Bullshit Arguments
Can I propose a small but affective ban on a rhetorical technique? I want to get rid of this argument:
If the roles were reversed, and Party X did this instead of Party Y, then Party Y would raise objections, but since the roles are not reversed, Party Y has no problem with its own behavior.
I hate those kinds of arguments. They are at best circumstantial ad hominem, perhaps abusive ad hominem. These sorts of arguments may even be question-begging.
People of all political affiliations pull this one. The most recent I heard was someone arguing that if Joseph Wilson were more sympathetic to George W. Bush’s politics, Democrats would have been screaming up and down that he had no business commenting on the president’s assertion that Niger tried to or did sell uranium-enriched yellowcake to Iraq.
There’s a lot to be said about the whole situation, but I’m confining this to this post’s thesis. I’ll not concern myself with the substance of the argument — just the technique.
To put it in even more simple terms, how many times have you heard someone say, “If the Democrats were doing this, Republicans would be screaming bloody murder” or “If Republicans did this, Democrats would suddenly be defenders of state rights”. Crap like that.
So why do I object to this line of argument? First of all, these sorts of claims are neither confirmable nor falsifiable because they are not talking about situations which actually exist. Or, as Sartre argued, you cannot argue that you are or were capable of doing something unless you actually did it. Likewise, it makes no sense to argue about how an opposing individual or group would behave in a hypothetical situation, because that situation never happened. Not only that, but a situation is always more complex than either sides of the argument want to acknowledge. What would result from a reversal of roles is not obvious or reliably determinable.
Second, the argument is incredibly ironic. Consider this: usually, when Party X is making this argument, they are asserting that Party Y is partisan and uninterested in doing the right thing. They are asserting that Party Y is only taking the attitude they are because of their current position. This is problematic because as long as this type of argument is considered acceptable, it can be applied by Party Y to Party X as well. They’d both be fallacious, but they’d both be equally fallacious.
And it’d still all be a bunch of nonsense.
In fact, I often wonder about people who make these sorts of assertions. Kind of like how a cheating spouse is likely to be suspicious of his/her partner. That is, people who do certain wrong things often suspect others of doing the same. So I have to wonder whether people who readily make arguments like this are exactly what they’re accusing others of being.
Now don’t take that last paragraph too much to heart. I can’t really back that up with much. It’s inductive at best. But that is kind of the way I see things, so I’m uncomfortable when one group accuses another of cynicism.
But more than these reasons why it’s a bad form of argument, I think it’s rude, hypocritical and unconvincing. Remember how mad you get when someone pulls this on you? They’re unfairly mapping all these motives onto you. But how many times have you used this argument on people, convinced that you were right?
And as I said, it’s unconvincing. Have you ever been swayed to take another position by one of these arguments? Have you ever said: “You’re right! I am an unprincipled, cynical partisan hack!” Only people who already agree with the person making the argument will agree with the assertion.
It’s a bullshit argument. If you agree with me, be sure to call people on it. Even people you agree with.
If you disagree, let me know why.
I scanned through Conversational Terrorism, and I didn’t see it there. I may recommend it.
July 15th, 2005 at 8:09 pm
You know, for as much as I do believe that if it was a Democrat in the White House there would be indictments out the ass, it is a crappy argument from a logic point of view. It’s purely hypothetical, and relies on one’s own bias to hold any credibility. However, that’s what a lot of politics is all about these days: defending your viewpoints while belittling your opponents.
Is this fair play? No. Is this how I think it should be? No. Did Republicans start this? I wish, but no. In truth, I have no idea who started it, but both parties are guilty. They both take the high road when the other party does something underhanded, and then look the other way when their own members do something equally cheap. The difference here is that you’ve got an unpopular president and a very vocal minority party that smells blood.
Now, having said that, I think Rove is a sleaze and a half and I don’t believe the crap I’m hearing in his defense. They’re splitting hairs like mad in some bizarre effort to justify his behavior, when it was reprehensible on any front. It reminds me of Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” comment.
August 6th, 2005 at 7:26 pm
I agree that these are poor arguments- but, in this case, you are talking about rhetorical points, and not arguments, and as rhetorical points they can be very useful.
Often claims from both sides can be substantiated with facts from the party in question’s previous record- and so I suppose that the use of rhetoric doesn’t bother me as much. So long as we require some substantiation afterward the use of these ad hominum claims are useful in getting people to reflect on the partisanship of political parties, media, etc. which is not in and of itself a bad thing.