” to answer questions that are susceptible of being answered by the same means of reason and observation that we use in other contexts. Because that invariably results in “faith” and reason coming into conflict — usually with faith coming in second, and, after a decent interval, quietly dropping the point of doctrine in question.
“faith, intuition,whatever- have proven over and again to be just one outbreak of nuttines, or one PMS session away from …..”
How completely insulting and denigrating. I can’t possibly take anything you take seriously when you make statements like these.
This is part of my comment from the LDS Film Festival Post, but it relates to this discussion so, at risk of repeating myself, I’ll post a bit of it here as well.
The main reason I think people are looking for “rationalism” or something else to be able to say that the Church is “true” is that emotions can be manipulated. The Church’s media arm, Bonneville Communications, does this in their productions. They even have a trademarked name for it: HeartSell, and offer to perform the same emotional manipulations for other companies.
Here is a quote of the third paragraph from that link (including the grammatical error):
When we tell people that the “emotions” they are feeling is confirmation from God of religious truths, yet specifically try to manipulate those emotions, I don’t like it.
re 47:
Diane, I don’t disagree with your message here. But I do recognize that there is a certain extent to which children can be pushed, but aren’t. And it makes them worse.
re 49:
jmb275,
This is begging the question (“we owe so much to this objectivity” assumes that we have achieved this objectivity, or that such objectivity can be achieved.)
I could think of a few examples.
“You literally could not exist here today if your mom and dad didn’t get together. If people just went gay, then you might not even been born. Objectively, we are made to pass on our genes, and objectively, that’s what we ought to do.”
with a bit of progress we’ve gone to something a bit more like
“You literally could not exist if your mom and dad didn’t get together. But fortunately, only some people are (pitiably) gay, so only some people may not be born. Objectively, we are made to pass on our genes, but I guess it’s ok if some people don’t reach that.”
Who knows where we will go to with regards to sexuality next? (Research into sexual fluidity is already beginning to crack the current paradigm, which we are so sure is “objectively” sound.)
The science between sex and gender isn’t objective, but it *thinks* it is. We think, when we move forward to a new paradigm (for gender, or sexual orientation, or whatever) that we have scrapped something wrong for something objectively right, but what if instead any and all of our research is going to have biases that we may not even notice? Data doesn’t interpret itself.
In such a case, there may be certain facts about how far we’ve gotten because of the nevertheless biased science or technology. E.g., I wouldn’t be here without my mom and dad. That’s even bigger than not being on the internet, or having safe water, or modern medicine…because I simply would not be. BUT that doesn’t mean that the enterprises this is attributed to are studied perfectly, or that those enterprises are perfect.
Consider as well those who say, “Well, we owe so much to a free market/capitalism.” Yeah, we also owe a lot to slavery. That helped build up the country too. Exploitation helped build up communities. BUT that doesn’t means these things are neutral things. (oh, Thomas anticipated my analogy to capitalism. I’d just note that something can be the “least worst” method — or in your analogy, can be “so wildly successful” — without being unbiased.)
As a result, we SHOULD be very cautious about applying these things (despite their success) to other things in the world. E.g., applying scientific data about “what is” to “what should be.”
Anyway, I’m kinda meandering off track. You’re still assuming that we have objectivity. I think, however, it is a weak link to say, “It is so widely and dramatically successful –> therefore, it is objective/more objective.”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but we don’t have a system that, itself, takes time into account. Rather, we have a system that says, “truth is *out there*. Our understanding and awareness and description may change (this is what we take time into account), but our system itself is timeless.” What if the assumption is holding up pretty well because the assumption is precisely what is keeping us back from seeing anything differently?
Mike:
To couple your thought on HeartSell, the entire Preach My Gospel Manual/program is based off of psychological factors. Someone I knew who was working on his Psych grad degree once forwarded me an article on the “6 Weapons of Influence. Those 6 “weapons” are the very essence of the Preach My Gospel manual. The sad thing is, we teach these same 6 steps throughout the mission and in the MTC, only we do so under different names.
Zion + Babylon as bedfellows?
I see what you’re saying in your examples, and I don’t disagree with those. But I think you ignore mathematics and perhaps more to the point computing in general. Those are, by definition, exactly objective. And this was my point. Breaking down our world in computable functions has been a wildly successful thing to do. We owe a great deal to Alan Turing (who was coincidentally homosexual I might add).
No, I don’t think we’re on the same page. Mathematics, computation, those are objective, by definition. Those are what have been wildly successful. Through the use of mathematics I am able to compute the proper sequence of numbers that can make an airplane respond to a storm and land you safely at an airport. There’s a great deal of power in that objectivity – and it is exactly unbiased. I think it’s fair to say it’s not a perfect model of the world, but thinking of it in that way is extremely powerful. I know not everyone thinks about the world in terms of dynamical systems to be controlled (that’s what you get when you’re a control engineer), I’m just trying to point out that you’re using the argument that even science is not as objective as it would seem, and I’m saying that as soon as we move to mathematics, it becomes so. And science rests on mathematics.
We can always move to this kind of conjecture. Russel’s teapot comes to mind. But we don’t live our lives wondering if the teapot really exists. But many of us are direct beneficiaries of mathematical objectivity. It seems reasonable to me that many would employ those same mechanisms to look at other parts of our lives. But I agree, we’ve moved way off course.
See, I’m not sold. This is the foundation of medical science, and is becoming so in psychology and other fields. Having a baseline of “normal” or “what should be” give us more power to be “objective.” I admit these are not nearly as objective as mathematics, but the application of these ideas is what has led to success in these fields. Though we could always conjecture it’s not real success but a limiting factor.
Re Andrew-
Despite my last comment, I think you’re making a good point that applying the same objectivity to other fields may not be the best idea. I’m just pushing back a little to say I think its reasonable that many have done so, even if we’re finding out now it doesn’t work so well.
we also owe a lot to slavery. That helped build up the country too. Exploitation helped build up communities. BUT that doesn’t means these things are neutral things. — actually slavery is inefficient. We owe more to the abolition of slavery than we ever gained from slavery.
Brjones,
“I don’t think anyone would say at this point that “baseball baptisms” were either inspired or advisable.’
You got that right! In fact, I’d rather see the bar raised for letting converts into the Church. since we “raised the bar” in the quality of the Missionaries, it wold be a bad idea to “raise the bar” on their converts as well.
“faith, intuition,whatever- have proven over and again to be just one outbreak of nuttines, or one PMS session away from …..”
How completely insulting and denigrating. I can’t possibly take anything you take seriously when you make statements like these.
I lose very little sleep over not being taken seriously by people who take the universe entirely too seriously.
Going back to the Locke quote I referenced above, religions — even religions that are pleased to take their share of potshots at “rationalism” — almost inevitably use reason, when it suits them. The core of a religion’s strength may be subjective mystical experience — but that’s rarely all there is, especially in organized religions. And the more organized, the more extrapolations are typically drawn from the original, mystically-supported premise.
Done right, this is a good thing. When one has a flash of spiritual insight, it will probably not carry with it a comprehensive belief system, providing the answers to every question that comes up. We’re left to ponder out what our revelation means — how to translate it into specifics. Reason building on faith — the two of them acting as two wings, to borrow the Catholic phrase for “by study and also by faith” — can result in true moral, spiritual, and intellectual beauty.
On the other hand, when you undertake to reason with the Lord, you are under an obligation to reason well. You are absolutely not allowed to intentionally try and pass off unstable logic as something stronger than it is. Seeing religious authorities engage in this (from using the argumentam ad martyrdom to eliding over relevant details) may not have destroyed my faith, but it sure as heck knocked my confidence in them around the yard a bit.
Amen.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.
I like to think that logic is at least part of the basis for my belief. I’m not a complete fideist. And I have trouble with the idea of having faith, not despite the absence of compelling rational evidence (I can work around that, “believing what we cannot prove”), but in the face of evidence, especially when evidence contrary to a point of religious teaching rises to a level which I know I would accept as conclusive in another context.
If DnA evidence is good enough for me to vote, as a juror, to send a man to the noose (or whatever wussy procedure they use these days)…or destroy a man’s livelihood, or take his kids away, to give some slightly less hellacious examples of what the law can do…then I can’t, in good conscience, just throw it aside, if I find it can’t be reconciled to something a church tells me to believe.
Now, it may well be that the evidence isn’t as strong as it’s made out to be (as may be the case with DnA and the Book of Mormon — I’m not very well equipped in that field), in which case people should point that out. But they should focus on real weaknesses, if they are truly there, and not just try to blow fastballs past people, letting credentials and jargon make arguments seem stronger than they truly are.
If you’re going to reason in religion, make it good reason or none at all.
re 58
jmb,
Anytime there is something that is “by definition” something else (e.g., math is by definition objective), I wonder. It’s like saying something like, “Reality is, by definition, natural.” This could simply be ignoring some set of information. I’m not a mathematician, though. Neither have I been paying as close attention to Bruce’s highly relevant series about these sorts of things.
So, instead of addressing your math on real world math terms, I’ll address on the science terms. So, you say science rests on math. I think there are problems here:
Basically, we have statistical and mathematical models of symptoms and we lump these in to create “disorders” and whatnot. We have a baseline of what is “normal” based on our statistics…but these statistics don’t imply normalcy or objectivity.
Is being left-handed a disorder because it is statistically abnormal? Is being gay a disorder because it is statistically abnormal? Is it a disorder instead because of what we “know” about evolution and natural selection, and homosexuality’s seeming departure from spreading genes directly? It seems that our “collection” of symptoms as disorderly or not is not an objective process, even when it’s mathematical or statistical. And I do think — especially in psychology and psychiatry — that the DSM approach — is a limiting factor.
re 60:
Stephen,
I guess you’re right. Exploitation in other ways is far more economically efficient (whether immigrant workers or offshoring).
re 62:
Thomas, I think you missed which part of the comment Diane was opposed to.
Jeff (re #61):
The only noticeable things I’ve seen since in missionaries since the “raising the bar” thing are (in no such order):
(a) Conformity
(b) Lack of personality
(c) Inability to think
As my brother is fond of saying, “The youth are trivia masters.” They know all the answers, and are brought up from the youngest of ages to “know” with certainly, well, basically everything. There are very few who think about anything and all their answers are straight from Preach My Gospel. The church gives Preach My Gospel to give the kids more of an opportunity to free lance, but they’ve forgotten that the youth haven’t known how to freelance (generalization, I know) at all – they’re automatons who can only testify how “true” the church is, how “true” the Prophet is, and how much their parents love them.
So, if that is the standard, I want nothing to do with it. I want to see some gifts of the Spirit in action.
Andrew — slavery blocks free markets and forces things into a rigid format. Invariably, the movement away from slavery results in an ability to shift and grow, enriching not only the freed slave but the society they are in as well.
Stephen,
but a free market system doesn’t exactly shift completely away from exploitative economics.
Odyssey,
“– they’re automatons who can only testify how “true” the church is, how “true” the Prophet is, and how much their parents love them.”
I am not THAT critical. But I don’t detect a significant difference in missionary style and substance since I joined the church many years ago. You meet the exceptional missionary every once in a while and the sister missionaries are usually much better focused than the guys. But in the end they are trained and act much like the US military. They understand the mission, they are on-board with it and they perform as they are trained. They just don’t get married and have babies before they are deployed.
“So, if that is the standard, I want nothing to do with it. I want to see some gifts of the Spirit in action.”
Certainly, we all would like that too. And that does happen. But I give them much more credit and appreciation for coming out and serving.
Regarding the missionaries, I can only really go from my own experience (ie. n of 1) with a bit of encounters with other missionaries.
1) There have always been, and always will be, missionaries who are like “automatons”. There are those who like being told exactly what to do in every situation. There are others who take the rules as “suggestions” but are much loose in their interpretation of how they should be followed. And this isn’t limited to missionaries – the same characteristics exist in the members of the Church.
2) The “letter of the law” missionaries who were more like “automatons” were the ones who were generally called to leadership positions on my mission (Disclaimer: I was actually AP on my mission. While I looked at much of the program with ironic detachment, I conformed to the rules, so suppose I appeared an “automaton”). This is the same after missions. In general, people who are sticklers for the CHI and all the rules/meetings get called to leadership positions. They then choose other people for positions, so the cycle is perpetuated.
3) Ironically, in my mission, the missionaries who were most successful in terms of baptisms, etc. were NOT the automatons (though not perfectly accurate, I like saying that word). The most successful missionaries were the ones that related to the people around them and weren’t quite as “strict” in following the rules. They were the ones who “taught” teenage girls in pizza parlors dressed in civilian clothes. Etc. Again, I think this continues. The “strict” members in leadership positions aren’t always the ones who relate to the world/non-members around them.
4) At the end of the day, missionary work in my mission wasn’t actually about missionary work. Despite probably 1000 missionaries that have served in the country since I was there over 20 years ago, encompassing 6 MILLION hours of missionary work (3000 hours per year x 2 years x 1000 missionaries) and a cost of at least $15-20 MILLION, there are the same number of members in the country now as there were 20 years ago. There are actually fewer congregations as several branches have closed. So, at the end of the day, it’s really just an experience for missionaries. I still wonder to this day how much good could have been done putting that much manpower and money into some true humanitarian need somewhere else. But that’s just me.
I’d like to go back to the emotional manipulation comment. I think the church is just a couple of points off course on this one. Emotional manipulation is a time-tested method for altering behavior, one of the key aims of religion (encouraging us to become better people). Where we are off course, IMO, is when we 1) emotionally manipulate to drive questionable behaviors such as conformity, judgmentalism, and political conservativism rather than becoming Christlike, and 2) when we substitute emotional manipulation for reason or logic as a method of ascertaining proof of the truthfulness of the church. But this second one is actually close to something I think is valid (just often misapplied). We should consider our feelings in choosing a course in life. We should have confidence in the things that “resonate” for us and to which we have an emotional response. That’s not the same as saying “because I feel good about this course, these empirically provable things happened exactly as stated.” The church can be a “true” course of action (leading us to a better life as individuals) even while possessing flawed claims.
Thomas,
“And I have trouble with the idea of having faith, not despite the absence of compelling rational evidence (I can work around that, “believing what we cannot prove”), but in the face of evidence, especially when evidence contrary to a point of religious teaching rises to a level which I know I would accept as conclusive in another context.” Well said!!
Terryl Givens stated it somewhat differently in his book “By the Hand of Mormon.” I’m paraphrasing here, but he wrote something to the effect that a faith community can continue to exist in the absence of empirical proof of certain claims, but that members of the community will struggle in the absence of an ability to rationally defend the community’s claims.
Adding to thoughts posted by Aaron L, Douglas Hunter, JMB275, Thomas, and others (especially #31), I came across a quote a few years ago attributed to Galileo. I’ve never been able to confirm this (and he obviously wasn’t speaking English, so it’s not entirely accurate), but he allegedly said:
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
How (and how much) we use sense, reason, and intellect in our own struggles with faith is obviously a matter of personal perspective, as evidenced by the wide range of perspectives and personal experiences of those who have posted here. Thank you all for your input.
re: Jeff
I probably am being overly critical of those actually serving missions, but I think my misstep is focusing on them and not on the program itself. I give appreciate what they do, where what they do lead people to Christ. My issue is that I see most missionaries arriving on their missions with scant testimonies of Christ, if at all, while being fully versed in the “this Church is true” mindset. I see missionaries bringing investigators to Church, but not necessarily to Christ, and therein lies the rub.
The program itself, as you mentioned, acts, functions and runs very much like the authoritarian power structures prevalent in the military. That structure has inherent conflicts with the Spirit.
So, instead of focusing on the gifts of the Spirit, the program instead puts its focus squarely on manipulation via psychological and persuasive tactics. Seriously, read the article here and you read about the Preach My Gospel manual. And, this is probably because you can’t control the Spirit, but you can control 19-20 year olds through regimentation, authority, commitment, etc.
Douglas Hunter #27
Sorry to be so slow to respond; electricity was out from nightfall to nearly dawn, so I’m just rebooting things now.
In the dream I referenced, immediately before the command to study science, I was told “Science is part of my divine plan.”
I emphasized the word “science”; your comment reminds me I should perhaps pay equal attention to the word “part”.
I was guessing the part with the three-letter acronym, which some people think is terribly rude to mention, and the notion that human biology and its quirks can ever influence the extent to which human thinking is rooted in pure cool reason, or something else.
There are certain feminists who openly declare that rationalism is a Tool of Patriarchal/Phallocentric Oppression. I say (with a stern patriarchal glare) that the only people who denigrate reason, are people with weak arguments to hide. That goes for religion, politics, and the war between the sexes alike.
I’d like to get a better definition of that term.
A person will generally not go to work for another person, unless he can be more productive working for himself.
If a person’s circumstances are such that what he could make working for himself is so little, that it makes sense for him to go to work for less than you think he should earn, take it up with the Almighty for not distributing ability and good fortune more equally, or with society for not hiring a handicapper general to put people on a more equal original footing.
If anything’s immoral, it’s the starting position of the bargaining parties, not the bargained-for relationship itself.
Exactly. Political conservatism deserves a better foundation in its adherents than emotion. It ought to play to its true strengths. 😉
re 76:
Or maybe your use of “PMS” and “nuttiness” as pejoratives to denigrate any other concept you want. In other words, for you, “PMS” and “nuttiness” are the new “gay”.
re 77:
“If a person’s circumstances are such that what he could make working for himself is so little,” then it’s also possible that, instead of it being “the Almighty” he should take it up with for not distributing “ability” or “good fortune” more equally, or even the society for not hiring a “handicapper general,” maybe it’s because instead of a handicapper general, you have a system where the rich are predisposed to get richer and the poor are predisposed to get poorer.
I mean, you talk about starting position, but we don’t have a system that is designed with the veil of ignorance in mind. So at best, we say, “Good thing I didn’t start in that position!” but we don’t develop a system so that will correct for this or at least not exacerbate it.
Not quite sure what you’re meaning here.
My point (if it wasn’t made clearly) was that non-rational decisionmaking — which is basically what critics of reason are advocating — has its own perils.
What I mean by “nuttiness” is the episodes of destructive irrationality that revealed religion falls into from time to time. Revealed religion is a powerful collective force; it can unite large numbers of people, even whole societies, behind its themes. When the theme that gets adopted is, say, abolitionism — wonderful. When it’s a witch-burning craze, this is a Bad Thing. That’s what I mean by “nuttiness.”
Likewise, “intuition” or “going with your gut” is susceptible to influence by biology or other things. If your gut gives you one answer on the fifth of the month and a radically different one on the twentieth, you should question whether your gut is any more reliable an epistemological indicator than a magic eight ball.
I try not to use words to “denigrate any other concept you want.” The English language is rich enough that every bad concept has more than enough great words to denigrate it accurately.
#36- I second the idea that you can be just as good of a person outside of the church as inside the church.
I think the difference between your wife and I is that naturally she is invested in your decisions. For me when I say faith is a choice. I don’t really mean you should therefore just choose to be Mormon. As I understand it, there are things that move us to such a choice, that might be hard to name or articulate, but the decision is not neutral, nor is the individual to rely strictly on intellectual autonomy.
Similarly, when we talk about what kind of people we want to be, there is a level where we say “I want to be good,” or ethical, or a Jew, or a Mormon. But the question has other dimensions to it. For me I know that I want to be a person who uses science but is open to mystery. I want to be a person who lives in a moral universe not of my own making. We can take these questions as far as we like. Anyway, I’m not trying to tell you want to do. I wish you well, and hope you will find what feeds you.
#40- Andrew you misread me. My use of the question HOW to be a Mormon is not universal. I was writing specifically in reply to someone who already is a Mormon and is having a hard time with it. The questions of how to be Jew, or a Quaker or Scientologist or Muslim are equally valid but aren’t germane to this particular context.
Then we’re not getting good value for the bucketloads of public money we spend trying to do just that.
Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” concept would substitute inequalities of power for inequalities in wealth. And the transaction costs and inefficiencies would be horrendous, and almost certainly make us all worse off overall.
Wrong. The poor do not get poorer. They just get rich less fast than the rich. This is something you can measure. The overall consumption of the poorest Americans has not declined recently, or pretty much ever. And this despite the fact that we’ve absorbed tens of millions of immigrants from countries with vastly lesser standards of living.
Now, I’m actually open (as was Milton Friedman) to the idea of a guaranteed minimum national income — that is, in the place of all of government’s other hamfisted attempts at “spreading the wealth around.”
The most direct approach is usually the best. To the extent that the poor aren’t poor because they insist on screwing up their lives (and there’s a non-zero amount of that), their problem is simple: They don’t have enough money. Great, so let’s give them some more. We can afford it — certainly a lot more than we can afford the various Programs that are designed to Help the Poor, and wind up taking on a life of their own far out of proportion to any good they actually do.
Thomas,
Then maybe you should’ve just said “nonrational decisionmaking has its own perils.”
I mean, when you compare “nuttiness” to “episodes of destructive irrationality that religion falls into,” you denigrate an entire section of people. Same thing with a comparison to PMS. You are basically saying, “women are chronically destructively irrational in a way comparable to certain religions” or “those with mental disorders are chronically destructive…”
If every bad concept has enough words to denigrate it, then you shouldn’t then shortcut to pejoratives.
I love how your response to a rawlsian system is that it would would have “enormous transaction costs and inefficiencies.” In other words, the political/economic system to which you subscribe is predisposed such an attempt to equalize because of the traits it considers virtues.
You say the poor get rich less fast than the rich. I don’t disagree. I just point out that this necessarily means the gap between the groups *increases* instead of decreasing.
re 81:
Douglas,
Well, that’s the thing Douglas. The reason I think these other questions (how to be a Jew, Scientologist, or Muslim) are just as germane for someone who is *already* a Mormon is because we haven’t established yet Mormonism’s precedence over these other religions or philosophies. This is because we’ve pushed aside the question “IF I should be Mormon…” when that question was and is still very germane.
If someone is having a hard time with the church then they should evaluate whether the conditions of their being Mormon are still valid: that is, if the answer to “IF I should be Mormon” is the same as it might have been a while back. I think that many times, people skip this question out of familiarity. “Well, you’re a Mormon now, so stick with it.” I don’t think this is a satisfying answer, and it’s especially not a satisfying answer for when you think about missionary work.
Now, I can agree that some people may say, “OK, I have some reason to be Mormon other than, “I was born with it.” I still have problems here, but I think the answer to, “Should I be Mormon” is still yes.” But they should get THERE first.
If not…if that question is something that shouldn’t be worked through, then I don’t see why someone shouldn’t also consider the other questions of how to be Muslim, Scientologist, or whatever else. Because if I don’t know WHAT I should be, but I’m supposed to work through “HOW” to be it through my struggles, I can think of plenty of religions that I would chafe against. Plenty of religions I would struggle with.
@76)
You’ve stated my position a lot more eloquently than I would ever be able to.
In addition, I would like to add, when we(I mean women) use the calm cool reason that he is talking about we are slammed with the label with the word “B@#%h.
So, that’s why I can’t take anything he says seriously, he likes to use extremes in his arguments and he then twist all his facts around to substantiate his claims.
I’m reminded of a phrase,” A little bit of education is a dangerous thing.”
Diane, in some cases, I think it would be worth the risk.
Not sure I follow this.
Are you saying that waste and inefficiency is actually considered a positive feature in a redistributive system?
I mean, I completely agree that this is often the unspoken purpose, in the sense that plenty of people who are ostensibly looking after the Public Good manage to do quite well for themselves in the process. But I’d be surprised to hear one of those guys admit it — or hear a true believer in this kind of thing say that graft is a feature, not a bug.
Who cares about the “gap”? The gap between Warren Buffett and a mere multimillionaire may have increased last year. So what?
What I care about, is whether society provides freedom for me to do my best to prosper, and also a decent provision for the poor. If everyone has sufficient for his needs, the amount by which a person has more than sufficient shouldn’t bother me. Unless I’m a jealous type.
Er…who? Nuts?
I love having words put in my mouth.
Only women who reject reason in favor of their “gut” — which, yes, can be affected by menses — have anything to worry about. And men who reject reason in favor of their “gut” are equally at risk; heaven knows that we cavemen aren’t exactly immune from hormones taking over from our brains. (There is a certain vulgar expression about how we tend to think with the wrong organ.)
I like this.
Could you go into more detail about why you would want to live in a “moral universe not of your own making”? It makes me wonder — does a self-generated “moral universe” have any claim on being called “moral” at all? By definition, a personal moral universe is not a universal moral universe. Does it then move out of the realm of “morality” (a concept which ceases to exist) and into the realm of mere personal preference?
re 87:
Thomas,
I consider the example of people who focus on cost-cutting in business. This is an incredibly common scenario for cases in business schools. To be sure, in each case, the CEO or manager in question tends to make things incredibly efficient, and according to metrics that are based on efficiency, cost leadership, and things like that, their strategies are totally sound.
But they may do this at the expense of customer or employee satisfaction or worse things. These things aren’t even considered, or if they were, they are considered “suboptimal” or “inefficient” or “irrelevant.”
The problem is the entire paradigm (with its characteristics of success) is flawed.
Re: the gap. Considering the gap is a sign of the reinforcement of existing inequalities, I care about the gap. I care because what people do with “the amount by which a person has more than sufficient” can often be used to further disadvantage those who only have what “is sufficient,” or to deprive them of what “is sufficient.” Maybe I’m “jealous” to care, but the person who doesn’t care is “selfish” and “incompassionate.” Yay, let’s keep throwing around attacks lol!
In other words, if someone uses “gay” as a pejorative or even “fag” as a pejorative, they have the following plausible deniability: “Who? Happy, carefree people?” Or, “Who? A bundle of sticks? A cigarette?”
You say I’m putting words in your mouth, but I’m really pointing out the carelessness of the words that already have come out of your mouth (or, more precisely, the words that have been typed on page).
…Man, I don’t even really care that much. Why are we going on about this..?
Thomas
I believe you are digging your own grave. You keep saying that woman can’t think straight by default simply because we have a uterus and period.
Really I think you just need to stop now. Let me ask you a question, Are you married? If so, Does your wife know that you feel and actually think this way? I would have kicked you to curb along time ago if you were my husband and held these belief systems
Its’ probably a good thing I’m not married because if I had a husband that thought I could not be a rational human being simply by virtue of having a uterus and a period there would be a hell of alot of trouble.
The trade-off between efficiency (which really means in this context, having the biggest pie possible) and dividing what we have equally may be just that — a trade-off — and nothing more. In other words, a question of values where we may each be free to choose. There may be only a few situations out of all the possibilities of real life that are Paretto optimal, in which everyone can be made better off and there is no one made worse off.
I think we are more often confronted today with the choice between selfish behavior openly espoused on efficiency grounds versus selfish behavior hidden by hubris or masked as compassion.
Perhaps we need to first ask whether a given policy will, in the real world, actually produce the effects claimed BEFORE we address the policy in terms of whether it falls in the proper place on the efficiency-equality spectrum.
There must be something seriously wrong with my computer keyboard. Apparently it’s writing something completely different from what my fingers are typing.
Happily married, thanks. To a wonderful woman who will, I can certify, laugh herself absolutely silly (was going to write “hysterical,” but that would be wrong) reading this exchange tonight.
Andrew, I honestly don’t know what you’re saying. Diane I can understand: She doesn’t like PMS jokes. But what on earth are you offended about? Is “nuttiness” insufficiently sensitive to mental illness or something?
I think the witch-burning craze of the 17th century was an instance of society going stark raving mad. Interestingly, the individual people involved were likely not clinically insane. Neither were Jim Jones’ followers, or the Heaven’s Gate cultists. And yet collectively, they acted precisely as they might have if they had been individually insane.
That’s what I mean by “nuttiness.”
I’ve never used those anti-gay slurs you mentioned in my life — either to refer to gay people, or in the sense of something being “lame.” Pretty poor of you to throw that crap around.
Then address those specific wrongs. You are stereotyping the whole group as potential oppressors, when a person within that group might be nothing more than a particularly industrious stringer of golf-course netting (to cite the example of one profoundly decent person in my ward, between whose wealth and mine there is a gap the size of the Grand Canyon).
Thomas
Let’s be clear the first time you mentioned PMS in your discussion point was not in the context of joke. I know how to read and comprehend and that was no joke. You were serious in your reply to the original respondent in #52. You implied that few people can use reason well and that we are one PMS session away from making a bad decision. In that one phrase you not only imply, but allude to the fact women are incapable of using logic, or reason, why because we have hormones.
*sigh* Roll tape:
Where in there is there any implication that “few people can use reason well”?
The point — clear as the oddly bent nose on my otherwise dashing face — is that when people intentionally reject reason, and try out other alternatives, they are on ground that all kinds of things are prone to shake.
Including PMS, to use one mildly-humorous-but-apparently-terrifically-offensive-to-certain-people example.
I’m frankly shocked you didn’t catch the equally sexist reference to Malibu Barbie’s quote (by which I clearly implyingly allude that women are all dumb math-challenged blondes) in the first sentence.
I have to agree that Thomas wasn’t intending to indict all women by mentioning PMS. He also referred to men who think with the wrong head later on as a clarifier. But I would hasten to add that PMS, dementia, being tired, being horny, having a mental illness, etc., are not only one potential cause of faulty intuition, but also can make reason (if it is one’s aim) difficult for a time. We are biological creatures and can be affected by body chemistry in a variety of ways. And while these things may make us erratic and unpredictable, every human being experiences something akin.
check out feministmormonhousewives for a good example of PMS in action… 😉
re 93 and 94,
Thomas, as Diane already mentioned (comment 95)…your pretense that it is a “joke” doesn’t really make sense with what you’ve said before. One point is that you don’t even see how you are using terms in a pejorative sense. You don’t see how when you use “nutty” in the way that you do, you *are* castigating mental illness as a pejorative way.
Consider that you do it AGAIN:
In other words, the metaphor you SERIOUSLY use to describe something you find to be society gone “bad” is a clear image of mental disorder.
But that doesn’t alone say anything about whether you’re joking. People can joke all the time and use terms pejoratively. That’s the problem — they aren’t aware of what they are implicitly perpetuating.
But the real issue is that you try to rationalize what you’re saying, which is why I suspect that you really AREN’T joking.
For example, with your madness example, you say, “The individual people involved were likely not clinically insane…yet…they acted precisely as they might had they been clinically insane.”
So your argument isn’t, “I was just joking.” Rather it’s, “But clinically insane people really are bad/do bad things.”
Or you say:
So your argument isn’t: “I was joking.” Instead, it’s rather, “Yeah, so women really may be irrational as a result of hormones. Men can be too. So my comparison makes sense.”
It APPEARS that you at least are aware of the incorrectness in using certain things pejoratively. For example, you want to chastise me for showing you what your statements about the mentally ill or about women sound like to me (they sound EXACTLY like people who say, “That’s gay” to mean, “That’s bad.”) (Ironically, you miss the point I’m making. I am pointing out that what you are doing is just as bad as those people who try to say “That’s gay” as a catch-all for “That’s bad.”) You want to be INDIGNANT there. But check out how you phrase that protest:
Do you see what you did there? “Lameness” becomes your catch-all for bad things. Where does “lame” come from?
You want to say “Pretty poor of you to throw that crap around.” But you have to understand I’m not seriously going around saying, “This is gay.” But you are doing things which are pretty equivalent and then wondering why people are “putting words in your mouth.” You are literally and unequivocally saying, “This is one PMS session away” or “This is one outbreak of nuttiness.” Or even, “This is lame.”
I think the worst part is not that you do it. The worst part isn’t even that you’re unaware of it. I think the worst part — to me — is that you seem to be walking away from this conversation thinking, “What’s Diane and Andrew’s problem? Why are they so sensitive? Why are they taking a joke so seriously? What are they going on about?”
The worst part is that you walk away from this conversation not recognizing that there is something societal that appropriates certain terms and uses pejoratives of them…to the extent that you CAN use them without being aware of them or thinking anything about them…and because these things are so entrenched in society, you can think that this is “normal,” and “neutral” and “ok” and that people who have a problem with it (which many times are people who are denigrated either implicitly or explicitly by these pejoratives or by others) are “abnormal” and “overly sensitive” and “not ok.”
@ Thomas
Who is Malibu Barbie? I don’t see the reference your making. Which is beside the point and a good deflection tactic, especially since its’ clear that you don’t want to take responsibility of your statement.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. “Madness” and “nuts” have been used to refer to irrational human behavior since Socrates.
I usually try to keep on top of the demands for politically-correct sensitivity in language (mostly so I can mock them savagely), but this is a new one for me.
It really is a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
And is any of that remotely untrue?
Thomas
By the way, FYI, since Malibu Barbie is not anyone’s moniker that’s also a pejorative expression.
Why? Because Malibu Barbie is every man’s fantasy. which is too make a woman have the most unattainable body type imaginable
actually Diane, I subscribe to the Sir Mix-A-Lot school of thinking in terms of womens bodies.