I keep trying to get through to people with the basic principles of argumentation and logic, and I keep failing. If I propound and argument, it is not an intellectually respectable response to say something like "People who manage businesses know more about economics than people with graduate degrees in social policy who study economics for a living."
This proposition is ridiculous on its face. People who drive cars don't know more about how cars work than automotive engineers. But, even if it were credible* it's not an argument. If you want to refute something I write, you need to engage with it specifically. You must point out what you believe to be specific factual or logical errors, and present your counterargument. Simply asserting that you know more about the subject than I do is a combination of two fundamental errors: these are called ad hominem, and argument by assertion. Just because you have always believed something, and the people you hang out with believe it, does not make it true.
If you want your comment to be published, it must substantively engage with the content. Just claiming, without evidence, that you are smarter than me, is not an argument.
Update: It is not the case that I only publish comments I agree with, or wish to use as an example of fallacious thinking. I do not publish comments that are offensive or idiotic. Again, please see the point of this post. If you wish to take issue with something I write, you must provide specific counterarguments addressing facts and logic. Simply saying that you make money by ignoring Robert Reich is irrelevant and inane. I have nothing to do with Robert Reich, nor do I make financial market forecasts.
*This is the rare example of the subjunctive in English. It is grammatically correct.
1 comment:
It is so sad that so many people in this great and terrible country simply don't know how to think clearly. Their thoughts are muddled due to lack of understanding of vocabulary, over-amplification of the importance of certain ideas (i.e., "a LITTLE knowledge is a DANGEROUS thing, ba-by), a perverted love affair with money and power, and a warped concept of "freedom." Freedom is meaningless without limits.
A lot of Americans think "freedom" means, for example, "I personally am making a lot of money ... so fuck everyone else, including the environment." Or, "the screaming sound of powerful fighter jets means 'freedom' to me! Because we can bomb the shit out of people that don't matter" (i.e., "I" matter--"you" don't).
Greed, tribalism, and power lust are disgusting. The fact that so many people are willing to lie to themselves isn't an excuse. By and large, privileged Caucasians in the US have not discernible Bullshit Detector because they haven't HAD to have one. The ironic thing is that--because Caucasians are remarkable in that they fuck over members of their OWN tribe, in addition to others'--supporters of Republicans are voting for politicians whose mindless, nihilistic words and actions are inimical to these very supporters' interests.
Not sure some of your readers will be able to comprehend what I've just written. It's like, to use Stephen Colbert's words, "boxing a glacier"--an apt metaphor for trying to deal with a vanishing group: Caucasiasque refert ignarus homo sapiens.
Post a Comment