Orwellian Wisdom

Certain texts repeatedly come up in any discussion of persuasive communications.

Aristotle’s works on logic and rhetoric top the list for obvious reasons, as do historic speeches by great writers and orators such as Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King.

But an essay by George Orwell, called Politics and the English Language, also tends to be discussed frequently when critical thinking, rhetoric (or whatever else you want to call the subject under discussion at this site) turns to political matters. 

Orwell’s brilliance as a political and literary thinker provides enough reason for his work to show up in so many different areas of learning.  And his accessibility (particularly through his fictional works such as Animal Farm and 1984, which many of us were introduced to in High School) also accounts for his name being so frequently invoked in political discussion.

I also suspect that as an anti-totalitarian Socialist, Orwell is hard to claim exclusively by either Left or Right, both of which utilize his name and work (often to condemn what they perceive to be the ultimate end point of the other side’s political trajectory).  And given how much these two poles have come to define the boundaries and dynamics of political debate for the last century, it’s at least good to know that a writer who transcends such a dichotomy still resonates with today’s readers (and thinkers).

A quote from Politics and the English Language that frequently makes an appearance is Orwell’s translation of an honest (if hideous) political sentiment into contemporary, immoral double-speak:

Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism.  He cannot say outright, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so.”  Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

“While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that certain curtailment of the rights to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.”

This excerpt alone is enough to demonstrate the decrepitude of language Orwell was warning about, but reading through his essay from start to finish, you realize that he is not just discussing the symptoms but also the cause of this disease.  And this cause is the understandable desire to make ones writing seem more informed and well thought through than it is by stringing together “strips” of pre-fabricated or pre-digested words or groups of words (which might be clichés, but may also be acceptable but overused phrases or metaphors), rather than actually knowing what you want to say and putting the time, effort and thought into figuring out how to say it well.

One doesn’t need to tune into the latest presidential speech or candidate debate to see this stringing together of reasonable-sounding but utterly vacuous language as a substitute for serious thought and honest communication.  Anyone who has worked in an office setting will immediately recognize it in the language of the corporate memo whose writer can’t bring him or herself to simply say: “The strategy we decided to follow last year was a failure, so we’re going to abandon it and try something else.”  (As opposed to the much more familiar “Market conditions have changed over the last 12-18 months, which require us to review all initiatives underway within the organization.  And while not diminishing our commitment to key market opportunities and methods of achieving them with which stakeholders are already aware, current plans are to broaden our existing strategies to encompass new alternatives that will help us maximize value for our customers, employees and shareholders.”)

But modern politics adds a new twist to the subject of Orwell’s warnings: the use of science (or more specifically, scientific polling and statistical analysis) designed to determine exactly which points and what phraseology will get the biggest rise (and produce the fewest “negatives”) within a well-honed and audience-tested speech.  In other words, science – which helps us reach precision and accuracy in so many other endeavors – in politics is being used to ensure that meaningless or deceptive language will still sound correct and honest to certain audiences. 

A way out of this trap for ourselves is to follow Orwell’s suggestion and begin our thinking about an argument not by selecting language that seems convincing, but by truly thinking through what we are trying to achieve.  And once that’s been accomplished, we should choose the fewest, clearest and shortest words needed to communicate our message, ornamenting language (if necessary) with vivid and original images and metaphors, rather than tired clichés. 

And as consumers of persuasive communication, we should stay on high alert for dying metaphors (play into the hands of, grist for the mill, anytime soon…), verbal false limbs (render inoperative, be subjected to, exhibit a tendency towards…), pretentious diction (categorical, virtual, ameliorate, extraneous), and meaningless words (or at least words that clearly mean more than one thing being used definitively, such as democracy and patriotism). 

While it might be a challenge to tap into the wisdom of thinkers who wrote in the 400s BCE in an age when we think we have all the answers, it’s worth listening to someone speaking to use from a “mere” 66 years ago who clearly understands us better than we understand ourselves.

Rhetoric – 1

As the presidential primaries roller coaster towards what will ultimately be the selection of a Republican interlocutor to argue his case with a Democratic incumbent, it will be useful to look at some of the language (or rhetoric) that is likely to make up such arguments.

It’s a pity that rhetoric (now thought of as mere rhetoric) has moved from being one of the primary subjects of study for an educated person to something treated with suspicion if not outright contempt.

I suppose if you look at rhetoric as nothing more than a bag of verbal tricks designed to pull the wool over the eyes of an easily duped audience, it’s an easy category of human knowledge to dismiss.  But it’s never been clear to me that once we have rid ourselves of nasty and cynical old rhetoric, what exactly is supposed to replace it?  Will the world be transformed into a place where only honest and purely sincere discourse reigns?  Or is it more likely that those who have not chosen to ignore a study of rhetorical techniques (such as advertisers and politicians) will use those skills as they like, with the rest of the population no longer familiar that there is even a subject of rhetoric to be studied?

We’ve already talked about one component of rhetoric: Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion (logos, pathos and ethos).  But there are a whole host of rhetorical devices which, like fallacies, have mostly Latin names and are fun to illustrate with familiar (or wacky) examples.  And while we’ll take a look at rhetorical techniques over the next few postings keep in mind that (as with fallacies) one needn’t be familiar with every one of them to be on the lookout for ones most likely to be used in a modern Presidential campaign.

Let’s start off with the category that makes up the bulk of most lists of rhetorical devices: those that rely on linguistic styling.

Some of these will be familiar from the introductions to poetry we had in grade school, such as alliteration (repeating consonant sounds as in Spiro Agnew’s describing critics as “nattering nabobs of negativism”), assonance, the same technique with vowel sounds (as in “I Like Ike”), metaphor, simile, allusion and analogy (each of which relate one thing to another in a verbally interesting way - as in "no man is an island").  It should come as no surprise that word choice and sentence structure that make poetry and prose more interesting impact readers and listeners of political oratory in a similar fashion.

Then there are techniques relating to word sequencing such as antistrophe (repeating the same word or phrase - as in “Yes we can!” - at the end of successive clauses or phrases), tricolon (capping a part of a speech with a group of three words or phrases, as in Hilary Clinton’s appeal to "my supports, my champions…my sisterhood!”), and that perennial favorite chiasmus (relating two clauses via reversed structure as in “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”)

In researching this piece, I was surprised to discover that my own writing makes extensive use of the parentheses device, in which a word or phrase appears in the middle of a sentence (enclosed in either dashes or parentheses, like this).  This technique lets you disguise an important point as an informal aside, drawing attention to a critical component of an argument by making it almost seem a disposable afterthought.

My surprise derived from the fact that, like most of you, I have never formally studied rhetoric but have simply developed a writing style over time by both writing and reading the political writing of others.  And at some point during that period, I must have encountered political writing using this device that I found particularly persuasive, internalizing it in the process (along with other informal asides such as starting a sentence with “In truth,…” or “But stop and think for a moment…”). 

One of the reasons it’s good to start this discussion of rhetoric with linguistic examples is that they are harder to dismiss as intrinsically manipulative.  After all (there I go again), we want our politicians to engage us when they speak, not read out dry passages of text and policy proposals.  In fact (I can’t seem to help myself), any politician who does not pepper his or her speeches with interesting language choice and word sequences is likely to be dismissed as “boring,” “dry” or the dreaded “uninspiring.”

No doubt there are interesting psychological explanations as to why this word choices or cadences have a particular impact on human cognition and emotion.  But for purpose of this discussion, mastery of these techniques represent an entrance point for persuasive speech, an ethically neutral set of tools which can be used by anyone who masters them for good or ill.

And one of the best ways to ensure we are not manipulated by these or other forms of rhetoric is to develop and understanding of these techniques so that we can recognize and appreciate them (without being suckered by them, especially out of ignorance).

Logic - 1

Let’s take a step back from faith and talk about something that we can all agree is a major component of critical thinking which is logic. 

Logic has been part of this discussion since it began.  Sometimes I talked about it as an element of an effective and successful argument (one in which conclusions follow logically from premises). I’ve also contrasted things that may or may not be a requisite for critical thinking (including imagination, emotion, and faith) to something that surely is (logic).  But what exactly do we mean when we talk of “logic?” 

The good news is that we do not need to fully answer this question and know everything about the answers in order to draw upon important logical concepts as needed as we analyze the upcoming Presidential election.  Like fallacies, logic consists of many different components and comes in many different flavors and an understanding of all of them is not required for some basic logical principles to help guide our thinking.

But we need to keep in mind that, unlike fallacies (which can be thought of as a long list of “broken” arguments, from which we are free to pick and choose which ones might be relevant for a particular argument or discussion) logic is a complete system (actually a set of systems).  In fact, fallacies are simply arguments that break the rules set up by one or more of these system.  So while we are free to use the tools of logic selectively to support a critical thinking exercise, if you want to go past the practical critical thinking project encouraged in this blog, a good first step would be a study of logic.

But what do we man when we talk about “studying logic?”  Two thousand, or one thousand or even one hundred years ago, the answer to that question was simple: studying the logical systems constructed and formalized by (surprise, surprise) Aristotle (i.e., “The Philosopher”). 

The notion that arguments can be written in specific syntax of statements such as “All A’s are B’s” “Some A’s are NOT B’s” and organized into sets of statements such as…

All A’s are B’s

All B’s are C’s;

Therefore all A’s are C’s

… (called a syllogism) is also derived from Aristotle’s formal logic which is part of “The Philosopher’s” complete logical system built into works referred to as “The Organon” (stop snickering out there).

Of course, the study of logic wasn’t set in amber 2400 years ago, but was developed, forgotten, rediscovered and supplemented over time.  The use of diagrams and illustrations (especially ones that could be reproduced using newfangled devices such as printing presses), helped create new ways of looking at logical statements and relationships that went beyond what ancient thinkers taught (or thought). 

The good news about formal logic is that one can become proficient at it by taking a single course on the subject (as I did years ago as an undergraduate), although one can dedicate one’s life to studying the topic deeply.  The bad news is that fewer and fewer people every get the chance to take such a course, despite the fact that an understanding of formal logic and rhetoric was once a requirement for being considered an educated person.

This is usually the point where some old timer chimes in about how much we’ve lost by giving up study of the classics in favor of “fad” topics such as sociology and quantum mechanics.  But this complaint misses two key points, namely:

* The reason classical subjects (like logic and Latin) are not taught today is that the explosion of knowledge brought about by the scientific revolution and modernity has created vast and exciting new topics to learn about and explore; but more importantly;

* There are other newer, heavily-mathematical, modern systems of logic (such as symbolic logic) that go way beyond what Aristotle ever dreamed of.  And in terms of sheer numbers, more people are taking classes in these modern logical systems than ever studied Aristotle’s creations (although study of these various logics – and their practical application – is more frequently referred to as “computer programming”)

These complex systems (and even large parts of the Aristotelian system) go way beyond what is needed to determine if a Presidential candidate has built his proposals on a strong logical foundation or a pile of sand. But it is worth looking at one modern logical system that is particularly relevant to something that formal and mathematical logic doesn’t always care about: normal human conversation.

Faith - 2

Continuing from where we left off, the first thing we need to recognize is that any debate that posits religion and science (or, more particularly, faith and reason) as irreconcilable rivals (or, at least, inhabiting totally different spheres) would make almost no sense to some of the greatest philosophers, theologians and – yes – scientists of the ages.

When Socrates went on trial for (among other things) blasphemy, he did not defend himself by declaring his monumental intellect to have superseded the might of the Gods.  Rather, he pronounced himself a pious man, even if his form of piety was as eccentric as every other aspect of his life and belief. 

While many have an image of the Middle Ages as a period of stifling religious orthodoxy which snuffed out the merest hint of an inquiring mind with accusations of heresy and the stake, in fact the world did not stop thinking for a thousand years between the fall of Rome and the birth of Galileo.  In fact, the embrace of Plato by first Millennium Christians and the rediscovery of Aristotle by second Millennium Christians and Jews led to some of the most rigorous logical proofs for (among other things) the existence of God.   And these proofs demonstrated the power of reason to the religious and not-so-religious, a process eventually leading to Enlightenment.

Even great scientists (although not necessarily the religiously ambiguous Charles Darwin) did not set out to prove that gospel was filled with fairy tales or that belief in God was an evolutionary quirk.  Rather, these were believing men whose brand of faith (sometimes referred to as “Natural Philosophy”) felt that since God had created a universe ruled by unbreakable laws, that it was their duty to discover those laws and, in the process, glimpse slightly more of the divine.

Now it is true that faith in such “Natural" science rubbed more-conservative believers the wrong way, implying as it did that God might not have flooded the entire world or stopped the sun in the sky (or, at least, that we should live by a science that ignores the possibility that such divine intervention could happen again at any time).  But those disputes, like most historic arguments over faith vs. reason, managed to produce at least a little light. 

Would that we could say the same thing about discussions of this topic today. 

Is it only me, or do most of our debates over religion in the public square or the role of church and state in contemporary American society seem to be about something else?  Now I’m in favor of a rigorous, even tumultuous debate on this subject in particular.  But are we really on the verge of becoming a woman-enslaving theocracy or wiping out all trace of religion in a frenzy of secular revolution?  Certainly such religious (and secular) excesses can happen and have happened, particularly over the last 100 years.  But are paranoid fantasies that such terrors are being repeated today in America really our most burning issues of faith vs. reason? Or have we reduced discussion of this important topic to something resembling a different medieval tradition: that of bear baiting (or, perhaps, elephant and donkey baiting)?

Most supporters of faith tend to fall back on claims of religion as a transmission belt for moral virtues, or claim that long-held traditions (while mysterious) might contain forgotten wisdom that even the most enlightened among us might not know enough to decode.

That last notion was raised in one of many important essays written on this topic by my favorite political philosopher Lee Harris.  In addition to helping us look at hot-button religious topics such as tradition and evolution (written largely to reconcile believers and non-believers), Harris also points out in this essay that in our debates over faith we might be making a fundamental mistake by confusing scientific reason for reason itself.

For example, can reason tell us if one religion is “better” than another?  Scientific reason certainly can’t, since in terms of science, any faith-based belief system is equally unprovable and thus equally invalid (or equally valid, if a scientifically minded judge is feeling generous).  But what if you had two faiths that were exactly the same in all respects except that believers in Religion A were content to live alongside unbelieving men and women of  reason (and even be ruled by them) while Religion B believed that all men and women of reason should be killed immediately?

Ancient thinkers would have no problem answering this question (and thus avoid what Harris calls “The Suicide of Reason”) for, to them, reason could be applied to any subject, including (or should I say especially) questions regarding the relationship between man and God(s).

That’s all I’ll say (for now) on the subject, but as the Presidential candidates take to the pulpit (figuratively and literally) over the coming months, it might be best if we find a way to discuss the relationship between them, us and the divine that goes beyond sneers, suspicion and selective outrage.

Fallacies – 2

Of the dozens of fallacies one can bring into an argument, Appeals to Authority, Emotion and Moderation are three we should be on the lookout for during this (or any) campaign season, given how important they have become to modern, media-driven political discourse.

We’ve already talked about when an Appeal to Authority becomes fallacious, either in a Formal or Informal sense, and to a large extent we covered Appeals to Emotion in a previous discussion of logos, pathos and ethos. 

As I highlighted in the discussion of pathos, appealing to the emotions of an audience you are trying to persuade is not necessarily manipulative or illegitimate (i.e., fallacious).  Given the extent to which humans are emotional animals, and given that not all challenging questions can be resolved through reason alone, emotion can be a useful resource to draw on to navigate difficult choices.

But if you look at the list of Appeals to Emotion that are categorized as fallacies, they include Appeals to emotions such as fear, ridicule and spite, i.e., those “bad emotions” that should cause us to recoil whenever we feel them welling up in ourselves.  So someone trying to stir up these bad emotions in an audience (particularly as part of a political argument) should be looked upon as using the tools of rhetoric inappropriately.

While an Appeal to Moderation seems like a favorite of contemporary Presidential candidates aiming for the center in a national election campaign, the desire for moderation among a democratic electorate goes back quite far.

“Nothing in Excess” was written above the Oracle at Delphi with moderation being seen as an ideal by the founders of democracy in ancient Athens.  It’s no accident that Aristotle defined virtue as “Finding the mean between the extremes” (specifically with regard to action or emotion), since casting oneself as a moderate standing between extremist politician alternatives was as popular a campaign theme 2500 years ago as it is today.

Appeals to Moderation stray into the territory of fallacy when it comes time to define what constitute the extremes one is locating oneself between. 

To take an uncontroversial, non-political example, if I were to try to define what constitutes a moderate temperature, I might choose a temperature we can all agree is uncomfortably cold (say zero degrees Fahrenheit) and another one most people would agree is uncomfortably hot (say 100 F) and average the two, defining “moderate” as a cool but comfortable 50 degrees (at least for we New Englanders). 

But what if used this same formula but defined cold as Absolute Zero (approximately -459 F) and hot as the temperature on the surface of the sun (which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 F).  That would create a “moderate” temperature of 5260 degrees F, something that most of us (outside of certain astronomers and physicists) would agree as a ridiculous definition of “moderate.”

In the same way, Appeals to Moderation in politics can only be considered legitimate when the extremes are realistic, genuine and not self serving. 

For example, most Presidential candidates try to demonstrate they are willing to stand up to the extremes within their own political party, as well as the party of their opponents.  But a debate over taxes in which a liberal candidate claims he is standing against his political comrades who want to return to a 90% tax rate for the rich and rivals who want to eliminate taxes entirely to support a call for a 45% tax rate (the mid-point between the 90% and 0% extremes) is acting disingenuously since (in today’s political environment, at least) calls for both massive taxation and no taxation are not considered as mainstream, realistic positions.  Rather, this politician needs to find realistic “extremes” to center his or her proposals between, or find other arguments to justify tax rates at the 45% level.

Similarly, a candidate claiming that a proposal to criminalize the performance of an abortion by doctors is “moderate” because it stands between throwing pregnant women who want this procedure behind bars and giving abortions for free at every CVS is also creating false (or at least wildly exaggerated) definitions of the extremes in the abortion debate.  This represents another fallacious real-world example of an Appeal to Moderation.

What Appeals to Authority, Emotion and Moderation have in common is that they all try to leverage elements of the human makeup that can be used for good or ill. We need and would like to trust expert opinion, especially in the complex age we live in.  And emotion (at least good emotion like love, generosity and courage) and moderation are all virtues that should inform our decision making.

Fortunately, we have ways of determining when these appeals are legitimate or fallacious, all of which boil down to thinking for ourselves.

Next Up – Thinking Through Fallacies

Ethos

Aristotle, in his usual fashion, systematized the modes of persuasion we are already seeing in the run-up to the Presidential campaign into the categories of logos (logic), pathos (emotion) and ethos (the topic for today).

While most people can spot when a speaker is delivering a logical or emotional argument, ethos is a more complex and subtle thing to determine. The Greek term translates to “character,” so in one sense ethos is the character of the person delivering a persuasive (political) speech.

But what do we mean by character? Is it the authority a speaker brings to the subject due to his or her level of expertise or experience? While such authority can be a component of ethos, an appeal to authority (including one’s own) can also be considered a fallacy, especially if the person claiming authority has not earned this right (or is trying to use his or her authority on one subject to establish credibility in another subject outside their domain of expertise).

A speaker can also establish credibility by speaking exceedingly well and convincingly. But if such skill is used to cover up a lack of actual knowledge (or obscure a poor argument), then rhetoric is not being used to clarify but to confuse or even deceive.

It helps if we think of ethos as an award given by an audience to a speaker which derives from a number of variables. Aristotle felt that ethos can only be awarded to someone based on what they say, not on any authority or moral character they have established outside of the arguments they are presenting. But he was living in an era when political campaigning consisted almost entirely of speeches given in person before live groups such as political assemblies or the courts.

In our modern world, we are forced to create a composite of a candidate based on inputs and information coming from all directions (the news media, breakdowns of a candidate’s personal and political history, campaign ads created by them as well as directed against them). In fact, even when we have celebrated a particular candidate’s rhetoric skill (as we did with the current President during the last election), our evaluation was based more on his ability to speak before and move extremely large audiences than it was on the particular contents of any given speech.

So how can we determine the ethos of a candidate, other than taking the easy way out and rewarding it automatically to the person we were planning on voting for anyway (and similarly denying it to his opponents) regardless of what either of them says?

Certainly (appropriate) authority and general rhetorical talent can be part of the equation. But a more important test was alluded to in the recent posting on pathos. There I noted that emotionally based arguments cannot be dismissed out of hand as manipulative and irrational, but they should be subject to scrutiny to ensure they are not being used inappropriately.

Within this context, pathos can be tested both quantitatively (is the speaker too dependent on emotional argument, sacrificing logos in the process?) and qualitatively (is he or she appealing to good emotion such as courage and generosity, or bad emotion such as fear and selfishness?).

If a speaker gets this combination right (regardless of whether they are speaking before one person or many, in person or over the airwaves), then we should be more inclined to award them that powerful intangible gift of ethos.

And if they don’t (or if no candidate does), we’ll need to live with the fact that we might be electing a President with high qualifications, great gifts or strong experience, who unfortunately lacks components of character required to earn the reward of ethos, a lack that will likely come back to bite him (and us) during his or her term in office.

Pathos

Because logic provides such a sound basis for making decisions, it follows that logos – the ability to present an argument based on logic – will have considerable rhetorical power. If we are presented with one argument based on sound premises linked to conclusions via a solid chain of reasoning, this is generally seen as superior to an argument which lacks these qualities (all other factors being equal).

But as appealing as it might be to base all of our decisions on cold, hard logos, logic alone suffers from two significant shortcomings. First off, the structure of logic works, regardless of the “facts” it is applied to. For example, IF all unicorns are magical creatures AND Gerry is a unicorn, then the statement “Gerry is a magical creature” is logically true, even if unicorns, magical creatures (or Gerry, for that matter) do not exist.

More significant for those looking for practical ways to apply critical thinking to important problems (such as choosing a President) logic cannot necessarily break a tie between two arguments of equal logical strength. Building on a simple example from last time, there might be a perfectly valid and logical argument why a school band should spend its money on new uniforms (because they will provide benefit for many years) and an equally sound argument why that same money should be spent to play at the Rose Bowl (since it raises the profile of the band and will help recruit new members).

Given that most of the political debates we have (or should have) are based on choosing between equally valid (and often equally good or bad) choices, something other than logic must be used to help us make a choice. Enter human emotion.

Now arguments based on emotion (i.e., pathos) tend to make us uneasy for two reasons. First off, we instinctively see emotion as non-rational. But we have already taken a look how at another seemingly non-rational attributes of the human condition (imagination) can help inspire and/or channel critical thinking.

It’s no accident that Aristotle built his Golden Mean ethical theory around emotion (and action) since these are the primary drivers of human existence. Within this context, reason plays the role of informing and training us how to make choices in these two non-reasoning realms. And even if we could turn ourselves into Vulcans, dedicated to making all decisions by logic alone, we’ve just noted that logic runs into a wall when we are faced with a choice between arguments over competing goods of equal logical strength.

The other (stronger) argument against pathos is that it is manipulative. By appealing to our gut or animal instincts, rather than our higher human facilities of reason (it is argued) pathos-driven rhetoric asks us to short-circuit thought and come to a speaker’s desired conclusion based on how it makes us feel (regardless of the argument’s logical worth).

There’s no question that pathos can and has been used in this way throughout history. Demagogues were whipping up the crowds to make irrational decisions back in the day when the rules of rhetoric were first canonized, and we only need to turn on cable TV to see manipulative, emotion-laden arguments presented on an hourly basis.

But the criticism of pathos being destructive assumes that all emotions are equal, which they clearly are not. Appealing to fear, greed, hate, and guilt for example, represent an appeal to bad emotions (or, as I like to think of them, “emotions of the gut”) while an appeal to courage, generosity, love and sympathy appeal to good emotions (or “emotions of the heart”).

So one way to determine if pathos is being used cynically or constructively is to analyze whether the emotions we are being asked to take into account when evaluating an argument (such as a campaign speech) are reaching to our gut vs. our heart.

The other factor to keep in mind is that strong arguments that leverage emotion (good or bad) should not rely exclusively on emotional appeals. In fact, one sure sign of demagoguery is the demagogue’s exclusive or over-reliance on pathos vs. finding just the right combination of logos and pathos to drive the argument forward.

Given that every political debate has an emotional component, we should not become cynical if a political speaker makes use of powerful pathos-based rhetorical techniques. And we should be particularly careful not to fall into the trap of deciding that the emotional content of speeches made by candidates we support are inspiring while those made by their opponents are creepy and manipulative.

Rather, we should judge political speech (made at a campaign stop or TV ad) based on whether the speaker is appealing to the gut vs. the heart, and how well they get the balance right between logos and pathos. And if they get this tricky combination right, they will be rewarded with the highly valuable third component of rhetoric: ethos, the subject of the next posting.

Principle of Charity

The last two posts highlighted the two-edged problems associated with bias. On the one hand, bias is within us and all around us (in various forms) and we must always be careful to be aware of it, account for it and not succumb to it when analyzing information and making decisions. At the same time, dwelling on our own or other people’s biases can lead to endless navel gazing, paralysis and (most important for the issue being discussed on this blog) an argumentative dead end about the most important issues we should be discussing and debating.

Complex challenges such as this can often be mitigated through the application of a bit of “folk wisdom,” vs. ruthlessly logical proofs. And philosophy offers us something that can serve this role in the “Principle of Charity.”

This “Principle of Charity” requires participants in debate to extend certain “benefits of the doubt” to one another. One manifestation of this principle would be to consider and engage with the strongest interpretation of an opponent’s arguments. In a detailed discussion of this principle, the philosopher Nigel Warburton uses this example to illustrate the concept:

“… in a debate about animal welfare, a speaker might state that all animals should be given equal rights. One response to this would be that that would be absurd, because it would be nonsensical, for example, to give giraffes the right to vote and own property since they would not understand either concept. A more charitable approach would be to interpret the claim ‘All animals should have equal rights’ as being a shorthand for ‘All animals should have equal rights of protection from harm’ and then to address that.”

Of course, the Principle of Charity does not (and should not) be automatically applied to every argument and every debater. Assuming the best of a proponent of perpetual motion machines or conspiracy theories, for example, could lend legitimacy to arguments which are, on their face, simply bad or mendacious, requiring no further interpretation generous or otherwise. At the same time, much of our political debate could be made much calmer and more illuminating with a healthy dose of this Principle.

For example, if we were to apply the Principle of Charity to next year’s presidential contest, the first thing we would have to do would be to take the candidates at their word that their primary motivation for running for President is their love for America and their desire to contribute to improving it. While it is possible that one or both of next year’s Presidential candidates are Manchurian in nature, secretly planning to turn the country over to its enemies or transform us into a plutocracy, we are likely to get a better understanding of the candidates and the issues if we start with the charitable (and, likely, more accurate) position that the primary motivations for these candidates are positive.

This principle is similar to other concepts, such as Christ’s Golden Rule or Aristotle’s Golden Mean in preventing our own biases from overwhelming our judgment through a healthy application of balance and open mindedness.

To take one small example, we recently had a brief political dustup in my home state between the two likely candidates for Senator next year: one male, one female. In this instance, one of the candidates had posed for fashion photos in their youth which led the other candidate to joke that they “didn’t need to take [their] cloths off to get through college,” to which the other candidate replied “Thank God.”

Now this could have been interpreted as light political banter between rivals (hardly Churchillian in its wit, but still humorous). But instead it became the subject of accusation and counter-accusation of sexism vs. snobbery. And if you knew which candidate belonged to which gender and party, you can pretty much guess on which side most partisans landed in this debate.

But what if you didn’t know who was who? If you find yourself withholding your outrage until you find out which party each quipper belonged to, more than likely this is not a genuine issue but rather a matter of political theatrics which provides little insight into anything other than our own biases. How much simpler to just apply the Principle of Charity and assume this exchange to be nothing more than some light hearted back-and-forthing between rivals that pretty much means nothing, then moving onto matters more worthy of discussion and debate.

In addition to the benefits this principle brings to prioritization (a key requirement for critical thinking), it also has an emotional upside. For unlike the partisan thinker who spends an entire election cycle in a perpetual rage against the behavior of their political foes, those that subscribe to the Principle of Charity can ride out an election cycle feeling pretty good about themselves and their country, even as they grapple with the difficult matter of how to make it better.