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The use of labels
Posted: Mar 2, 2010
On every level of life, from the physical to the metaphysical, reality is excruciatingly complex - far too complex for the human mind to deal with. Understandably, we have developed many mechanisms for coping with this complexity - on every level. In the sensory realm, the brain ignores "stasis" messages and only pays attention to changes in those messages that exceed a certain threshold. So you're ignoring the position messages coming from your toes right now (or you were!) and most of the things on your desk that are present within your visual field (or you were!). If one of them were to change "noticeably" (another term for threshold), your attention would shift to that sensory input. If our brains didn't work this way, the sensory world would be utterly chaotic. We categorize things - including their characteristics and behaviors - for the same reason. Again, this is very useful. If we had to re-define an automobile every time we saw one, and had to re-discover how it differs from a wheelbarrow or a paperclip, life would be intolerable. Ditto if we couldn't distinguish the class "policeman" from the class "mail carrier". (Incidentally, certain mental disorders are characterized by their inability to filter sensory perceptions, their inability to sort the world into meaningful categories, etc.) There is value in simplicity when it helps us to properly cope with complexity. Unfortunately, simplicity is seductive and all human beings have a tendency to carry it much too far and our minds are eager co-conspirators in helping us to commit the gross errors that result from over-simplification. There's a name for this: reductio ad absurdam, or reductionism. It means, literally, reducing complexity to the point of absurdity. We all want things to be simple, even when they're not, and our minds will gladly help us "make them simple". Absent some personal dedication to right reasoning, the human mind is lazy and so eager to leap over the very difficult job of thinking that it will even hide what it's doing from our own notice. It will ignore evidence contrary to our beliefs. It will hear what it wants to hear and ignore everything else. It will find support for its established beliefs. It will cling to first impressions despite receiving information to the contrary. ..and it will label things and people so that it can instantly and automatically attribute to those people all of the characteristics of that class (no matter how ill-defined or ill-informed THOSE might be). I was reading the book "Nonsense" by Robert Gula, who discusses no fewer than 170 different logical fallacies that people commit. Not just liberals, and not just conservatives, libertarians, "independents", Nazis, Communists, the PTA or members of the Southern Baptist Church. People. All of us. And his book fully explains, incidentally, a lot of the reason that we see such vitriol and hatred on forums such as this one, because one of those fallacies is our tendency to personalize issues to the point that we must identify an enemy on whom to blame our frustrations. Now - wouldn't it be nice if we dropped the labels, accepted the hard fact that issues are complex and need to be thought through objectively, and abandoned our need to make those who present evidence for a viewpoint different from our own into "enemies"?;
This is not ancient Greece. This is 21st century sound byte America - where our rhetoric is exercised
[ In Reply To ..]within the context of a political forum. The sound byte mentality of the times has not been accounted for in these suppositions, a fatal flaw of blaring oversight in your logic that renders most of this information (although intellectually challenging) sophomoric at best, and essentially useless within this context.
I will comment on one point you raised. Stasis messages can be very useful and important in building arguments, and when they are encountered on this board, they usually originate from posters who have actually taken time to research a given topic in some degree of depth. They are not produced by lazy brains. Quite the contrary. They are presented as elemental examples of a much broader idea, in the spirit of eliciting comment, diverse ideas and further discussions and are perfectly legitimate in an anonymous political forum setting, especially if the thread is going to represent a group of contributors as opposed to a single participant.
Those who read the post can then choose to engage or ignore. Last time I checked, that's the way it works in the blogosphere...an environment unfathomable to Aristotle, Plato, etc. It is also certainly your choice to restrict yourself to 2100-plus-year-old philosophies that do not apply to modern-day media sources or outlets, or to be an integral contributor in your own times, or both, or neither...whatever the case may be.
"Sound bites" are not a 21st century phenomenon and - thinking is thinking in ANY age
[ In Reply To ..]Your knowledge of the history of human communication is sadly deficient, and your defense of reductionist thinking is beyond deplorable (to say nothing of being badly thought out itself).
Your talent for undermining your own credibility is phenomenal. - sm
[ In Reply To ..]Your post below contradicted the your labels notion. Now here you are directly contradicting another point you were trying to make:
"...a lot of the reason that we see such vitriol and hatred on forums such as this one, because one of those fallacies is our tendency to personalize issues to the point that we must identify an enemy on whom to blame our frustrations.
Your current words of wisdom:
"Your knowledge of the history of human communication is sadly deficient, and your defense of reductionist thinking is beyond deplorable (to say nothing of being badly thought out itself)."
By my calculation, 3 insults in 2 lines. Seems you jump into instant personalization at the drop of a hat just because someone has the audacity to contradict you or point out flaws in your arguments.
You know nothing about me, my knowledge of the history of communication, logic, philosophy or anything else for that matter. Dressed up all pretty, your posts are nothing more than thinly veiled pseudointellectual slams of opposing views. Nothing impressive about that and most certainly this kind of close-mindedness is not the least bit intelligent.
Uh-huh. Whatever. - Give it up.
[ In Reply To ..]Never bring an (intellectual) knife to a gunfight.
Evidently.... - sm
[ In Reply To ..]the surrender is yours, not mine. Perhaps you should heed your own advice, that is if you can remember it from one post to the next, and avoid sabotaging your own arguments long enough to do yourself that favor.
How is clear thinking an ancient concept? - 2100-year-old philosophy?
[ In Reply To ..]Contrary to your assessment, I hardly think that an environment in which people freely exchange opinions would have been unfathomable to Aristotle or Plato.
Clear thinking? On THIS forum? Bit of a stretch, dontcha think? - As for your question....
[ In Reply To ..]Not only could they fathom the free exchange of ideas, they built entire philosophies around that, not to mention other innovative contemporary political schools of studies (democracy being one). That has nothing to do with what I said.
What was unfathomable to Aristotle and Plato was the advent of modern technology, sound byte media as a means of transferring news (knowledge), the time crunch factor of the technological age, the internet, instant messengers, blogosphere and twittersphere, and its effect on the way we communicate thoughts, ideas, concepts, etc.
Please enlighten me. How can one apply such rhetorical concepts inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronuntiatio, topoi, stasis, etc to 140-character Twitter formats and/or on the blogosphere? Seriously. I would love to know that.
We are not sitting around on face-to-face public forums here, are we? The anonymity, and it effect on the diminishment of civil discourse, in and of itself was also unfathomable to Aristotle and Plato. Those folks were interested in real intellectual enrichment, the pure exchange of ideas, theory building and theory-challenging, problem solving, and such. Some of us come to this forum hoping to find that. Ask yourself, what do we find instead? This forum is just a tiny microcosm of global sound byte mentality and anonymity and is a perfect example of how our communication styles vary according to the environment we find ourselves in and the forums we choose to use. After all, who among us talks to our spouse, children, parents, friends or coworkers the way we talk to each other on MT Politics?
BTW, Clear thinking is not an ancient concept. That is something else I did not say. It is simply a function of time, place and circumstance. I certainly do not expect to find it here.
yup - quite a stretch
[ In Reply To ..]? where are you coming from? You are capable of determining what great thinkers found unfathomable? Does this come to you in a dream or do you hear voices?
Ah, the belittling tactic. What happened to logic - and rational discussion?
[ In Reply To ..]Are you seriously trying to suggest that Aristotle and Plato could see 21 centuries into the future and account for sound byte mentality, chat rooms, blogs, Twitter, etc and that they accounted for all of that (so-called) progress in their philosophies? Now who is being absurd?
rational discussion - vs rhetoric
[ In Reply To ..]sharpen those thinking skills, please. I am not "trying to suggest that Aristotle and Plato could see 21 centuries into the future".
I am stating that it is folly for you or anyone else to presuppose what someone else is capable of fathoming. That has nothing to do with looking into the future.
Finally, there is nothing "rhetorical" about the notions inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, etc. with which you claim to be so familiar.
Any reasonable person would accept the premise that - sm
[ In Reply To ..]Aristotle and Plato could not have accounted for technology 2100 years in the future in their teaching writings. If it gives you some imagined sense of power to continue along that line, don't let me stop you, but you are essentially decimating your credentials as a rational thinker by repeatedly denying this or, even more pathetic, cleverly skirting the issue. Your reason for doing so is patently obvious. To admit that would shoot your original post full of holes and you would have to concede a point, something that you seem to be constitutionally incapable of doing. No problem. We are not having this discussion in a complete vacuum and, as always, each individual has his own set of realities and truths from which to draw their own conclusions.
Now we come to a point in your post I am really going to enjoy answering. The five canons of rhetoric are inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio. I took an advanced creative writing class many moons ago and still have the textbook handy....St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, Cheryl Glenn and Melissa A. Goldthwaite, first publishd in 1989. These canons, along with the concepts of topoi and stasis, were discussed at great length.
Too bad you don't have it at your disposal, but wait! You are in luck. You can Google inventio, rhetoric , the author's names, or any number of various combinations and come up with the following link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventio
notice the little blue box on the right at the top of the page. Happy homework.
Poisoning the well with "any reasonable person" - is really childish argumentation
[ In Reply To ..]The question isn't whether Plato could have foreseen the computer in the first place. I doubt he could have foreseen the ballpoint pen or the printing press either.
The issue is that technology - whether in 2000 BC or 2000 AD - doesn't repeal the nature of logic nor the rules of rational thought. No doubt, 2000 years hence there will be yet other technologies that we cannot imagine today, but logical thinking will STILL be logical thinking...and foolishness will STILL be foolishness.
What is this, round 7? I've lost count. Now hear this. - I never said that.....
[ In Reply To ..]It makes no difference how many times you put words into my mouth so you can dispute them, it does not change the flaw in your original post.
My comment was centered around rhetoric. Why? Because your original attempt to disguise a slam behind pretentious intellectual prose raised the issue of stasis messaging. In fact, the slam was centered around that concept.
The logical conclusion to draw from this would be that we are talking about rhetoric, especialy since stasis is such an integral component of inventio (the first canon of rhetoric) when building arguments to support theory. Your response to this was first and foremost to ignore your own directive about personalization, bring out the nasty and try to divert attention way far away from your flawed pesentation. One amusing example of this was your attempt to assert that sound byte mentality is a historical phenomenon. Within the context of a conversation dealing with a time span of 2100 years, the advent of sound byte mentality a couple of decades ago (as opposed to centuries) being characterized as "historical" seems a tad on the absurd side, dontcha think?
I prefer a bottom line message, rather than a painstaking step by step journey through dialog already available. Why? Because we are not on the steps of the Acropolis and this is not ancient Greece. It's 2010, we are in a chat room and there are time constraints to consider.
There are far more interesting topics than you inability to concede a point to pursue. Here's the bottom line. You were confronted with a list of facts that you could not dispute. Instead, you chose to pen a post you hoped would be intimidating by couching its flawed content in academic rhetoric. You failed to intimidate and failed to present a viable argument, because of your oversight of contemporary communication styles.
I came along and casually challenged you on content and in the ensuing posts you have yet to address the original fact list or the folly in trying to apply Aristotlelian and Platonean philosophical principles to discussions held in sound byte settings.
Your posts have proven my point quite nicely. Just look at the stormy controversy surrounding a meager list of 15 facts has caused. Imagine trying to present those facts within the context of a full-blown essay on THIS forum. You have diverted, digressed, squirmed, and done everything except directly address the original point. Ergo, chat room forums where folks enjoy anonymity, can get as down and dirty as their hearts desire without social scrutiny, and more often than not communicate with drive-bys and 2-3 line messages is not the place for protracted, rational, logical, rhetorically correct dialogs to take place.
In other words, your admonishment was rejected on the grounds of a flawed argument. Facts matter. Too bad if some go ballistic when confronted with them. I am much more interested in sharing real dialog where opposing views come together to examine them, discuss them, dissect them, exercise them, subject them to group analysis and draw conclusions. I will not be changing my style of posting on account of your inability to engage in that process.
For the sake of clarification... - sm
[ In Reply To ..]I ignored your poison well graphic, and was not referring to your characterizing my "any reasonable person" comment as childish. Careful. Your duplicity is showing. You seem to think you have cornered the market on the use of the term "reason" in your posts. When you talk about it, it's the law of the land. When I mention it, I am being childish. Whatever. I really do not think that delusions of grandeur are a part of rational thinking, but hey, be my guest.
The clarification refers to the pseudosubstance of your post, i.e., inventing suppositions and attributing them to me, i.e., that my assertions are trying to argue that there is no place for logic and rational thinking in contemporary communication. THAT is what I never said, since all posts have been addressing the concepts of rhetoric and communication styles. That is the structural aspect of rhetoric. Underpinning that activity is the substantive component. One would hope that the participants are doing their best to utilize logic in their content, although your posts are not a particularly impressive example of that. Like I said, one can hope.
skewered! - yup gal
[ In Reply To ..]No imagined sense of power here, nor am I pathetic. But thanks for the humbling words.
I am not sure what point you want me to concede, or if indeed you are confusing me with another poster, as you did so below.
I accept the premise that Aristotle and Plato "could not have accounted for" technology 2100 years in the future.
I was clear about this above.
I maintain only that we cannot presume what another can fathom.
So what?
You stated "...engage or ignore. Last time I checked, that's the way it works in the blogosphere...an environment unfathomable to Aristotle, Plato, etc."
It was my impression that you were advancing the concept that "ignore or engage" was a concept not understood by the ancients. Perhaps your reference was too oblique.
You declared: "This is not ancient Greece. This is 21st century sound byte America - where our rhetoric is exercised within the context of a political forum."
Sounds like ancient Greece to me.
You totally took me to school on the five canons of rhetoric (and I deserved it). I misunderstood your use of the word 'rhetorical' and revealed my own ignorance!
I cannot know what Plato or Aristotle imagined about our evolving capacity to transmit information, but I can infer that the ability to communicate was a value to them, and it sounds important to you, as well.
I think you have a brilliant writing style. I really enjoyed your posts. I mean this sincerely. I found myself smiling.
Oh me oh my - oh dear
[ In Reply To ..]I'm afraid you've confused "elemental" with "unsupported", and I frankly don't know anyone who would support the bizarre notion that the advent of technology has somehow repealed the rules of logical thinking or rational discussion.
Stuck in a rut? Putting words in my mouth you can dispute - isnt helping.
[ In Reply To ..]The confusion is yours, my dear, unless of course you think you can somehow argue the facts out of existence. You were supplied with links to sources. Post your own links to dispute these facts or concede the point that "elemental" IS supported. Logical thinking and rational discussion does, after all, hinge on the ability to provide proof of premise. So go ahead. Show me unsupported.
Now you have reduced yourself down to arguing with yourself. "The advent of technology has somehow repealed the rules of logical thinking or rational discussion." Your words, not mine. I simply suggested that stasis messages in the form of fact listing is an legitimate element of argument building. A list of irrefutable facts such as the ones I provided and you tried to take issue with often elicit this type of outrage and uproar in the absence of logical and well supported rebuttal, which speaks for itself.
In your brilliantly inspired "yup" dodge....errr, I mean reply, you and your intellectual self failed to answer the question I repeat here to illustrate the point.
Please enlighten me. How can one apply such rhetorical concepts inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronuntiatio, topoi, stasis, etc to 140-character Twitter formats and/or on the blogosphere? Seriously. I would love to know that.
While you are at it, suppose you take a stab at backing up that "sound bytes is not a 21st century phenomenon" statement. Get a clue. It's a function of 11th hour 20th century technology.
Your failure to account for sound byte mentality and how it flawed your premise is the only issue you are trying to dispute. I suggest you concede that point too, since it is patently obvious that the blogosphere is not exactly the best forum to choose for rational discussion.
Now if you are trying to suggest that sound bytes are actually legitimate forms of thinking that produce rational discussions, and especially if this is descriptive of your own mentality, then further discussion of this is really a lost cause.
not my post... - yup gal here
[ In Reply To ..]It is I who came up with the "brilliantly inspired 'yup' dodge" .... not the poster above to whom you were responding.
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