Apt Pupils

 

 

Argument Extraction

 

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Perfecting Dialectic

The Third Golden Rule: Demand Overall Consistency

Suppose that you favor candidate A for president, while I favor candidate B. Presumably, we will both have a series of arguments for why our preferred candidate should win the presidency. But when many arguments (along with their premises) are introduced in favor of some candidate, then a whole new problem arises: the question of consistency. In these cases, we have to make sure that the set of all of our premises is logical consistent. In other words, it can't be the case that I say one thing in my first argument for candidate B, and then the exact opposite in a second argument for candidate B. Moreover, it can't be that I see the fact that your candidate took campaign contributions from Wall Street as a sign that he is not qualified for the presidency, but ignore it if my candidate also took contributions from Wall Street. These are both forms of inconsistency, and they violate the third golden rule of dynamic argumentation: the demand for overall consistency (see Lyons and Ward 2018: 337-39).

An example will help clarify, but, as it turns out, we've actually already applied this principle. Recall this argument from last time:

The response to this argument came by way of noting that the hypothesis that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster is entirely consistent with the data we have. In other words, there is no evidence that it didn't happen in the way that Pastafarians say it did. If this is so, then Pastafarianism should also be taught in schools. Typically, someone who argues that scientific creationism should be taught in schools won't be too enthused about the prospect of Pastafarianism also being taught in schools. (That sounds like a guaranteed way of making children realize religious explanations are strange.) But(!), if the creationist is to be consistent, then he can't use consistency with scientific data to argue that scientific creationism should be taught in schools without also implying that Pastafarianism should be taught. That's what overall consistency would look like.

The Fourth Golden Rule: Be Charitable

Lastly, be charitable with your interlocutor. As you might've already realized, your arguments don't come out of your mind fully-formed. They take some time to structure and organize. When you are having a dialogue with someone and you are in the process of reconstructing their argument, don't assume that they're idiots, or have false information, or are trying to manipulate you, etc. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Try to reconstruct their argument in the strongest possible way. To do otherwise would be intellectually dishonest and would make you guilty of the strawman fallacy (Lyons and Ward 2018: 337-39).

 

 

 

On What is Possible, Continued

How to prevent conspiratorial thinking

One of the main reasons why conspiratorial thinking exists—and which we haven't discussed yet—is that conspiracies actually exist. Put bluntly, people think there are nefarious actors manipulating events in the world because there are some nefarious actors manipulating events in the world. Moreover, over time the evidence of these conspiracies is leaked or declassified, and the true nature of what happened comes to light. So, it is rational to believe in some conspiracies.

Those who are familiar with the history of the United States know that that country has had many covert operations that easily count as conspiracies. Shermer (2019, Lecture 10) discusses these real conspiracies:

• the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, with the end of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, 1953
• the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, with the end of installing the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala, 1954
• CIA meddling with elections in Lebanon, the result being that fifty-three out of sixty-six parliamentarians supported the USA-backed and USA-friendly President Camille Chamoun, 1957
• the CIA-enabled assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the pro-Soviet Congolese Prime Minister, 1961
• US President Richard Nixon's destabilization campaign against Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile, which resulted in the 1973 military overthrow of Allende and which included CIA-sponsored economic disruptions such as:
  • the blocking of international loans,
  • the financing of opposition newspapers and labor unions that would work against Allende-friendly corporations,
  • support to an opposition political party,
  • the organizing and paying for a nationwide trucker strike, and
  • military training to the opposition
• multiple assassination attempts on Fidel Castro as well as Operation Northwoods, a false-flag operation which called for the CIA (or some other U.S. government operatives) to both stage and actually commit acts of terrorism against American military and civilian targets to serve as pretext for the invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Castro, 1962
• Note: Operation Northwoods only came to light in a declassification in 1997.

In addition to giving us this laundry list of horror, Shermer also reminds us that the very nature of democratically-inclined nation-states makes it so that they take care of their own first. In other words, just like the Guardians will do anything to preserve their kallipolis, political elites in the USA (if we are giving them the benefit of the doubt, have done what they felt is needed to protect American interests—even if we see those attempts and interests as misguided and unjustified. I'm in no way attempting to justify the overthrows and anti-democratic actions of the USA. Instead, I'm remarking that these political elites have had done what they felt they needed to, both for (what they thought was) the good of the country and to stay in power. This is a byproduct of democracies. In a democracy, if you want to stay in power (and presumably you think you being in power is what's best for the country), then you will do what you think needs to be done to be elected again, or to make your party seem as the stronger one, etc. You either have to give the voters what they want or you have to at least make it like your party knows what it's doing.

Obviously, though, there's a problem here. If election pressures cause political elites to engage in conspiracies like the ones listed above, then sooner or later there will be what the CIA calls blowback, the unintended consequences and unwanted side-effects of covert operations. Terrorist attacks against Americans, such as 9/11, are an example of blowback. Moreover, it's not entirely clear that we want to live in a country, any country, that can perpetrate the acts detailed in the list above. As the Church Committee (formally known as the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) found in 1975, the capacities of the US government are very scary indeed. Among the revelations of the committee you can find Operation MK-ULTRA (involving the drugging and torture of unwitting US citizens as part of human experimentation on mind control), Operation COINTELPRO (involving the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil-rights organizations), Operation Family Jewels (a CIA program to covertly assassinate foreign leaders), and Operation Mockingbird (a systematic propaganda campaign with domestic and foreign journalists operating as CIA assets and dozens of US news organizations providing cover for CIA activity). Here's a quote from their report:

Of course, the technological capacities of the US government have not stopped developing since 1975. A case in point is the massive spying apparatus that was developed by the National Security Agency (NSA):

 

 

Unfortunately, there are plenty of other recent reasons for government mistrust. For example, Shermer also discusses several recent revelations which were divulged on Wikileaks. For example:

• American contractors killed innocent Iraqi civilians (and concealed it).
• The US government has set some prisoners in Guantanamo Bay as off-limits for human rights organizations, which means they are vulnerable to human rights violations.
• Famously, Army Specialist Bradley Manning (now Chelsea Manning) leaked footage of US personnel killing over a dozen people from a helicopter, including two Reuter’s journalists.
• There are 92,000 leaked documents relating to the war in Afghanistan including information on around 3,000 friendly-fire civilian killings.
• There's also documents showing the the US government ignored reports of torture at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

I hate to go on but... There's also the Pentagon papers (showing the existence of war-related lies and domestic spying, including on civil rights leaders), Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal, and forced sterilization in the USA (of minorities and people with disabilities) during the first quarter of the 20th century. By the way, American corporations are also guilty of conspiring. Recall that there was a long campaign by Big Tobacco and Big Oil to sow doubt about links between smoking and lung cancer and greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, respectively.¹

So, it appears that the existence of powerful entities that are capable of engaging in large-scale conspiracies (e.g., USA, transnational corporations) is, at least in part, what enables conspiratorial thinking to take root in a population. After all, it is irrational to not believe in conspiracies after looking at the lists above. The trick is, however, to discern the true conspiracies from the made-up junk. Well here's a first suggestion as to what can be done: have transparency in government and business. This is where we can turn on Plato. Plato believed that the Guardians can lie for the benefit of the kallipolis. But it is clear that various political/economic elites in recent history have engaged in immoral and illegal secret activity, and it has not been for the benefit of the people. Thus, ensuring that the activities of the government and big corporations are more discoverable to anyone who cares to investigate them is one way to stop conspiratorial thinking from taking root.

I am not alone in making this suggestion. Bost (2019) reminds that as the federal government grew during and after World War I, many conspiracy theorists began to see the American state as the biggest threat to their freedom. Bost adds that they were partially right. The growing executive branch did curtail American’s civil liberties, as they did through the Espionage Act of 1917. Later on, the FBI spied on Americans, infiltrated dissident groups, and engaged in entrapment ploys. The CIA drugged American citizens (during MK-ULTRA), they helped in the overthrow of democratically-elected heads of state (e.g., Guatemala, Chile), and they attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro many times, as we've seen. The Watergate scandal and the subsequent investigation revealed to Americans both how Nixon had surveilled his political enemies, with funds raised through extortion and bribery, as well as how he felt that he had dirt on the CIA. In tapes recorded by Nixon and acquired by the FBI, Nixon—when discussing how to get the FBI to stop their investigation into him—states that he had been protecting the CIA from “one hell of a lot of things.” Although what Nixon covered the CIA for has not been made clear, the press did publicize other CIA abuses, such as those mentioned above. Later, the Church committee revealed how the FBI had been spying on American citizens and even tried to blackmail Martin Luther King, Jr into committing suicide. Then came revelations of the Tuskegee experiments, where life-saving treatment was kept from black citizens for decades, and Iran-Contra. Clearly the power of the American state is influencing, in the very least, the kinds of conspiracy theories that are being circulated.

Of course, greater transparency can't be the only solution. An important shortcoming of this strategy is that there is necessarily a limit to what can be made transparent. Matters of national security and patented material obviously can't be discoverable. Any political entity needs to keep certain matters secret, although perhaps there should be some oversight over what gets classified—once again going against Plato. In any case, here are two other suggestions.

Van Prooijen (2019) considers some ways to reduce conspiracy mindedness. Reviewing studies that show that a sense of loss of control increases the likelihood that one will engage in conspiratorial thinking, Van Prooijen suggests empowering citizens in multiple ways to reduce conspiracy mindedness. For example, since it appears that higher education is correlated with higher cognitive complexity, well educated citizens ought to be less likely to believe in simple-minded conspiracy theories. Thus, he recommends that we encourage higher education and make it easily accessible. Van Prooijen ultimately gives his strongest support, however, for infusing civic actions with procedural justice (see the FYI section), always ensuring that the citizenry’s voice is heard. This, he believes, is the best method for suppressing conspiracy mindedness.²

Here's the second suggestion—short and to the point. Belief in conspiracy theories can be reduced via having subjects perform a task that increases analytic thinking (Swami et al. 2014). In other words, classes like this one might help;)

 

 

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FYI

Suggested Reading: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Conspiracy Theories (same as last time)

TL;DR: The School of Life, How to Resist Conspiracy Theories (same as last time)

Supplemental Material—

• Reading: Ishaan Tharoor, The long history of the U.S. interfering with elections elsewhere

Related Material—

• Video: Center for Court Innovation, What is Procedural Justice?

Advanced Material—

• Reading: Swami et al., Analytic thinking reduces belief in conspiracy theories

 

Footnotes

1. On the issue of the links between smoking and lung cancer as well as greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, Shermer (2019, lecture 12) points out that sowing doubt is easy. This is because science, by its very nature, produces findings that are provisional—they are meant to be updated with more information. But this nuanced and sophisticated approach to knowledge usually goes over the head of most non-scientists.

2. Keeley (2019) juxtaposes conspiratorial explanations with scientific and religious explanations. Noting that conspiratorial explanations often begin with an anomaly in the official story, Keeley notes that this is how various scientific revolutions originated (e.g., Newtonian mechanics, Semmelweis and germ theory, etc.). Another aspect of scientific explanations, and which religious explanations tend to lack, is the assumption of naturalism. However, it is not clear that conspiratorial explanations violate the assumption of naturalism. Conspiracy theories that include aliens (or super-advanced technology, etc.) are technically non-naturalist (at least in practice), Keeley argues, since they cannot be studied using empirical methods. Keeley closes with a discussion of falsification. Falsification is complicated in conspiracies because real conspiracies do have intelligent agents actively trying to divert the inquiry, e.g., Nixon/North during Watergate. Nonetheless, evidence falsifying a theory should also not be taken as evidence proving the conspiracy, as might be argued by a conspiracy theorist.