The Perils of a Liberal Arts Education

WC was lucky enough to study British and American Rhetoric under the late Professor Bower Aly. Although WC didn’t think it was good luck at the time.

For Professor Aly, context was everything, and a quotation out of context invariably resulted in an assignment to describe, with suitable footnotes and a bibliography, the full context of that gratuitous quote. And with weekly written and oral presentations already in the course syllabus, the additional burden was not trivial. And your oral presentation was followed by ten minutes of question and answer with your fellow students and Prof. Aly. Heaven help you if you were unprepared. And the additional context essays were imposed on both students asking questions and the poor saps trying to answer them.

Bear in mind this class was being taught at a time of revolutionary fervor. Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia; the shootings in Kent State; the Earth Day Riots. WC doesn’t remember the subject of his oral presentation, but WC does remember, in response to a question, quoting the fourth panel in the Jefferson Memorial:

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Good stuff, eh? Heady enough to a child of the 1960s. And Thomas Jefferson is pretty authoritative, you’d think. So when Prof. Aly asked WC for the context of the quotation, WC thought he’d been handed an easy one. WC should have known better. But the resulting research and paper make WC a bit more informed when this old chestnut gets pulled out and waved around by whoever currently wants to blow up the current government. Because that’s been happening lately, WC will share that long-ago research.

First, it’s a misquote. Jefferson’s actual words were,

I am certainly not an advocate for for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

(Emphasis in original) Interesting that it was edited for the Memorial, eh? Editors; what can you say. But the actual source is a letter from Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval dated July 12, 1816. (We live in an amazing age where you can actually see a copy of the handwritten letter for yourself. WC had to write to the National Archives. )

Jefferson Letter to Thomas Kercheval

You can read the balance of the letter here. Kercheval, writing under the alias of H. Tompkinson, was soliciting Jefferson’s views on a constitutional convention to amend the Commonwealth of Virginia’s constitution. Not the federal constitution; Virginia’s. Which, by the by, Jefferson had helped to write.

Jefferson answered at length, with specifics. As you can see, the handwriting isn’t easy to read, but it is worth the effort. Amusingly, Jefferson asked Kercheval to keep the letter confidential. And WC only wishes he could be so articulate in his “effusions of withered age and useless time.”

Prof. Aly taught WC the importance of primary sources and the overwhelming importance of context in any quotation. Those who think Jefferson’s comments, misquoted at this Memorial, go to the federal constitution simply illustrate Prof. Aly’s point.

One note: please don’t think WC is criticizing Thomas Jefferson. WC shares the late President Kennedy’s view of Thomas Jefferson. At an April 1962 dinner at the White House for all living Nobel Prize winners from the Western Hemisphere, Kennedy said:

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Not without flaws. But utterly brilliant.

Simply the Best Public Speaker in America Today

If you haven’t listened to or read former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic Convention last night, you’ve missed a treat. You may or may not like Bill Clinton as a man, as a politician or as a president, but his public speaking skills are absolutely extraordinary. Not only does he has an exceptional ability to cast complex issues in clear, comprehensible ways, without in any way condescending to his audience; the man adapts his speeches to audience’s reaction in real time in absolutely extraordinary ways.

Now WC has a major in communication, focused largely on public speaking. WC may or may not have decent public speaking skills. But WC knows enough to recognize great work when he sees it. Clinton’s natural gift for adjusting his speech to audience is superb. Ruby Cramer over at BuzzFeed has painstakingly documented how Clinton adapted his speech to his audience in real time, taking the prepared text and marking it up to show what Clinton actually said. Serious props to Ms. Cramer for her work.

Cramer’s Markup of Clinton’s Prepared Text

On the fly, he did things like substitute “kids” for “children” and broke long sentences into shorter ones, giving his speech more punch. He ad-libbed arguably the best point he made, “It’s arithmetic,” and linked it seamlessly into his prepared remarks. He changed the “double down on trickle down” to link it to handing off the “reins of government.” With very, very few exceptions, Clinton’s changes, including his ad-lib additions, made the speech much more forceful.

If you think that’s easy, feel free to try it yourself. And imagine that there are millions of people watching, and that both your original text and the changes you make will be placed under the microscope and endlessly analyzed.

You don’t have to agree with the sense of what Clinton said to recognize that this man is a genius public speaker. Of course, WC does agree with most of what Clinton said, which makes WC appreciate the genius even more.

As an exercise in public speaking, as an instance of persuasive speaking, Clinton’s speech is going to be studied by students for decades to come. Absolutely a remarkable effort.

 

 

Correlation Is Not Causation

Vali Chandrasekaran recently had a nice demonstration that correlation doesn’t imply causation in Businessweek. WC will indulge his taste for good graphics and reproduce it here in full:

Correlation Is Not Causation - Vali Chandrasekaran

Be wary of anyone insinuating two lines and a leading question support an inference.

Lies, Liars and America, Part 2

The late Robert Heinlein, writing in Time Enough for Love, said that there were three kinds of lies: (1) the simple statement of an untruth, by far the most common lie; (2) telling part of the truth and stopping, creating a lie by omission, and (3) the most difficult and least common, telling the truth but doing so unconvincingly so that people think you are lying. Heinlein also lamented the increase in clumsy, stupid lies.

It’s against that background that WC wants to visit the role of truth and the lost art of lying in current politics. This will be a series of blog posts. The specific triggers for this series are

1. Mark Hemingway’s article in The Weekly Standard in which he calls fact-checking – discovering lies – “the liberal media’s latest attempt to control the discourse.”
2. WC recently completed reading James Stewart’s excellent Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff.
3. WC probably made a mistake and listened to one of the recent Republican presidential wannabe “debates,” where apparently the statements of the debaters are “not intended to be factual.”

WC has some pretty strong feelings about these three aspects of lying. This second post reviews James Stewart’s Tangled Webs.

Perjury: Lying Under Oath

What sets apart the lies Stewart reports on from the lies Politifact tries to address is that all of the lies that are the subject of Tangled Web were made under oath. James Stewart tells the stories of

• the insider trading investigation that caught out Martha Stewart – no relation;
• the messy business of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, which led to the perjury conviction Scooter Libby (and very nearly Vice President Dick Cheney);
• the long-running San Francisco grand jury probe into steroid use by athletes like sprinter Marion Jones and home-run king Barry Bonds;
• the SEC’s belated probe of Ponzi baron Bernard L. Madoff

What the stories have in common is the extraordinary willingness of the subjects to lie under oath. Clumsy, stupid lies, easily caught out.

Stewart is the author of Den of Thieves, WC’s favorite book from the insider trading scandals of the 1980s. In his review of Tangled Web in the New York Times, author Scott Turow praises the new insights that Stewart was able to bring to stories which had already seemingly been reported to death. (It was Turow’s April review that led WC to Tangled Web.) For example, Stewart reveals that Madoff greatly reduced his brokerage fees on his Ponzi investments. The lower fee allowed the “investment professionals” to charge their customers a concomitantly larger fee. That certainly helped ease the consciences of those professionals and “disincentivized”  any curiosity about Madoff’s extraordinarily high and consistent “returns.”

As always, Stewart is a lively writer, with a genuine gift for making complex matters reasonably accessible to his readers. In particular, he lays out the Valerie Plame matter well. And while he never explicitly says so, writes well enough that the reader necessarily conlcudes that Scooter Libby took the fall for the Vice President.

Stewart concludes that there is an epidemic of lying the the U.S. today. He makes a forceful case in support of that conclusion. But WC came away with a different conclusion. WC doesn’t think there’s any more liars today than at any earlier date; in fact, the number of liars is approximately equal to the number of mouths. What’s different today is first that people are more willing to lie under oath for nearly trivial reasons. Barry Bonds, for example, was willing to perjure himself to preserve his baseball records. Martha Stewart was willing to lie under oath to preserve her goodie two shoes reputation. By contrast, in 1924 when John Joseph Stockdale threatened to publish anecdotes of Wellington and his mistress Harriette Wilson, Wellington told Stockdale, “Publish and be damned.” There’s a sick vanity in our culture today that distorts our sense of proportion.

The second thing that is different is that prosecutors are willing to bring perjury charges and juries are willing to convict. Stewart thinks it is in part a class warfare thing; WC isn’t so sure.

But you don’t have to agree with Stewart’s conclusions to greatly admire his writing, his research or the fine case studies he brings before the reader. Tangled Web is a great read and offers real insights into the twisted priorities that afflict our society today. Recommended.

Lies, Liars and America, Part 1

The late Robert Heinlein, writing in Time Enough for Love, said that there were three kinds of lies: (1) the simple statement of an untruth, by far the most common lie; (2) telling part of the truth and stopping, creating a lie by omission, and (3) the most difficult and least common, telling the truth but doing so unconvincingly so that people think you are lying. Heinlein also lamented the increase in clumsy, stupid lies.

It’s against that background that WC wants to visit the role of truth and the lost art of lying in current politics. This will be a series of blog posts. The specific triggers for this series are

1. Mark Hemingway’s article in The Weekly Standard in which he calls fact-checking – discovering lies – “the liberal media’s latest attempt to control the discourse.”
2. WC recently completed reading James Stewart’s excellent Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff.
3. WC probably made a mistake and listened to one of the recent Republican presidential wannabe “debates,” where apparently the statements of the debaters are “not intended to be factual.”

WC has some pretty strong feelings about these three aspects of lying. This first post examines Mark Hemingway’s attempt to characterize fact-checking as “an attempt to control the discourse.”

Mark Hemingway: Speaking of Attempts to Control the Discourse

Mark Hemingway attempts to trash fact-checking as “the liberal media’s latest attempt to control the discourse.” WC supposes that an effort to insist upon truth, accuracy and historicity might be seen in some circles as “controlling the discourse.” But those aren’t circles in which WC thinks American democracy can operate. The essence of Hemingway’s extended whinge is that sometimes the fact checkers – gasp – get it wrong. Assuming that’s true, Hemingway has to reach for a pitiful few examples in the face of the countless instances where the fact checkers got it exactly right.

Hemingway saves most of his spleen for the Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact and the Associated Press. He struggles to find a few examples where, in matters of opinion, the results weren’t crystal clear. He ignores whoppers like:

• Michelle Bachman’s claim that vaccination for HPV can cause mental retardation.
• Rick Perry’s claim that kids can’t celebrate Christmas or pray in school.
• Newt Gingrich’s claim that in New York City, “an entry level janitor gets paid twice as much as an entry level teacher.”
• Newt Gingrich’s claim that the congressional ethics investigation against him was conducted by “a very partisan political committee” in a way that “related more to the politics of the Democratic Party than to ethics.”
• Senator John Kyl’s claim that abortions are 90% of what Planned Parenthood does.

WC isn’t defending Politifact; it doesn’t need his defense. And there’s, you know, the Pulitzer. But to troll through the hundreds of fact checks to find two or three arguable calls, while ignoring the shocking fabrications like those bulleted above doesn’t prove anything to anyone sensible.

Hemingway also claims that Politifact has an anti-Republican bias, citing to a Minnesota study:

While there’s been little examination of the broader phenomenon of media fact checking, the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs recently took a close look at PolitiFact. Here’s what they found:

A Smart Politics content analysis of more than 500 PolitiFact stories from January 2010 through January 2011 finds that current and former Republican officeholders have been assigned substantially harsher grades by the news organization than their Democratic counterparts. In total, 74 of the 98 statements by political figures judged “false” or “pants on fire” over the last 13 months were given to Republicans, or 76 percent, compared to just 22 statements for Democrats (22 percent).

You can believe that Republicans lie more than three times as often as Democrats. Or you can believe that, at a minimum, PolitiFact is engaging in a great deal of selection bias, to say nothing of pushing tendentious arguments of its own.

Are we talking about teabagger claims here? The three to one ratio sounds about right to WC. Maybe a little low. Or, perhaps, if we look at more recent data, Mr. Hemingway is overlooking that the Republican presidential candidates are having debates three times a week all winter, and trip over themselves in their grotesque claims. if you are running for president, and trying to attract attention, you are going to get attention. If you look at Politifacts finalists for 2011 Lie of the Year, it turns out to be pretty balanced.

WC applauds fact checking by anyone willing to work hard enough to do it. A whiff of fresh air in the thick, stinking haze of distortion that’s todays political environment seems worthwhile.

Until Mark Hemingway can come up with something better than the truth, well, WC thinks his pants are on fire.

Helping Readers Be Smarter: Sarcasm. Really.

WC’s frequent – one reader called it “unrelenting” – sarcasm  turns out to distinctly helpful to WC’s readers. Seriously. Smithsonian Magazine reports,

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm.

That extra work may make our brains sharper, according to another study. College students in Israel listened to complaints to a cellphone company’s customer service line. The students were better able to solve problems creatively when the complaints were sarcastic as opposed to just plain angry. Sarcasm “appears to stimulate complex thinking and to attenuate the otherwise negative effects of anger,” according to the study authors.

Feel free to insert your sarcastic rejoinder here, but this conclusion is backed by serious science. John Haiman, a linguist at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, his Talk is Cheap: Sarcasm, Alienation and the Evolution of Language, wrote, “Sarcastic statements are sort of a true lie. You’re saying something you don’t literally mean, and the communication works as intended only if your listener gets that you’re insincere.” Because appreciating sarcasm requires a bit more thinking, and because exercise is good for the brain, appreciating sarcasm makes to just a little smarter.

Note the equivocation: “appreciating.” Your average Dunning-Kruger challenged Teabagger misses all the exercise because he (or she) is unable to recognize, let alone appreciate, sarcasm.

Overall, this is good news. If your four year old chid says, “Smooth move, Mom” after you’ve done something clumsy, your child’s sarcasm is a sign of intelligence and not just a smart mouth. If you have a brain injury, or a psychological condition, you are much less likely be able to recognize sarcasm.

Unfortunately, there’s no data for WC’s preferred writing tone: irony. It’s WC’s gentler cousin. Great.

Unsuck It

WC is a lawyer. He knows doublespeak when he reads it or hears it. Telling someone to abjure obfuscation is doublespeak.

But WC also recognizes that all WC’s readers may not have the skills so, as a service to long-suffering readers, WC offers this link to

Unsuck It

This handy tool will help you understand what management is saying, what the marketer is babbling about and what the accountant is trying to avoid telling you.

Some samples:

Rightsize = Fire a bunch ofpeople

Screw the pooch = A major mitake

Suboptimal = Bad

You can see this tool will be useful.

And if you’ve heard a really bad one that isn’t in Unsock It yet, you can always add it.

Random quote to show make this look scholarly:

The accountant had the world-weary air of a ferret that had been up so many trouser legs that life held no more surprises.

The Palin Follies Never End

In a very real sense, WC is tempted to declare a permanent ban on All Things Palin here at the Conscience. Alaska’s Shame is such a narcissist that she craves any attention anyone gives her, even unfavorable attention. Criticizing her, demonstrating the silliness or hypocrisy of her arguments, even calling out her lies; it all feeds her narcissistic craving for attention. WC’s blog posts included. A better solution might be to shun her.

But it’s so very hard to let her idiocies pass without comment. WC will examine a few from her appearance on Sean Hannity’s show last night to illustrate the challenge:

Blood Libel
Caribou Barbie, in her infamous post in response to the tragedy in Tucson, AZ,  called the claims that violent comments could induce violent behavior in others a “blood libel.” She told Hannity the term referred to those “falsely accused of having blood on their hands.” Um. No, that’s not what it means. WC recognizes that the subtlety of connotative meaning is also wasted on this woman, but still. As WC and others have pointed out, the term has been used for about 2,000 years as a justification to commit despicable crimes against a religious minority.

Still, it might have been nice if The Quitter had apologized to anyone she had accidentally offended by her choice of words. But being Sarah Palin apparently means never having to say you are sorry.

Crosshairs and Playground Arguments
Palin said her political action committee’s use of crosshairs to identify targeted congressional districts for Republican pickups was not original and has been used by Democrats. As she spoke, the 2004 Democratic Leadership Council map was shown on the screen with circular targets of districts Democrats wanted to win. WC has already weighed in on this one. It’s not the same as crosshairs, or telling readers to “reload,” but it is still wrong.

WC is fairly confident that, while growing up in Wasilla, someone suggested once or twice to the future beauty pageant contestant that two wrongs didn’t make a right. “Tommy did it first” is a playground argument, a lame excuse unworthy of, say, a presidential aspirant. It’s also an implied admission of an error. Now the former VP candidate might have said that under the circumstances it was the wrong way to convey the message, but that would have sounded like an apology, and being Sarah Palin means never having to apologize.

Criticism of Violence
Palin has insisted that she “repeated over and over my condemnation of violence.” Palin also said she was frustrated that conservatives who defended against accusations they were to blame for the shootings have become part of the story.

WC isn’t aware of your claim of repeated condemnations of violence. WC knows of two. That would be a lame “over and over.”

But it’s not enough to claim to condemn violence, especially if you use words that carry violent themes. “Don’t retreat, reload.” “Mama Grizzly.” “First salvo in a fight.” As WC has pointed out before, not all of the citizens who follow you understand you are using metaphors. it’s one hazard of violent speech. Another is that it makes it terribly difficult to have a useful discussion. “Hot” speech, the kind of words that are loaded with with very strong associated meanings, seriously impair critical thinking. They get in the way of reaching a decision.

A criticism of violence that doesn’t include criticism of violent speech isn’t helpful in addressing the problem. But, again, that would also sound like an apology.

Stifling Debate
Palin said she supported calls for civility in politics but added, “we should not use an event like that in Arizona to stifle debate.” This is pure spin. If it could be bagged it could be sold as garden fertilizer. No one has called for “stifling debate.” The Republicans, aware of the political risks associated with their earlier violent speech, have adopted this phrase as a non-response. No one has suggested “stifling debate.” It’s an illustration of the straw man fallacy.

It’s entirely possible that Palin might be “stifled” by a requirement of civility. Her appeal is mostly feeding raw meat to her supporters. Being civil would distinctly cramp that appeal. WC doubts that she is capable of it. That narcissism, that craving for approval from her fanboys and fangirls, will compel her to continue with her use of violent metaphors and calls to metaphoric or literal arms.

Those of you who comment on WC’s posts: what’s your view? Do posts on Palin help, or are they more fuel on the fire? WC is unsure.

But WC is sure that Palin still hasn’t offered what is needed most: an apology. Several apologies. And WC isn’t holding his breath.

The Gasbag Vents. And It Reeks.

On Monday, while Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was struggling for her life, Rush Limbaugh said:

And the first thought, the desperate hope that the losers in November of 2010 had, was that they could revitalize their political fortunes because of this unfortunate shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona.  That was the most important thing to them — and that, to me, is sick.

Actually, that didn’t happen. What Limbaugh is doing is projecting his values, his techniques, his approaches to a tragedy, onto others. Not everyone is capable of swimming that far down in the cesspool. And he is simply lying. Even if he is not capable of feeling genuine grief and compassion, others are.

Limbaugh went on to claim,

Their first objective and first priority was to try to make an association between this nut and Sarah Palin. What? That’s absolutely… You talk about insane? This guy doesn’t know Sarah Palin.  She doesn’t know him.  The really weak, flimsy, balsawood-type attempts to link this guy to Sarah Palin?

This is a nice example of the fallacy of misdirection, sometimes called the “straw man” argument. Combined with a couple of non-sequiturs. It’s utterly irrelevant whether they know each other. Nor are the links to Palin; the links are to the attitudes, the violent metaphors, that Palin and Limbaugh espouse. Clearly, those links troubled Palin or she wouldn’t have been taking down her cross-hair target map just hours after the shootings. Limbaugh probably isn’t as smart as he thinks he is, but he’s smart enough to know what he is doing here: raising a straw man argument.

Speaking on his radio show Tuesday, Limbaugh said that Loughner was getting coddled by those damn liberals:

What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He’s sitting there in jail. He knows what’s going on, he knows that…the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he’s just a victim. He’s the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America…this guy clearly understands he’s getting all the attention and he understands he’s got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he’s not convicted of murder – but something lesser.

Limbaugh has a slightly subtler form of fallacy going here. Any thinking American would be appalled looking at the smirking skinhead in Loughner’s mug shot. But by definition, you can’t know what a mentally ill person is thinking. Even so, Limbaugh has taken his view of the world and projected it onto a madman. In Limbaugh’s view of the world, the bad guys – the Democrats – want every criminal to go scot-free. The world view is absurd, but that doesn’t stop Limbaugh from seeing it in a madman’s smirk.

It’s a fairly canny law and order pitch. But it’s premise is that Loughner is thinking rationally. That’s unlikely. Anyway, WC has a prediction for Mr. Limbaugh: Loughner won’t be out of prison or a prison hospital again in this lifetime. Loughner may or may not get the death penalty. WC would prefer Loughner be cured of his mental illness, and then spend his life rotting in prison.

Limbaugh, never one to avoid a passing cheap shot, also flails at Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings. Sheriff Dupnik said, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” Limbaugh understands that Sheriff Dupnik is criticizing Limbaugh and his noisy colleagues. So Limbaugh, without a shred of evidence. accuses Sheriff Dupnik of being soft on crime. An obvious ad hominem fallacy. Standard fare for Limbaugh.

Why anyone listens to this windbag is beyond WC. He exudes a cloud of lies, hate, distortions and slander. He’s purely incapable of recognizing, let alone admitting, that Sheriff Dupnik as exactly right. He’s the problem; not a solution.

Palin, Teabaggers and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

The first of the original Dunning-Kruger experiments involved a group of undergraduate students who were asked – just as they walked out of a final exam – to rate their performance for the class just completed. In particular, they were asked how well they had mastered the course material, and what they predicted their raw score would be on the test they had just taken.

After comparing the student’s own impressions with their actual performance, a clear pattern emerged in Dunning and Kruger’s data: the worst students grossly overestimated their own performance, while the top students somewhat underestimated theirs. You can get a clear sense of the extremity of the poor students’ tendency to overestimate their own performance when you consider these results: in the bottom quartile, while their actual performance may have

put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated their mastery of the course material to fall in the 60th percentile and their test performance to fall in the 57th.

Bottom performers tended to overestimate their performance by roughly 30%; a general pattern that has been replicated in subsequent studies many times since.

Subsequent studies have also underlined the key component of the Dunning-Kruger Effect: ignorance cannot recognize ignorance.

For WC, this explains much of recent American politics, including George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and most of the Teabag movement. Those who vote for them are too ignorant to recognize how ignorant they are. Dunning and Kruger often refer to a “double curse” when interpreting their findings: people fail to grasp their own incompetence, precisely because they are so incompetent. And since overcoming their incompetence would first require the ability to distinguish competence from incompetence, people get stuck in a vicious cycle.

The skills needed to produce logically sound arguments, for instance, are the same skills that are necessary to recognize when a logically sound argument has been made. Thus, if people lack the skills to produce correct answers, they are also cursed with an inability to know when their answers, or anyone else’s, are right or wrong. They cannot recognize their responses as mistaken, or other people’s responses as superior to their own.

So they become fans of Sarah Palin. They become climate change deniers. They become Obama birthplace crackpots. They become Teabaggers.

And colleges men from LSU
Went in dumb. Come out dumb too
Hustlin’ ’round Atlanta in their alligator shoes

- Randy Newman, Rednecks, from Good Ol’ Boys (1974)

But this is the human condition. It exists everywhere, although studies show it is far more prevalent in Americans. What Bush, Palin and some Republicans have done is aggravate the Dunning-Kruger Effect in two important ways.

First, they have made ignorance a badge of honor. Palin, in particular, seems to be extraordinarily proud of her ignorance in any number of areas. The logical fallacy of the appeal to ignorance is well known, and used in arguments by politicians of all stripes. (WC was once confronted by an evolution denier who argued he had never seen a mouse give birth to a monkey as “proof” evolution didn’t exist.) But when you combine ignorance, the Dunning-Kruger Effect and pride in that ignorance, together with an unwillingness to development judgment skills, well,  you’ve got Sarah Palin.

Second, an appalling number of right wing commentators have made cynical, manipulative use of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh – assuming they don’t suffer the same problem – can only be viewed as taking advantage of the ignorance of their listeners. D-K Shock Jocks, as it were. Not since Huey P. Long was assassinated has there been such a broad-scale, systematic effort to manipulate the body politic through its ignorance. WC saw this comment recently:

Pundits like ‘ol Rush, regardless of their position in the political spectrum, specialize in taking a single factoid and expanding it into a Potemkin Village of opinion masquerading as a City of Truth. They are the electronic age’s equivalent of demagogues and polemicists, stirring up the unwashed populace of the slums for personal and political gain.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect used to personal advantage. WC suspects that’s not what Jefferson and Madison had in mind when they created the country and gave citizens the franchise.

WC is not so arrogant as to believe he cannot himself fall to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. But WC also finds a lot of truth in Sir Isaac Newton’s observation, late in life: “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

WC is aware of his limitations. Palin? Teabaggers? No so much.

Fallacies: The Big Lie

In an editorial titled, “How the House Bill Runs Over Grandma,” in Investor’s Business Daily, arguing against a U.S. national health care policy, the editor said,

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Embarrassingly for the Daily, Dr. Hawking has lived his entire life in the U.K., is a professor at Oxford, and has nothing but praise for Britain’s National Health Service. The Daily was caught in an especially stupid lie. Yet the story still is quoted by the ill-informed as an argument against national health care.

Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York state, in an editorial in the New York Post, wrote

One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430).

Caribou Barbie famously seized on this claim, posting it on her Facebook account. Despite AARP, Politifact and many other neutral authorities rejecting the claim as a complete fabrication (Politifact gave it a “Pants on Fire” rating), Caribou Barbie and others continue to repeat it. The lie was repeated so often that the provision was eventually stripped from bill. This despite the provision providing the exact opposite of what McCaughey, Palin and Limbaugh claimed.

This propaganda technique is called “The Big Lie,” and it was named, oddly enough, by one Adolf Hitler, writing in Mein Kamp. He described it as “a lie so ‘colossal’ that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. He went on to say,

Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. Mein Kamp, Chapter 10

The source alone probably tells you enough about the utterly unprincipled character of this fallacy. It is the refuge of the scoundrel, the poltroon and the fraud. Worse, it is poisonous in a democracy, which depends upon truthful free speech. Think for a moment about the terrible consequences of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy‘s use of The Big Lie, “I have in my hand a list of 205 known Communists in the U.S. Department of State.” He was never able to prove it, but he never had to prove it.

Those who use The Big Lie as an argument or part of an argument must be called out. But because of the effect of The Big Lie on listeners, it’s not enough to correct the misstatement. You also have to point out the use of a Big Lie, its roots and what it means. It won’t be an improper use of the ad hominem fallacy, because a Big Lie involves the credibility of the person uttering it. Insist upon facts. Insist on identifying the fallacy for what it is.

Rhetoric Is Getting a Bad Rap

From before Aristotle’s time, rhetoric was an important area of learning. The word derives from the Greek ῥητορικός (rhētorikós), “oratorical.” Aristotle’s treatise, The Art of Rhetoric, is still a rewarding read today. Many of the Founding Fathers studied rhetoric as a formal course or schooling. Until the late 20th century, most colleges offered course is rhetoric.

But as a result of advertising and misunderstanding, “rhetoric” today has a strongly negative connotative meaning. Reasoned discourse is dismissed as “mere rhetoric,” whatever that means. Students are no longer taught rhetoric, whether labeled “public speaking” or “oratory.” Aristotle would have said that pathos is overwhelming ethos and logos.

Aristotle divided rhetorical proof into three aspects: ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is persuasion from the situation of the speaker. It’s giving more credibility to a university professor or minister than someone else because of what they do or who they are. Aristotle regarded ethos as a weak form of persuasion.

Pathos is persuasion by emotional appeal. It’s presentation that has a strong emotional appeal to the audience. Governor Palin’s speech at the Republican Convention has strong elements of pathos. Consider the “hockey mom” line, for example. It’s premise is “I’m just like you, so vote for me.” It’s an emotional appeal. Advertising is mostly pathos. Aristotle was suspicious of pathos, while recognizing its strong appeal.

Logos is argument from logic and, as you might expect from Aristotle, it’s the kind of proof he thought most effective. He even went so far as to develop a very thorough analysis of the kinds of logical appeal which were false, “fallacies.” And being Aristotle, he categorized fallacies by type, showing why they were bad, and laying out a suitable response.

It is training in logos that we miss most in the U.S. today. Most folks are incapable of making logical arguments. Most folks are incapable of recognizing logical fallacies. Most people unthinkingly attempt to argue with logical fallacies every day.

But the problem is general. The absence of training in rhetoric as a subject makes it very hard for listeners to analyze and evaluate arguments. As a result, listeners are vulnerable to “mere rhetoric.” Because training in rhetoric still is important. Free speech means little if we don’t have the tools to evaluate the speech. Nor have I noticed the majority of citizens to be effective, articulate and persuasive speakers or writers.

So this is a call for restoration of rhetoric’s honor. It’s a tool, and it’s a tool that we miss badly. Democracy is partly broken if public speech is broken. And a thoughtful person doesn’t have to listen long to what passes for public discourse to appreciate just how badly public speech and civil discourse is broken right now.

Fallacies: The Non Sequitur

Probably the second most common logical fallacy plaguing American discourse, after the ad hominem fallacy, is the non sequitur fallacy. Examples are everywhere:

Palin Critic: “Former governor Palin is a poor public speaker.”
Palin Fan: “Well, President Obama is a socialist.”

The Palin Fan’s comment doesn’t address the argument made by the Palin Critic. It’s isn’t responsive. Stated formally,

A is B
C is D
Therefore A is not B

“Non sequitur” is Latin for “it does not follow.” We are conditioned by advertising to give such obviously false arguments consideration. Advertising along the lines of “Buy a Rolex watch and everyone will respect you” is a classic non sequitur. Respect doesn’t follow from purchasing consumer goods. But I think hearing it so often weakens one’s ability to recognize the fallacy.

Hundreds of thousands of advertisements doesn’t make the fallacy any less false.

The fallacy isn’t always used out of ignorance. It can also be an effective if unprincipled attempt to shift the subject. If a unscrupulous debater can’t respond to an argument, he or she may attempt to shift the issue by raising a different point. Like the use of an ad hominem fallacy, it’s an implied admission that the speaker can’t address the real issue; it’s conceding an argument.

The non sequitur is frequently combined with the ad hominem fallacy.

Palin Critic: “Former governor Palin is a poor public speaker.”
Palin Fan: “You’re a woman-hater.”

The way to handle a non sequitur fallacy is the same as the technique for the ad hominem fallacy, if it is used in a discussion or debate. Point out that the response is an attempt to shift the issue, and not responsive to the real issue at all. You can even ask if the person raising the non sequitur is conceding the main point. Drag the discussion back to the issue and away from the digression, no matter how inflammatory or personal the digression. If you permit the issue to be shifted, you are playing the other person’s game.

Fallacies: The Ad Hominem Fallacy

New York Times reporter Andy Revkin’s innovative Dot Earth blog is one of the best assemblies of climate and population data on the Web. I’m a big fan, and comment there from time to time. Revkin spoke recently to the Woodrow Wilson Center on the impact of population growth on climate change. He suggested, as a thought experiment, financially rewarding families who have fewer children.

Rush Limbaugh, never one to debate the merits of an issue when he can make a personal attack instead, called Revkin an “environmental wacko” and a “jihad guy.”

This guy from The New York Times, if he really thinks that humanity is destroying the planet, humanity is destroying the climate, that human beings in their natural existence are going to cause the extinction of life on Earth — Andrew Revkin. Mr. Revkin, why don’t you just go kill yourself and help the planet by dying?

Limbaugh’s attack on Revkin is a classic example of the ad hominem fallacy.

The ad hominem fallacy was described – probably not for the first time – by Aristotle. It’s a logical fallacy. Essentially, instead of attacking or debating the issue, the speaker attacks the person raising the issue. It’s an attack on the messenger instead of the message.

For example, if I were to say in response to Limbaugh’s statement that you should ignore him because he is a ex-junkie, a pompous, pill-popping, obese idiot, I’d be engaging the in ad hominem fallacy myself. It’s undeniably entertaining, and the statements may even be true, but it is irrelevant to the issues under discussion. It’s a change of focus that abandons the primary topic. It’s admittedly entertaining, and since Limbaugh is in the business of being entertaining, it suits him well. But don’t mistake it for debate. Or intelligence. Or logic. Or useful political discourse.

Revkin’s correct response should be to point to the fallacy. In a lot of ways, a debater who resorts to the ad hominem fallacy is admitting he or she has no logical response to the primary argument of his or her opponent. The planet is undeniably badly over-populated. By all science tells us, the earth cannot sustain 9 billion people for long. Limbaugh couldn’t rebut the point. So he attacked Revkin instead.

It’s always tempting to respond to an ad hominem attack by defending the speaker. The personal attacks are almost always unfair. I believe Revkin to be about as fair and balanced a newsreporter as there is. And certainly much better informed than Limbaugh. But if you defend the individual, you are falling for the fallacy. Interestingly, NPR makes this mistake. The speaker is not the issue; the issue is the issue. The best response is always to drag the focus back to the topic, away from the speaker.

So long as we let the Glen Beck’s and Rush Limbaugh’s of the world get away with the fallacy, they will use it. And political discourse will continue to suffer as a result. We have to call it out each time it happens.

Civil Discourse

In his recent column in the New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning Thomas Friedman points to the dangers of the increasingly shrill attacks on the President from the far Right. He draws a frighteningly possible parallel to the assassination of Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

The late Dominic LaRusso used to point out that anyone can attack any program or any person; the hard work was in proposing a better alternative. Attacking the speaker, as opposed to the issues, is the ad hominem fallacy, a flaw of logic so old that Aristotle named it. I challenge those who are criticizing President Obama to instead propose useful, practical alternatives to the positions he supports. Attack the issues, not the speaker. But because they have no ideas, they cannot.

History is instructive in this regard. After Senator Charles Sumner attacked slavery, South Carolina and slavery’s supporters in a speech from the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks assaulted Sumner as he sat at his desk on the floor of the Senate, beating him with a metal-tipped wooden cane. Brooks resigned or was expelled from the House of Representatives. But his supporters re-elected him the following year, and showered him with gifts of heavy wooden canes. Brooks died the following year. Slavery was abolished – albeit at an obscene cost – in 1864. And Senator Sumner outlived Brooks by 18 years. Brooks’ physical violence accomplished nothing of benefit to the South or the institutions he claimed to support. Other than to bring the day of the Civil War that much closer. And to give us an object lesson in the consequences of the failure of civil discourse.

The Birthers, and those who claim Obama is a secret Socialist, and those who claim he intends to seize all firearms and ammunition: these folks are the moral equivalent of Brooks flailing at Sumner with his cane. They accomplish nothing except to make compromise even more difficult. Their fear of any change is so great that, like Brooks, they can only flail at anyone proposing change. They succeed only in poisoning the atmosphere. Like Brooks, the issues and positions they claim to support will eventually fail. They succeed only in making that failure more painful and catastrophic.