The New York Sophist

Is asking someone to consider the broader impact of supporting a policy out of place? Disrespectful? Is it hostile? Is it inconsiderate?

The Governor of Louisiana thinks so. An LSU Law professor asked students that if they felt comfortable voting for Donald Trump because of his policy agenda, they should consider how that makes people of different identities feel.

This is a great argument, one that is great because of the element of surprise. Most people who are voting purely on policy issues – something like the southern border for example – wouldn’t be connected to the rights of the groups that Trump and a lot of his supporters don’t appear to have respect for or care about.

This probably won’t go anywhere as in a classroom teaching a class a professor has a lot of protection. They have academic freedom and first amendment freedom. Professors often rely on saying controversial or surprising things to stimulate class discussion and thought. Where else in the world would highly-educated people be permitted to stimulate thought at this level without university protections?

It’s a great thing to think about for a lawyer: How would supporting the letter of the law, or a policy, have adverse communication effects that could be interpreted as a policy choice, or worse, a principled stand? Sometimes in choosing what we think is the best policy we are happy to let the lives and bodies of others serve as the lubricant to let the gears of our lives operate unimpeded. Occasionally this is done willingly, more often this is done out of a cursory awareness but an unwillingness or perception that there can be no other way. What this professor is suggesting is that perhaps the decision of how to vote or support policy should be done via a different kind of rubric, one that doesn’t force a choice.

The university today is often thought of as a job-training site. Students are there to learn how to do a job, and that’s it – it should be apolitical. This model strips the university of a number of its more important and vital functions which can be thought of through different narratives and discourses. The job training model is the least relevant namely because it would be so much cheaper to enter the job after high school and be taught by your employers. This wouldn’t take public money, it would be corporations footing the bill, and they would get employees who did things exactly the way they wanted. But most corporations would be against this; they want the university system. But why? Someone with a degree commands more salary and also probably has the tools to push back on poor decisions made by bosses, asking annoying questions and wanting reasons why the policies are the way they are.

Let’s think of the university as a seed bank, as the place that ideas we have rejected are allowed to live in a terrarium of sorts, where we can repopulate the world with the extinct ideas if we ever needed to. This is why universities teach things that are “useless” to many people outside the university. Teaching these things allow people to understand that these perspectives are around and available, and can be used if needed to address something, solve an issue, or provide some new light to old perceptions. The seed vault keeps ideas and methods alive and available in case society realizes that their quest for progress and innovation didn’t check the blind spot. This is insurance at the minimum.

But also the seed vault model encourages different ways of thinking by exposing students to types of thinking and approaches that seem incorrect and out of place. Academic freedom is essential to allow professors to introduce ways and approaches to thought that aren’t popular or automatic. We are the products of many things when it comes to our thought: The media, our relatives and friends, what we choose to read, watch, and listen to in our spare time. We need direct intervention in this, and that intervention is unlikely to come on the path of least resistance. That is, it has to come from an agitator who is protected and encouraged to agitate – a teacher.

A teacher cannot just say whatever they want. Academic freedom is the responsibility to be free to interrogate and speak however they wish about anything that will encourage or spark different ways of thinking. In this case, this incident is justified. The professor is not dismissing the people who voted for Donald Trump, he is pushing on the question of whether or not it is ethical to vote for someone purely on policy. What a question! Isn’t that what we are supposed to do, make logical decisions about what’s best for the country? This professor pushes back – best for whose country?

Unfortunately our elected officials are starting to think of dissent – even the intellectual exercise of dissent – is a threat to the country. Which is one of the biggest threats to the country that we could possibly face. If we are no longer permitted to question authority and criticize how we make decisions, what sort of democracy do we have at that point? Who is really free to express ideas? What kind of culture will that attitude produce?

Happy Thanksgiving, readers!

Tomorrow is Turkey day and if the Northern State Parkway was any indication on Monday, stress is high. I’ve never seen so many accidents. Perhaps our minds aren’t where they should be because we are dreading that Uncle or Aunt coming to dinner and trying to start fights about Trump or Harris or whoever with everyone in the family who thinks the other way. Facing people who see the world differently than you do can be the source of great anxiety. But it’s not the people or the ideas that cause this. It is the lack of training in argumentation that causes us the most grief.

Argumentation is not a breakdown of communication or a failure to care. It is an essential discourse that is necessary for human interaction and even human thriving. We are meant and designed to argue with one another in order to sharpen and improve our thinking. But shouting at one another and attacking people personally isn’t going to help. Neither is bragging, gloating, or blaming someone for the destruction of the world. Instead, we have to think about argumentation as a way to get people to think and understand things differently. Luckily, argumentation works this way rather naturally if you approach it in an appropriate way. Sharing our ideas is sharing who we are, and that includes disagreement and argument. But we have to do it in a way that allows for the productive effects of argument to come to the forefront. Argumentation is not fighting and not related to hate. It is respect for another human mind at work, and it shows that respect by interrogating that mind’s moves. Much like analyzing a chess game or a football match for strategy, it gives us an appreciation for error that improves all thought going forward, optimally.

It is a good thing to argue and defend your point of view. But you definitely need to be able to explain yourself as well as have reasons and evidence for your beliefs. If you don’t have those things, you can still participate but you might have to ask more questions or listen more than you imagined you would. One of the most shocking things that can happen in argumentation is that the other side offers up an idea you haven’t heard or thought about yet. This is a good thing – it’s why we argue. We argue to improve our thinking, knowledge and understanding not of the truth or the facts, but about perception and other people.

Here are some suggestions on how to engage with others productively tomorrow.

How to initiate an argument, or participate in one

Argument is invitational and it’s a group project! People forget this, but argumentation is not the firing of the cannons, it’s the invitation to dance. It’s asking someone to help you carry things. It’s asking someone to open a door for you, reach something on a high shelf, or taste something that you are cooking.

I often refer to cooking when I’m discussing argument. The reason why is Socrates, according to Plato, dismissed the study of argumentation and rhetoric by comparing it to cooking. For Socrates, cooking makes things taste good that are unhealthy for us, so it’s dangerous. It’s also not an art! For Socrates, an art can only be something that has total benefit as its goal. 

I would hate to go to a dinner party at Socrates’s house. 

Cooking is something that brings the family together, brings us all into a room to do that one basic thing all humans have to do to survive: Eat. While we are doing one of our most basic survival tasks, albeit symbolic for many people this time of  year (I know I don’t really need that much food, or these fancy types of food) it’s a celebration of what it means to be alive and human, thankful for being able to take a moment and sit down and eat together. 

Argumentation is something similar. We should be thankful for the chance to “cook up” our ideas and “serve” them to others to see what they need to “taste better.” Like food, everyone prefers different levels and kinds of seasoning in their arguments. 

If someone rejects your argument they are not rejecting you. They are saying “More garlic please!” And a good cook wouldn’t take that as a personal attack. Yet we do in argument!

Another thing to think about in argument is that it’s not about being right, it’s about making a connection with someone and sharing something together. Argument is more like a conversation than like warfare. People don’t see it this way because they forget that argument, at its heart, is an exchange. You can’t have an argument if the other person doesn’t offer anything – that’s just a lecture. And I can tell you that after teaching for over 20 years,, few people really enjoy a lecture. They would rather be participating in a conversation. If you want to have an argument you must have an exchange, and you want that exchange to be substantive – it can’t just be two or three lines. It has to take you both somewhere new.

Knowing something is true is not the ending point. This isn’t how you enter an argument. Knowing something is true should make you want to think about how to make it convincing to other people – that is if you really do care about the truth. Having the truth is not like having power or being dominant. It’s the first step in thinking about how to bring people over to something that is beneficial without question. A good thing to look into if you are interested in how difficult this can be is how doctors are taught to convince patients to change their habits and become healthier. They don’t tell the patients they are wrong or stupid; they explain to the patient what the facts are and what this can mean if they don’t address certain actions. 

Another basic rule is that being right is very different from being convincing. If you think you are right, and you are comfortable with that belief, you aren’t really going to understand why you should work hard to believe it. If it took you some time to come around to it, you are in a better position to argue because you can tell the story as to how you came around to your belief. Saying something is obvious and “only an idiot” would think otherwise isn’t convincing to anyone – you just called your argument partner an idiot. Not helpful. 

Instead, think about how to tell a story about your belief that starts with common concerns, grounds, or ideas that you both might share. The secret trick to winning an argument is to not speak before you have reminded yourself that the person you are speaking with has a human mind and human experiences just like you do. As you eat together, remember that you are both human and have similar capacities for thought and feeling. Then you can say something that will be convincing. This is the root of it, but not the total picture of course.

Finally, think about your goals in initiating an argument. Why do you want to argue? If it is something other than to improve the quality of thought and feeling with others, then you should probably stay quiet. It’s easy to cause a lot of harm expressing anything – even a phrase you think is innocent. In Buddhism they have the saying: “Mouth open; already a mistake.” Think about this before you start to invite others to argue with you about politics or anything for that matter.

If you have the goal of correcting others, think to yourself whether or not this is your role. Should you be the one to correct them? Are they doing great harm? Or is it more that you feel annoyed that they don’t think like you do? If you think about it, and you believe engaging in argument with this person will improve thought and feeling about things, then go for it!

How to get out of an argument

A lot of us fear being cornered by our political relatives and smothered in a bunch of discourse about the election. How do we handle this? 

The best way is to decline. A lot of times people will see this as a “victory!” – oh too scared you are going to lose, huh? Nothing to say!

What I suggest is staying quiet or trying to change the conversation to something else. It might really bug you that they claim this as a “victory,” but a victory over what? What exactly has been won? You have offered nothing and they have offered nothing. Things are as they were when the conversation started. They didn’t gain anything; they are still convinced like they were when they initiated.

Also, if someone feels they are right about something, and they really do believe it, why challenge others to argue in such an aggressive way? To me, this communicates deep doubts. They need the exchange of aggression to convince themselves that they are correct.

Silence annoys people who want to have arguments, who demand to argue because it denies them of the pleasure of expressing their frustration and anger about – well who knows what! It’s too simple to think that their anger and frustration is about politics. It has to be deeper than that. But you are (probably) not a psychologist, so it’s best to just talk about something more fun and interesting and avoid the argument entirely.

You can always respond that you only argue with people when you think there’s a chance to learn something new, change minds, or think – and that you don’t think that the suggested topic and attitude is going to get you there. 

Another thing to do to get out of arguments is to ask questions: I would love to know what good things you think Trump will do his first year, what will be best? Or, what do you think we are missing out on since Harris lost? This usually defuses the debate and allows them to talk but they will talk in terms that pretty quickly get exhausted since you aren’t pushing back, you are just asking for more information. Here’s some other starter questions:

What’s the most important issue to you?
How is Trump going to address that/fail at that?

What policy are you most scared of/looking forward to?

What challenges do you think will be toughest to take on?

Sometimes people don’t really want to argue, they just want someone to listen to them. As I have been told many times using this technique, “thank you for listening to my views.” It seems people don’t want to do it – they are afraid of hearing views they don’t like, or hate, or think are evil. But if you feel this way about those views, what harm is there in listening? Are you afraid you will change your mind? 

Now on to some specific advice for some of you arguers out there.

Advice for the Trump People

Now is not the time to celebrate like you’ve won the big game. People who you want to argue with will find this inappropriate. Social convention, things like appropriateness and timeliness, are vital to successful argumentation. It’s not just important that you have the best information or good phrasing, it’s vital that you also have a sense of when it’s in good taste to bring up what you want to argue about. 

If you just want to make your Democratic relatives feel bad, they probably already do. So there’s no reason to gloat – it’s not an argument and it doesn’t improve thinking, reasoning, or understanding.

But understanding is the bedrock of all good argumentation. You can’t agree with someone if you don’t understand what it is they are saying, what they believe, or how they connect multiple facts or phenomena. If you think you could increase understanding, that’s a good reason to invite an argument.

You should be prepared to defend Trump as a criminal. For many, a criminal is someone who doesn’t respect the law. How will you engage this argument? You can re-define the idea of a criminal – you could argue most businesspeople at his level are criminals, he just got caught – or you can take the approach that the laws he disrespected have no relevance to being President and enforcing constitutional principles. 

Some will argue that Trump has no respect for the Constitution because of January 6th. You should be prepared for this argument. The evidence is pretty strong and convincing that he incited the violent mob to attack the capitol and didn’t want to call them off. This is a tough one.

With any tough argument the best thing to do is research. Have some notes on your phone and take a look at some sources you think are good interpretations of what happened that day. 

But it’s best overall if you can avoid talking about Trump “the man.” One thing to consider is that Trump won the election in spite of all of these things against him as a person. You can always pivot such arguments to policy. This sounds like: “I understand you think Trump is a bad guy, but I like his plan for ________ .” This shifts the argument onto ground about what policies you voted for. You can ask: “I voted on policy as I’m sure you did, not personality.” 

Now this only works if you did vote on policy! I hope you did!!

Be ready on Trump’s big plans for the tariff and the border – what is the evidence that these policies are going to solve major issues in the country? Find some experts who think that these things are going to work. For example, many financial analysts believe the tariff is a negotiating policy to get compliance from our neighbors on a particular model of border safety. That might be a good addition to the argument! Anything that gives another point of view other than the tired views we see on CNN is helpful. 

Remember, the goal of having an argument is to get buy in to your perspective, not to be right. A victory isn’t rendering people into silence. That simply means they need time to think (a good sign for your argument). What true victory would be is hard to say. Perhaps it would be willingness to talk politics with you again in the future? Or saying to you that they have thought about what you said and have changed some of their articulation of their beliefs (but still hold the same beliefs)? Rarely, if ever is it that you face-crushed them. Reserve that for the football game chat. Argumentation never works this way and if you think you have done that in an argument, you most likely didn’t have an argument. That was a fight, and best avoided.

Advice for the Harris people

Kamala Harris ran an entire campaign based on the idea that Trump is a terrible person. This is the argument of ad hominem, or “at the person,” a strategy of discounting someone’s position or claim in an argument by pointing out that they are a mess, evil, or incompetent.

Many logicians believe that the ad hominem is a fallacy, which is an illegitimate way to argue. Instead of taking on the ideas you criticize the person offering the ideas. You dodge your responsibility in the argument to prove the idea or suggestion to be a bad one. 

If you want to argue with Trump supporters, it’s a good idea to abandon this strategy. It didn’t work too well in the general election. Now you see pundits and journalists claiming that the reason the Democrats lost was because they went “too far left.” I think it’s more reasonable to think that they didn’t spend enough time on the policies and values that they believe and support.

If you want to have an argument with Trump supporters, it would be a great strategy to focus on values and policies that you think are better for the country and/or better supported by the Democrats.

Being right about Donald Trump being a terrible person doesn’t help them see why they should support the Democrats, who might – from their point of view -support terrible policies. Start somewhere else in your argument. Perhaps with a Democratic policy that really has done good things in the country or the world.

One of the best strategies here is to localize your arguments. What’s a policy of the last administration that directly impacted you or someone you know in a positive way? Better yet, what’s a policy that impacted them or someone they know? This is a great way to talk about the benefits or even generally the effects of these big policies – such as the infrastructure act – that often get overlooked ironically because they are so massive.

You can even go very general if you like. You could talk about what a good government should do in different situations, and align Democratic party thinking with that principle. You can then point to things Trump supports or has said that indicate difference or some static/conflict with that principle. 

The goal here is not to prove that Trump is a terrible person. A lot of people who voted for Trump would agree with this. They voted for him because he doesn’t support “wokeness,” or because of the border or something like that. You should shift to policy and principle as a way of engaging these ideas to get the other person to see your position. 

Point out that our system works by voting for policy not promise. The record is essential even if you don’t like the people or personalities in a party. You should always try to direct the argument toward policies and what these policies mean for our everyday lives. 

General Advice for Anyone

Establishing an argument requires you to really figure out what idea you’d like to defend or what idea the other person is defending. You can then choose ways to engage with it. By the evidence, by definition, by degree, or by action. There’s also a other way to deal with it and that’s to say wrong forum or wrong place for the conversation. That might work for some argument averse people, but it’s not often what people who wish to share their views will choose. 

The best reason to engage an argument, particularly at a gathering of family or friends is not to make fun of them, belittle them, troll them, or watch people get angry. The reason is to reflect on your own ideas and views. What are our beliefs if not their articulation? We articulate our principles to ourselves every day. And if we don’t, we run the risk of losing the reasons why we believe what we do. Argument with other people is the way in which we examine and understand our own reasoning, or lack thereof, and correct it in ways that not only allow us to communicate our views better to other people but explain them better to ourselves, to really understand why we feel and think the way we do. There’s no other tool quite like it.

I must remind myself that education and learning is practicing something. We don’t have the convenient reminders like doctors and dentists do, that they work in or at a practice; that they own a “medical practice” and “practice medicine.” I think we “practice education” but we don’t have the reminder all the time that we are doing well at the thing by trying to do it at our best level.

Practice goes deeper than preparation. In Buddhism, practice is the thing. There’s a famous story about the Zen center in New York that people would arrive and the master would sit them down and say “we’ll get started soon.” Then everyone was just sitting. They were doing the thing they were waiting to do, unaware of it. This was somehow the perfect kind of practice – not concentrating, not thinking about it too much, and letting your mind go and think and imagine what is coming. Seems like good Zen practice to me.

Practicing something is being in it and doing it, practicing it not to prepare for the real thing, but practicing it because we care for it and we want it to be good all the time, every time. Practice is something that is done to improve or get better right now. Certainly not for when it “really matters.” This is a big mistake that a lot of well-meaning teachers make. We have the following well-meaning but horrible trope:

“In the real world, this work/behavior will not be accepted by your boss or employer”

I hear this one a lot. I think this is lazy. This is a fear appeal, that whatever practices are going on in the classroom are permissible to a degree, but not the degree that you are preparing for in the world. In other words, your behavior would be rejected in a situation that really mattered, where the stakes were high (translation: the classroom doesn’t matter; low-stakes). The teacher pins their authority on the questionable one of the forced labor market of capital and the idea that they are saving the student from a material punishment in the future.

Another related one is that the student “disrespects” the instructor through their lateness or poor work. I don’t understand this one either. Why are instructors in the immediate position of deserving respect straight away? A more equitable relationship is one where respect is the finishing place not the starting place of the teaching relationship.

These two examples misunderstand the role of practice. What are you practicing? How to be yourself. This requires intense attention daily. When you are reading you are practicing being yourself reading; when in class, you are practicing that. You are practicing speaking when you share your thoughts; you are sharing yourself, you are practicing how to be in the world with others.

This doesn’t mean that what happens in class is less than or somehow not high-stakes, it’s the highest stakes as it is the real world. No distinction. Whatever happens in a classroom is as real as it gets. The students and instructor have to face it together and account for it. There’s no game or fakeness. It’s the real deal, it’s the same practice you will do for the rest of your life out there without a classroom to “protect” you or a school to make sure you don’t mess up.

Practicing practice is the focus of education and what higher education should really be thinking about right now. How do we encourage serious practice of our practice? Are there multiple practices? How do we engage them and make sure the practices are good? How do we sustain the focus and attention on our practice of thought, writing, speaking, and reading? This isn’t just up to each individual; this is a community effort and at the same time is and becomes the practice of community.

The ICC indictment against Netanyahu is getting a lot of attention in the media as being out of line. U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham has said that if an ally arrests him, the United States will tank their economy. Joe Biden has said the charge is “outrageous.” But what other method or manner should be used to investigate whether a head of state with a powerful military has violated the rights that all humans should enjoy by default?

It’s clear that powerful world leaders are not a good source for evaluating this on face. They have a narrow goal of self-preservation, often couched in the rhetoric of the nation-state. The state must defend itself not only territorially, which is obvious, but also symbolically – the permanence and obviousness of borders is best conveyed through material violence. The state has no other tools other than slaughter to convince others that their borders are real.

There are times when border defense via weapons is necessary but these times should be rare. The further you live from a border the more real it seems. The closer you get, the more it seems to be somewhere else. You are never quite there. Sometimes we have to put big signs and facilities on borders to make sure people don’t mistake where they are.

The symbolic necessity of a hard border in the logic of the nation-state means that leaders of nation-states will defer to going hard on defending them – including violating other borders and territorial integrity, invasion, and other such actions that one would see at a pre-school such as breaking your stuff because you broke mine; knocking over your brick tower because you didn’t like mine, etc.

The suffering people on and around the border and the state or organization that has been determined to be at fault pay the price. The ICC makes sure that the state’s actions do not violate the rights of those who happen to be close to these borders, or in a geographically inconvenient spot. The ICC is the agreement that the governments of the world should step back and check one another to determine if state reaction to the flimsiness of borders goes too hard or too devastating on the physical lives and practiced rights of the people who happen to be in the area chosen for this demonstration of force.

The ICC seems like the perfect place to this rhetorician to stand and defend one’s actions. It seems like the best forum we have of this writing to make the argument that the nation-state has no alternative but material destruction and casualty when there is an existential threat to the state. The ICC prosecutor has the burden to argue when and where that line exists: That the defense of the nation-state has limits that should be respected and enforced in order to secure the fundamental rights of the people of the world. This discourse would be incredible to have access to in order to help people have conversations with one another about military reaction to violation of state sovereignty, and why violating peoples’ right to life or right to safe passage, might not be a valid way of re-establishing the symbolic certainty that “borders make the state” (to the tune of the clothes make the man).

Maybe I’m naïve, but I think stepping back and having the arguments articulated as to why such destruction is not only appropriate, but necessary, or perhaps the only option available versus the arguments that this kind of state action is illegitimate because of the cost on human rights, life, etc as well as the interesting argument that perhaps it further de-legitimizes the state in ways that it can’t recover (a very cynical reason to sign on to the Rome Statute, but I would think some governments had this conversation in their parliament or perhaps behind closed doors) is essential for us to figure out not just who to vote for or what policy to protest against, but the very nature and role of things like voting and protest in our world that we increasingly feel as more real and simultaneously deeply, deeply symbolic.

Finding some pretty striking and pretty sad draft posts in my Google Drive, which honestly I haven’t looked at in many years. I started using OneDrive and Word exclusively a while ago and cleaned out my Google Drive to save money. I put everything on my NAS and deleted it from Drive except for the Google Docs. Those don’t take up any space, and there were about 1200 of them. So I figured I would just let them sit there until – well, probably forever. I saw no need to really mess around with them.

Now My NAS is getting older and I need to make a backup and put it somewhere else. Backups are tough. Without backups though you get no archive. And when I start to make a backup, I become an archivist. I have to decide what is worth keeping and what gets tossed. It’s costly to archive every single document and file you have on every computer. My NAS has a functional 16TB of space with 7.5 of it used. We’ll have to get bigger one day but at that point, I’ll just buy a new NAS unit with more drive bays. Restoring 16TB of data should be made as easy as possible. So I’ve been curating.

I’ve thinned out the backup as much as possible but in so doing found some drafts of things that I can’t believe I wrote – they seem too good for me from 11 years ago. I found some very sad, very angry things too – all of which I think I’ll post on here. They are worth sharing even though they strike me as not my own.

Years ago I did some archival research at the University of Maryland and met a great archivist there who was too busy to really spend time with me although he helped me a lot in preparing my visit. On my last day there we met and he apologized for being so busy – he had just been dropped into (or had dropped on him) boxes of Spiro Agnew’s archival material. Most of which was socks and gifts of geographically-themed ashtrays. This seems like garbage to me, but the rubric of the archivist says: Who are we to decide what future scholars should have access to? What becomes important in the future? What should we keep for them if not everything? It’s a tough thing to try to guess about future significance.

For me I’m glad I have a lot of backups. You can see on this “new” blogsite I have thousands of posts restored from frequent backups from all my old blogs, including the one from 2007 where I’m speculating about what it will be like to work at St. John’s. That positivity aged like milk, but it’s still nice to see it there. Is this an archive of ideas, and have I saved too much?

It’s late here and everyone is in bed, but I can hear my NAS uploading the backup to the cloud server.