[MD] Straw Men and the Primacy of Trust

[david buchanan]

Matt said to dmb:
That might be the nub assumption [Criticism stings only to the extent that it seems true] we differ on.  In my experience, accusations will boil the blood of a much larger range of psychological profiles, even when they are not true.  It is the existence of an audience, a third-party, that often creates the difference in reaction for these kinds of people.  Further, I do not think these kinds of people are morally deficient (i.e., I don't think they _shouldn't_ be that way). For, if one assumes that people will only have their blood boil if they've been caught out in a lie (i.e., that boiling blood is in fact an _admission of guilt_), and people of these varying types don't think they _have_ admitted anything, and still honestly and sincerely think the accusation misguided, invalid, wrong, unmeritorious, etc., then one response is to think that the persons blood boiling is a weakness in character, a mistake on their part.

dmb says:
Yes, I think we disagree at this point. If unfounded accusations cause concern because of the existence of an audience, then I think the debate has degenerated into a popularity contest. At that point it has become a battle of egos, not ideas. Ironically, that is what makes my blood boil. Well, that's put too strongly. It produces the same kind of moral outrage that comes from discovering that your buddy has been cheating in some game. Chess, golf, candyland or whatever. You scratch your head and wonder how in the world the cheater could be satisfied with that kind of meaningless victory. The cheater's main concern is not to really win but to make sure he is seen as a winner by others. It's like getting an "A" on a plagiarized paper. It's worse than meaningless. It makes a mockery of everyone who's actually put in the effort to produce a real "A" paper. It spoils the game for all players. I mean, if we're appealing to the "audience" to be third-party adjudicators of the intellectual merits, then, hopefully, there wouldn't be any important difference between their guidance and the guidance of your own good conscience. Unless the game is reduced to a popularity contest or a game of politics, then your chief concern is going to be with substance rather appearances. You're going to want to take a real position, rather than strike a pose. I mean, one can't help but see the similarities to politics, where there is a lot of posturing and button pushing and it's a game of manipulating the truth for some other purpose, usually self-serving. 

It could just be a slip of the tongue but, for example, one poster recently described her own motives for apologizing. She said she didn't want to appear to be dishonest. She did not claim to want to actually BE honest. She just didn't want to LOOK dishonest. Maybe it was just a bad choice of words on her part but - given her track record - I think it's reasonable to suspect it was more like a Freudian slip. 


Matt said:
You've described a very recognizable profile, one associated with the American archetype of the "rugged individual," a type that also often looks askance  at those (as being too genteel) who do behave differently in front of audiences (or worse, different audiences).  The image of the rugged individual is typically associated with an apotheosis of authenticity, a sense that your true self doesn't change, no matter where you are, and that signs of mutability, of acting, of showing different sides of yourself (or even, of _having_ different  sides of yourself) are all kinds of hypocrisy.  Pirsig, in fact, fits well into this picture of what moral types we should commend.  (A very good book on the history of this type in modern culture is Lionel Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity.)


dmb says:

The rugged individual? I generally think of this as a battle between intellectual values and social values, as the battle of ideas degenerating into a battle of egos. In that sense, too much emphasis on the individual is destructive to the process. You know, because as soon as I make it about me, it's not about the MOQ anymore. But yes, there is that Pirsigian notion that going through life by following the rules, painting by the number and constantly looking over your shoulder to make sure the other guy approves - all that is a kind of inauthentic way to live. And doesn't that sound like everybody when they were in high school? 



Matt said:
... So, I might be willing to say that _everything_ does not, in the end, come down to whether the claim has merit.  That everything does just come down to the merit of the claim might be a kind of Machiavellianism that I don't think is good.  It's not that the ends justify the means, in this picture, but that the means don't matter, just so long as the ends are just.  I think progress in justice has shown us that the means do matter in thinking about the long approach to just ends (i.e., if we have greater assiduity in our choice of means, then that will in fact create greater likelihood in being right in our ends).  There are ways to accuse, and ways not to, and the justification for there being good and bad ways (whatever the truth/merit of the claim) is that people are more likely to be justly accused if one follows the good ways. That's abstract, but it might cut a joint of difference between us. (Depends on how broadly you construe "merit.")



dmb says:

Machiavellian? The means don't matter? I don't understand. Like I said, if the accuser is specific and concrete about the basis of the accusation then the means are reasonable and they are intimately connected to the merits of the accusation at the same time. If the accuser uses a negative characterization, such as "straw man" or whatever, it can be held up to the specific and concrete basis to see it that characterization reflects the text in question fairly and accurately. You could preface the criticism with some kindness or follow the accusation with expressions of love but I'd personally feel like a big fat phony if I did that sort of thing. It almost always strikes me as condescending bullshit. Iris DeMent has a sweet little song about how she does not like her sorrow poured over ice or garnished with a lime. I'll take my sorrow straight up, she sings. Adding something sweet ain't gonna hurt me any less, she says. Anyway, I think merit and means can be talked about separately in the abstract but as a practical matter they are all tangled up in each other. If your means are bogus then merit goes out the window and if you have no merit but still insist on scoring points, then you have to resort to bogus means. I'm not sure I could even imagine a scenario wherein one could get away with having just one or the other.