The Tyranny of Tradition

Photo By Angie Hill (picture is of her son Braxton)

It has often been said that you can learn a lot from listening to a child talk.  People tend to mean that you can learn a great deal about the beautiful simplicity of life and the importance of innocence.  These are valuable lessons, but certainly not the only things children can teach you.  What I have found from listening to my children is that they have an amazing understanding of how political communication works.  It’s not that I am one of those parents who think their children are so smart they can handle molecular biology in the first grade, but my two year old and four year old have given me remarkable examples of arguments that are popular in the realm of American political discourse.  Carter could have gotten a third term with some of the things my kids say in passing.

Fallacy of Extension or The Strawman Argument

My 2-year-old daughter looked at me yesterday and announced, “It’s not night daddy, it’s the morning.”  She was certainly correct, it was 10 o’clock in the AM and the sun was shining brightly.  The intriguing part about her statement was that I had never said anything about it being nighttime.  She had ascribed to me a position that was both irrational and, more importantly, not mine.  She had used this to make her own case for the fact it was daytime.  Somewhere, Roger Ailes was smiling.  This argument is the backbone of much of the political debate that goes on today.

In the “non-toddler world” it works like this.  I accuse you of saying something you have never said and do not believe and then make my case in opposition to the illogical premise that now belongs to you.  You look like a lunatic and I look like my argument is not only correct, but a common sense response to the weird stuff that you have said at another time (even though you never said it!) Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech is the most famous example.  The man was accused of misusing 18 thousand dollars and ended up making an argument over how his political enemies were asking him to give a dog back that his children really loved.  No one had said anything about the dog except him.  Even my two-year-old couldn’t pull that off with a straight face.

Misdirection or The Old Red Herring

This one is common among children when the subject of bedtime comes up.  My four-year-old son has this down to a science.  He is a naturally curious boy, but this curiosity comes in spades right around the time he’s looking to stall the natural forces of parenthood.

Me:  “It’s bedtime.”
Son:  “Why do the leaves fall off of trees?”
Me:  “Let’s talk about it tomorrow, it’s bedtime.”
Son:  “Where do the stars come from?”
Me:  “We can talk about that first thing tomorrow, it’s time to go to sleep.”
Son:  “Why do people sleep?”

Politicians often use this one when they get in trouble.   The same sort of change the subject magic can be seen at many a press conference.  Here’s a made up example that should look familiar to anyone who spends more than a half hour a month watching the news.

Reporter #1:  “Is it true that you took illegal contributions from the law firm of Screwed, Over and Often?”
Politician:  “The question of what makes a contribution illegal is an important one.  Political contributions have been the bedrock of our great political system.  Without them, many great Americans wouldn’t have had the chance to become President.  Lincoln took contributions from great Americans like Cornelius Vanderbilt.  Lincoln was one of our greatest Presidents.  He took a stand against the evils of slavery.”

Argumentum ad Ignorantiam

My son hit me with this one yesterday and nearly ruined what was left of my barely usable brain.

Me:  We’ll be here for 18 more days.

Son:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11…uhm.  Daddy, it can’t be 18, 18 isn’t a number.

Basically, he was saying that if he doesn’t know what it is then it simply can’t be true.  In politics, there are many bizarre variations on this hustle.  The most surreal is the use of the absence of something to prove its existence.  Future Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren ran this one out back in the early 1940s to justify some of the post-Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese sentiment in California “I take the view that this lack (of enemy subversive activity in the west coast) is the most ominous sign in our whole situation. It convinces me more than perhaps any other factor that the sabotage we are to get, the Fifth Column activities are to get, are timed just like Pearl Harbor… I believe we are just being lulled into a false sense of security.”

If you observe children enough, you’ll see all sorts of interesting political communication going on.  The argument from personal charm is another standard.  “I’m cute and harmless, therefore, even though I have a chunk of my brothers hair in my hands, I couldn’t possibly have done that bad thing you are thinking I did.”  This explains much of the political career of Ronald Reagan. The argument ad infinitum is a common tool used when politicians repeat the same expressions thousands of times to try to cement them in the minds of voters.  When your 4-year-old asks you for the six thousandth time for the Thomas the Train Misty Island Rescue Set, understand that they are exhibiting traits that may one day allow them to lead this great nation.

If you are interested in more of the great strategies used to obfuscate truth and contribute to the further cheapening of language, check out this link…http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html