Save the juvenile noses!

In previous posts, I’ve advocated treating conclusion-first argumentation as a distinct species of political discourse. In this post, I’ll try to further clarify.

For the sake of community and democracy, it’s necessary and advisable to communicate with individuals who steadfastly adhere to rationally indefensible political positions. It’s not, on the other hand, effective, necessary, or ethically sound to actually argue with them.

Time and again, one finds absurd positions treated by rational people as legitimate arguments. It’s not that rationally inclined people think it might be true that for example, GWB is the greatest U.S. President ever, but they do generally feel inclined to argue that he’s not.

In academic discourse, holocaust deniers aren’t taken seriously. In American political discourse, people who argue that the U.S. government’s motives are 100% benevolent are taken seriously. More accurately, they never have to explicitly make this self-evidently absurd claim. They simply replace U.S. government — by any reasonable account, at the very least, strongly influenced by corporate interests — with the vague, emotionally charged “America” (Mellencamp version) and find their position unassailable. Now, in attempting to speak accurately about the intentions of the U.S. government, you’re attacking the collective ego. You’re attacking the good people of Lansing, MI, Reedville, VA, and Austin, TX, as well as their ancestors, Olympic teams, and McDonald’s.

Presenting facts and evidence of neocon imperialist ambitions is one way to deal with the severely rationally disinclined (SRD). If however, as is generally the case, they’re seeing the world through the red, white, and blue lenses placed gently on their still-growing noses in their pre-critical years, they’re seeing your facts and evidence in red, white, and blue as well.  In red, white, and blue, there are lots of facts and evidence that look like evil, because there are lots of facts and evidence that counter the notion that America is 100% good.  Better to concern oneself with the glasses, how they got there, how they can be removed, and how their placement on future juvenile noses can be prevented.