There’s a certain degree of irritation that I have with people who get pissy about alcohol consumption. There are limits to everything. 10 glasses of water a day is probably not too many. 10 bottles of coke probably is. 10 glasses of beer almost certainly is. There’s a certain kind of person, though, who looks at alcohol through a vastly different lens than they do other substances. They have excuses, of course. They’ll tell you how “addictive” it is because it’s a “drug”… or wring their hands about its inhibitive effects on inhibitions… or any number of other fronts.
Their real problem with alcohol comes in all shapes and sizes, but they’re almost uniformly masked with one of the stock excuses. That creates some problems, though, when those people start to try to defend their opinion. More often than not, they need to defend it because they’re trying to convince people to live like they do.
Take a stroll around facebook… these morons are all over the place. Take a search of facebook groups for the terms ‘alcohol good time’, for example. You get all sorts of groups bragging about how they don’t need to drink to have fun. Which is great. I would love to know how many of them also joined groups like “I can breathe without the assistance of a ventilator!” or “I don’t need Subway, I can make my own sandwich!”
My point, if I have one, is that (short of the true alcoholics) everyone can have a good time without alcohol. Some just choose not to… but the logic that most people display when they step up onto soapboxes about this topic is equally strained. Take, as a fine example of such intellectual contortionism, a comment by Corey on Doug’s blog. Let’s have a look at that. Line by line.
(Pardon the sarcasm… for some things it is the most appropriate response.)
Stop drinking. It is boring as hell. You are all smarter and more lovable when sober.
The number of things to which this line of reasoning could be applied is nearly infinite. For example: “Stop watching soccer. It is boring as hell. You are smarter and more lovable when not screaming at the top of your lungs at sweaty men chasing a little ball.” That just sounds silly though, doesn’t it?
Also omitted are the qualifiers. “[I think] it is boring as hell” and “[In my opinion,] you are all…” To which I have to respond… so what? Go hang out with your sober friends and talk about Nietzsche, Cubism, and the plight of fuzzy ducklings. Or whatever.
As for me? I’ll have a beer.
In general, this law school has disappointed my optimistic 1L expectations about student engagement with each other on problems of law, politics, and society.
As I’ve suggested before… this is a failing of the individual, not the community. I do apologize, on behalf of the entire law school, for not handing you adequate intellectual stimulation on a silver platter, Corey. Not that you sought any out from me personally, but I feel as though I’ve been derelict in my duty to engage you in a manner and to a degree that is acceptable to you.
People were drunk at my orientation and I should have known then.
For what it’s worth, his is the class with no shortage of members willing to flatly criticize the class below his for irresponsible drinking. We can see how principled they are about that.
I found hope in the few wonderful people I met on my way out the door so I stayed. (Even though not all of them did.)
So those people were disappointing, then? Or were those people adequate, in your mind, but there just weren’t enough of them to satiate your appetite for stimulation?
All my friends have provided the counterweight that kept me here and kept me optimistic.
Optimistic for what is unclear, but rest assured that it’s only his ability to choose the perfect people that has kept him happy here and were it not for that, the law school would’ve really let him down. Or something like that.
And to be honest, the excessive drinking the rest of you did actually helped me, because see… I was studying and spending time with people I love instead.
Five points to anyone who picked up on the insinuation here: if you’re not my friend, you drink too much. Or maybe the thing that keeps him from loving everyone is our “excessive drinking”. I’m not really sure what to make of this. Is this a litmus for people who are “interesting”? If you drink, you’re not interesting? Or is this a trick used to validate an irrational dislike of a chemical substance? Who knows!? I doubt Corey even does.
But if people are going to hit each other and then get ugly over it1, then I am done, out. May I have my diploma please?
One person hit one other person and got ugly over it. One person who quite obviously has a number of problems. This is, for Corey, enough to write off 600+ people who had no involvement in the issue whatsoever. It makes sense, though. Alcohol caused the issue and all of those people that he’s not already friends with drink alcohol, so they all must have contributed to the problem. Right?
And yes, this is moralizing, and might anger many. But maybe some moralizing is called for. People are getting hurt.
Oh… well… it was all bullshit until you pointed out that people were getting hurt. Now it all makes sense! That obviously lowers the scrutiny with which we should evaluate each other’s words, ideas, and actions. Wait. That doesn’t really make sense.
Someone got hurt. The person responsible should face the consequences. That’s how life is supposed to work. If you want to “moralize” why not get up on a soapbox about hitting people? Is that okay if you’re sober? Is the real issue here the alcohol? Because I know a lot of people who can get piss drunk and not hit anything but the floor. In fact… that’s pretty much everyone else I know.
This is the same kind of misplaced moralizing that fuels the “guns kill people” crowd. Essentially Corey is trying to vaguely disguise the fact that the main premise of his tirade is “Alcohol breaks peoples’ noses.” No, sorry, belligerent assholes break peoples’ noses.
That all said… look: it’s alcohol. You cannot drink an unlimited quantity of it, and it’s up to the individual to know how much is too much for them. Some people do not know where the line is and lots of people misjudge the line occasionally. Some people need a cup of coffee in the morning to be functional human beings. Does Corey deride them? After all, ounce for ounce caffeine is immeasurably more dangerous than alcohol is… and it’s more addictive to boot.
In the end, distributing the “blame” for an isolated incident like this amongst an entire community does nothing but insulate the individual responsible from the criticism he rightly deserves. It’s not the community’s fault, Corey, it’s Steve’s fault.
(Of course, it seems much less effective to bitch and moan about one person’s alcohol abuse than it is to label half-a-thousand unrelated people as irresponsible drinkers and then decry their irresponsibility. Maybe lazy reasoning is the product of being under-stimulated and we can blame this on 500 people who had nothing to do with it, too.)
This is referencing an issue I have no cause to elaborate on except to say that one of the heaviest drinkers / biggest drunks in my class got shit faced and punched another law school student and broke her nose. The resulting private and public interactions between the two were grotesque and immature. This owing mainly to the fact that said drunken classmate refused/refuses to apologize and is basically acting like a huge jackass while the victim feels the need to defend herself from his obnoxiousness (an instinct that I am not faulting or questioning).
March 19th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Pete,
I do not think alcohol is bad. I am drinking some scotch right now. That isn’t the point. The point is that certain irresponsible children that they let into this school have been giving the entire community a bad name for at least three years. We all would have learned more and had better career prospects if those people had participated, acted out less, and lived up to their potential. I wish they would stop drinking. But looking back, entirely too much of the IU law social scene has been primarily about drinking, at least for my taste. I know I am not alone in this, but perhaps I am in the minority?
Everyone at IU is a stakeholder in the reputation of this school. I am not implicating the 2L class in particular, although you are the ones with an opportunity now to change things. I see that arguing by insisting that every statement be applied to the largest conceivable class of people and then finding the exception to that class is a favorite technique of yours. If I am way off base and no one else thinks that IU is drifting off into self-inflicted party-school obscurity then everyone will hate me until I leave and that will be that.
I have spent a lot of time defending the particular promise of this school, telling people that they can learn as much here as anywhere, encouraging people about job prospects, and I have even previously defended the potential of some people who later ended up being arrested or hitting someone. My angry response was (I think) quite obviously a reflection of disappointed emotional investment. I am as mad as you were that people from other schools are reading about this stuff and thinking “what is wrong with IU.” The difference is I do blame more of the community, including myself as part of it.
This is not one person or one incident. It is not the only stupid drunken escapade even if it is the worst in recent memory. I am not interested in rehabilitating the image of the school by scapegoating the person with the worst trouble. This is an opportunity to harness people’s dismay at how far the alcohol culture here can take us.
If you want to make this an object lesson about the failure of personal responsibility then go ahead and play your party’s theme song. People will respond on ideological lines.
“Go hang out with your sober friends and talk about Nietzsche, Cubism, and the plight of fuzzy ducklings.”
I guess this kind of thing is meant as an insult? I did see an interesting cubist painting or two with some law student friends this weekend at MOMA. I had not previously realized that the cubist trend made it as far as Mexico and Diego. The Francis Bacon picture “Painting” from 1946 reminded me of law school and people like you. We didn’t see any ducklings but that would have been kind of neat. Ducklings are certainly nicer than anything that has happened in law school recently.
Well, I expected some outrage and suspected where it would come from. I didn’t think I would rate a whole post though. I hope others comment so we know what they think.
Cheers,
– Corey
March 19th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
“If you drink, you’re not interesting?”
Yes, I did sort of say that now didn’t I. Sorry. Of course, from context people could probably tell that I meant to reach people-who-drink-irresponsibly-as-their-primary-social-mechanism. But thank you for allowing me to clarify.
“Not that you sought any out from me personally, but I feel as though I’ve been derelict in my duty to engage you in a manner and to a degree that is acceptable to you.”
You are right about that too. I never asked your opinion. But look at us, we are interacting now! Of course, we are talking about drinking, and your tone is a bit unfriendly, so it is not all good. I really do wish it weren’t so, but I don’t see any common ground, do you?
March 19th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
“If you want to “moralize” why not get up on a soapbox about hitting people?”
It seems you didn’t read the earlier comment I referred to on Dizzy’s blog, where I said “don’t hit people, and stop drinking.” Doug’s post was about alcohol so I narrowed my scope too. But maybe you shouldn’t read it, because it will make you mad too.
March 20th, 2007 at 8:20 am
I love a good personal responsibility rant. ; ) The “guns kill people” reference was very nice.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
That’s not many comments. Guess going after me doesn’t inspire discussion Pete. Sorry.
I knew two people who were killed by a gun. (Apologies to readers for the following aggressively sad anecdotes.)
In one incident, a shotgun fell out of a truck gun rack and went off, killing the driver’s son in the passenger seat. In another case, a kindly old couple on my paper route who had safely kept a gun for 40 years was destroyed when he mistook his wife for a burgler in an Alzheimers haze and shot her to death.
Care to blame those stories on failures of personal responsibility?
March 20th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Corey, I absolutely would.
Nobody who could have an “alzheimers haze” has any business having a gun around and if you’re going to carry a loaded shotgun in a gun rack in a car (already something I would consider stupid) you should at LEAST make sure it’s fastened down.
Not that the people deserved what they got by any means, it doesn’t sound like it’s the fault of the person who was shot in either instance (though I question the second one) but I would definitely argue for personal responsibility in gun ownership here. (And I’m a liberal who would probably not even CONSIDER letting a gun in the house.)
As for patting yourself on the back about there not being many comments, maybe that’s because most people AGREE with Pete and don’t see any need to chime in with a “hear hear” just to stroke your ego.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
I’m not here to “inspire discussion” with every post and, frankly, after reading your response comments I came to the conclusion that they were primarilly aimed at dragging the “discussion” off topic as none of the new information you added was on-point, so I ignored them.
As for those two gun stories… I would blame them on the people involved for the very reasons Kristina did. In fact, I’ve never heard a “gun story” that didn’t have an individual who was responsible for it.
…adding to the already well-established fact that guns don’t kill people.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:23 am
“none of the new information you added was on-point, so I ignored them.”
I guess “on-point” means supports your narrow definition of the argument then? How Bill O’Reilly of you.
“maybe that’s because most people AGREE with Pete”
Or maybe that’s because most people AGREE with me. I claim the mandate of the silent masses too. Nyah!
Well, should I encounter any relatives of the dead innocents in question I will be sure to tell them that it is the considered judgment of IU law school that their loved one is dead because of a lack of personal responsibility. I’m sure they will find useful comfort from the enlightened rationality of that assessment, and will develop more respect for lawyers overall.
See the argument isn’t about whether you are right, it is about whether you are an ass for saying it. Whether you will stick to your gun position when confronted with a blood- and tear-soaked father who just had to drive his son’s body down from the mountains, thinking that it was all his fault and that he should kill himself too (I think he did in the end), or a (hopefully) unaware old man looking for his missing wife. Given that senario, you “would blame . . . the people involved for the very reasons Kristina did.”
The closest thing to an “oh that’s horrible” I got from you both was, “Not that the people deserved what they got by any means.” You could have conceded the horror and distinguished the normal case from my anecdotes, but your need for absolutism made you come off cold. I think if we were in front of a jury they would dislike you and forget that I brought it up. And that is how empathic narrative triumphs over rationality. I suggest you focus your future cases on questions of law.
But that is not on-point I am sure. The funny thing is we both think we won. I suppose that must mean no one did and we both look worse for having tried.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:29 am
And one more item: how I chose to respond to a post that is almost entirely devoted to a line by line attack on something I wrote can not, by definition, be off topic.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:57 am
But Corey, we’re not arguing in front of a jury. I think both Pete and I have proved that we come off well in front of a jury, actually.
For me though, the point of your stories was to bring up these emotional scenes and then try to argue that personal responsibility isn’t a factor when it clearly is. I’m sure it sounds cold to SAY that, but the reality is that I can be cold about it because I didn’t know these people. I know the story you told and thus can easily point out the logic flaws in your argument.
Now, ask me about allowing vietnam veteran have a gun that he uses to kill his daughter (my best friend) and her niece (7 years old) and I will STILL say that personal responsibility played a role because he never should have been allowed to have a gun when they already knew he was having anger problems. But I’ll say that with tears in my eyes, is that what you want?
Lastly, I’m not claiming a “silent mandate of the masses” for Pete. I’m just suggesting an alternate explanation to “nobody’s posting and thus going after me doesn’t inspire discussion” with a snide little “sorry” after it. Go ahead and claim a silent mandate, but you’ll just look dumb since this isn’t your blog, nobody knows who you are except some fruitcake 3L (my characterization, nobody else’s) who has many grand pronouncements about how things ought to be or things we ought to consider without any logic or factual arguments to back him up.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to close the damn library.
March 21st, 2007 at 1:01 am
The bait and switch was nice, Corey, but pointless in the end… just because you can’t bring yourself to say something to someone’s face doesn’t make it any less true.
“their loved one is dead because of a lack of personal responsibility.”
That’s just silly. Personal responsibility comes after something bad happens, not before. If you want to chit chat about how horrible it was for a father to (irresponsibly) drive around with a loaded shotgun inches above his son’s head, go for it, but it seems disingenuous (and that’s being kind) to ask whether it was their fault and then scold us for not being nice enough about it. I would certainly never volunteer to that father that I thought his actions were irresponsible and that he caused his son’s death. That’s a very different situation from being asked my opinion.
As for the “I suggest you focus your future cases on questions of law” comment: it’s a foolish person who doesn’t know their audience and their goals. Arguing in the comments of a blog entry is not the same thing as making a closing argument before a jury… different situations call for different behavior.
“And one more item: how I chose to respond to a post that is almost entirely devoted to a line by line attack on something I wrote can not, by definition, be off topic.”
Oh really? What if you had posted a comment that read:
“Yesterday I ate salad without dressing and then watched cartoons.”
Would that have been, by definition, on topic?
March 21st, 2007 at 1:11 am
As an aside, I find it curious, Corey, that you whine about the lack of intellectual stimulation but when faced with intellectual discourse you find it necessary to revert to how cold and rational the people you’re “discoursing” with are. Makes me wonder what, exactly, you think “intellectual discourse” is.
March 21st, 2007 at 2:18 am
Actually, come to think of it, “intellectual stimulation” is something I never said and YOU misconstrued my words to mean. What I said was:
“student engagement with each other on problems of law, politics, and society” and:
“the collegial environment I imagined”
Maybe this is why you are confused. My ideal of collegial engagement is nowhere near what you mean when you say “intellectual discourse.” I don’t know what the latter means, nor do I seek it. Intellectual discourse sounds limiting, bureaucratic, and subject to redefinition by people who wish to argue by excluding substance or topics.
See Pete, I have a different audience that I am imagining and different goals. I said what I said and your line by line recharacterization of it will doubtless be convincing to people who think like you. Given how much I think you misunderstood my intentions and message, I don’t see any benefit to “intellectual” argument on your terms. It is more fun for me, now that I am in this morass of negativity, to find creative ways to return some insults. Actually I feel kind of ashamed to have been knocked out of my considerate persona. Jesus would be disappointed in me I am sure.
Kristina said:
“I’m sure it sounds cold to SAY that, but the reality is that I can be cold about it because I didn’t know these people. I know the story you told and thus can easily point out the logic flaws in your argument.”
The best way to respond to an obvious appeal to empathy is to show empathy. If you had, then I would be the cold one for bringing it up. In fact, now that you have told your own story, we understand each other on some level that we would have never got to otherwise. But I don’t think I meant to make a logical argument. Sorry if it came off logically.
Sometimes tragedy strikes and nothing we can say in lawyer voice is appropriate. That’s my core point on the gun issue. It seems like if it wasn’t me saying it in this context you would agree.
“nobody knows who you are except some fruitcake 3L (my characterization, nobody else’s)”
Aww, well that’s nice of you to say so. Very logical too. You sound caring, want to be my friend?
“without any logic or factual arguments to back him up”
See, I NEVER agreed to limit myself to logical or factual arguments. I originally said something like “Stop hitting people, and stop drinking. You are all more lovable when sober,” which is manifestly an overbroad emotional appeal to a moral norm. But it is a fact that many people at IU drink too much too often for their own, their peers’, and the school’s good.
Well, this is actually emotionally and temporally draining for me so I have to stop. Without any sarcasm I am sorry that we came to this.
March 21st, 2007 at 9:15 am
Both of those situations implicate personal responsibility, not an inanimate object–nor the decision of most people own/use the object. The case of the alzheimer’s-afflicted person is similar a case of an alcoholic, since their conditions arguably render them incompetent to use firearms/alcohol. That some individuals are incompetent to use something does not excuse assigning blame categorically to people for using firearms/alcohol or to firearms/alcohol themselves.
It doesn’t matter one iota whether anyone is showing the proper sympathy for tragedy, and it would certainly be dishonest to distort a fair characterization into something inaccurate solely to console a person. It’s sad that your idea of discourse involves this “tactic” of exploiting tragedy to try to emotionally coerce a person into backing down, and then resorting to name calling when it turns out he has the small amount of fortitude necessary to stand his ground.
March 21st, 2007 at 9:16 am
“Well, this is actually emotionally and temporally draining for me so I have to stop. Without any sarcasm I am sorry that we came to this.”
Um, you sound like this is some huge fight of something that’s just draining your emotional reserves. If you’re going to be that damn serious about it, it’s no fun at all!
“Sometimes tragedy strikes and nothing we can say in lawyer voice is appropriate. That’s my core point on the gun issue. It seems like if it wasn’t me saying it in this context you would agree.”
I would agree with that if you said “nothing we say in lawyer voice TO THE FAMILIES is appropriate.” I still think that you’re being disingenuous to try to argue/discuss a point of personal responsibility with an emotional plea about a dead son, father and wife. And I think it’s legitimate to point that out even if you don’t want to hear it.
“The best way to respond to an obvious appeal to empathy is to show empathy”
Really? Seriously? Maybe the “best” way in that it would make the person appealing to empathy feel better, but I see no other reason to call that the best way.
“now that I am in this morass of negativity”
Wow, you and I have extremely different opinions about what a morass of negativity would look like. Frankly, I thought we were debating. If I’d realized your constitution wasn’t up to it and you’d see ALL this discussion as a personal attack (not just the fruitcake comment, which is both how I feel about you and somewhat tongue in cheek since, you may have noticed, I don’t actually KNOW you but I could see how you would take that personally, I probably would) maybe I would’ve gone easier on you. But then maybe not since the life we both chose is supposed to be one of intellectual rigor.
Lastly (and I will shut up Pete, sorry for hijacking your comments!) saying straight out that you don’t mean to make a logical argument is bizarre to me, and hopefully I misunderstand what you mean. Arguments must be logical or they’re not actually legitimate. Illogic is not a good way to convince anyone of anything, and that’s what an argument is for (or to discuss, but it’s difficult to discuss the merits of something that doesn’t make SENSE).
If you can’t logically analyze something, you can’t formulate an argument that will convince ANYONE, much less a bunch of hyper-technical, hyper-textual law students! (Lil’ bit of moot court humor there, so kill me!!)
March 21st, 2007 at 9:19 am
Oh and Go Ken! (You wrote that while I was writing mine)
(Shutting up now…)
March 21st, 2007 at 10:00 am
“student engagement with each other on problems of law, politics, and society”
And how, exactly, do you expect that engagement to take place? One of the largest problems with America today is the sheer number of people who approach these exact topics without any sort of rational thought.
“Given how much I think you misunderstood my intentions and message, I don’t see any benefit to ‘intellectual’ argument on your terms.”
That’s funny, though, because most people, when they are mistunderstood, want to remedy the misunderstanding. Usually by saying what they actually meant.
“The best way to respond to an obvious appeal to empathy is to show empathy.”
I actually disagree. The best way to respond to a sympathetic situation is to show sympathy. Appeals for sympathy are, in many cases, are little more than emotional blackmail, especially in the context of a debate/discussion. In fact “appeal to emotion” and “appeal to pity” are actually logical fallacies. So when a friend comes to you and wants sympathy for some horrible thing that happened, you’re probably right… the best way to respond is probably with sympathy.
But that’s not what happened here. What happened here was that someone couldn’t find a rational argument to make in support of a point that he believed, so he had to, as Ken so nicely put it “[exploit] tragedy to try to emotionally coerce a person into backing down.”
“But it is a fact that many people at IU drink too much too often for their own, their peers’, and the school’s good.”
Well, no, that’s actually an opinion.
“Actually I feel kind of ashamed to have been knocked out of my considerate persona.”
I’m morbidly curious as to what you think “considerate” is, because throughout the duration of my knowledge of your existence (brought about entirely by your comments on various blogs) I haven’t seen very much (if any) display of a “considerate persona.”
Except, that is, in the cases where you attempt to be considerate to one or two people (like Steve, for example) at the expense of hundreds of others… and there’s something about calling that a “considerate persona” that rings hollow and smacks of either an unrealistic self-image or a tremendously contorted view of what it takes to be “considerate”.
More likely, given the other tactics you so regularly use, this was probably just an attempt to shame us into politely agreeing with you, curtsying, and excusing ourselves to go powder our noses… leaving you to bask in the glory of your recent victory on the battleground of emotional manipulation.
March 21st, 2007 at 11:32 am
Kristina, if you think this is a reasoned impersonal debate and I am the oversensitive one then you missed some of the mean things Pete said about me. Please reread his comments and imagine how you would feel if they were directed at you. Don’t be suprised that I would take personal spite personally. Pete clearly dislikes and wants to belittle me.
Pete:
“That’s funny, though, because most people, when they are mistunderstood, want to remedy the misunderstanding. Usually by saying what they actually meant.”
That would be appropriate if the defect in understanding was my fault or if I had some respect for you leading to a desire to communicate effectively with you personally. I feel like I originally got close to what I actually meant and you couldn’t help insulting me.
“Arguments must be logical or they’re not actually legitimate.”
“In fact “appeal to emotion” and “appeal to pity” are actually logical fallacies.”
“[exploit] tragedy to try to emotionally coerce a person into backing down.”
Oh, right, because logic isn’t coercive and emotion is suspect in law school. Here are some relevant cites for you:
Horkheimer & Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment
Lynne Henderson, Legality and Empathy, 85 MICH. L. REV. 1574, 1649 (1987) (“The purpose of the foregoing discussion has been to demonstrate that empathic narrative is a part of legal discourse, and that empathic understanding can play a role in legal decisionmaking.”).
“Law as a closed system that is self-referential can draw the line in such a way as to dismiss empathic discourse or understanding as ‘irrelevant’ or as ‘policy’ argument beyond the auspices of the law.” Id. at 1588
Duncan Kennedy, Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy, 32 J. LEGAL EDUC. 591, 596 (1982) (“[I]t is asserted that law emerges from a rigorous analytical procedure called ‘legal reasoning’ which is unintelligible to the layman but somehow both explains and validates the great majority of the rules in force in our system.”).
March 21st, 2007 at 11:50 am
Your version:
“One of the largest problems with America today is the sheer number of people who approach these exact topics without any sort of rational thought.”
My version:
“One of the largest problems with America today is the sheer number of people who approach these exact topics without any sort of consideration for the situation of others.
Under my version, “personal responsibility” rhetoric in the form of: “the problem is you failed to expect that drunken violence/insolvency/gun accident/whatever would happen” is useless. You can expose what should have been done rationally. Empathy gives insight into why it was not done, insight that goes beyond assigning blame or responsibility.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:00 pm
“Don’t be suprised that I would take personal spite personally. Pete clearly dislikes [me] and wants to belittle me.”
Cry me a river. I did not belittle you, I was belittling your “arguments”.
“That would be appropriate if the defect in understanding was my fault or if I had some respect for you leading to a desire to communicate effectively with you personally. I feel like I originally got close to what I actually meant and you couldn’t help insulting me.”
Of course! Because if someone doesn’t agree with you it must be because they misunderstood you and if you feel like you would’ve understood yourself then clearly they were trying to misunderstand you so there’s no point in trying to rectify the misunderstanding and, instead, it’s best to try to diversify the debate into as many distict, unrelated issues as you can.
Either that or you said what you meant, were not misunderstood, and then when the logical extensions of your comments are revealed you feel uncomfortable having them attributed to you so you claim that you were misunderstood… it’s very clever.
“logic isn’t coercive”
Not inherently. Neither is emotion. It’s how they’re used. Logic is a medium through which ideas can be compared, their relative merits discussed, and provides a common language for fair debate.
There’s a big difference, however, between using logical tricks and parsing semantics in order to bully people who don’t know better into giving up out of frustration and calling someone out on their illogical arguments. Just as there’s a difference between “emotion having a place in legal discourse” and attempting to force people to agree with you by making them feel bad.
Asking someone a question and then scolding and admonishing them for answering it is a pretty pathetic way to try to gain the upper hand.
You asked if personal responsibility was implicated in two situations and then chastised those who said it was for answering the question you asked insetad of answering the question “What would you say to the families of the victims?”
It was a classic bait-and-switch tactic of emotional manipulation.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Ah, I think you are wrong to say it anywhere, the further point about the families was to point up a problem with legal reasoning. You seem to think the format allows you to behave publically in ways that are less civil or sympathetic than you would behave in private life or with a friend.
“common language for fair debate.”
But obviously the terms of that language and the scope of what is fair is contestable, because we are contesting it now in near real time.
“Asking someone a question and then scolding and admonishing them for answering it is a pretty pathetic way to try to gain the upper hand.”
Just what exactly is it you think we are competing for? The hearts and minds of your audience? Personal glory? If so I want neither and concede.
“Cry me a river. I did not belittle you, I was belittling your “arguments”.”
I felt personally belittled.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:29 pm
” “[exploit] tragedy to try to emotionally coerce a person into backing down.”
Oh, right, because logic isn’t coercive and emotion is suspect in law school. Here are some relevant cites for you:
I didn’t say….[snipped article on how emotion can be relevant...]“
I never said that emotion was irrelevant. I’ve just pointed out, accurately, that you tried to use emotion to get Pete to change his position–not by convincing him to change his mind, but by pressuring him to avoid insensitivity (or the appearance of it). You can’t justify this cowardice by citing law professors.
It’s because of uses like this that emotion is suspect. Other uses, such as using empathy to inform oneself of facts that cannot be ascertained from more precise means (for example, determining P&S damages or whether an instance of conduct was “outrageous”) are appropriate at times.
How the fuck is logic coercive? Logic is just a means of ascertaining what is necessarily true, not true, or unknown.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:30 pm
It occurs to me that you are the type of person who will take “I concede” to mean that I admitted something you said was correct. Not so.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
“How the f— is logic coercive?”
Devotion to it excludes emotion. How? Well that should be obvious from your attempts to label my little tactic as inappropriate and cowardly. Read the cites I gave if you really want to know.
Pressure to avoid insensitivity is legitimate. You can role differentiate all you want, and I will keep bringing in private non-legal contexts where that assumed role comes off inappropriate.
March 21st, 2007 at 1:20 pm
You asked if personal responsibility was implicated in two situations and then chastised those who said it was for answering the question you asked insetad of answering the question “What would you say to the families of the victims?”
How can you justify that sort of behavior?
“Appropriate” behavior is more about context than anything else. You changed the context mid-discussion and then reverted to your typical holier-than-thou attitude because you’re so much more “considerate” than we are.
“I will keep bringing in private non-legal contexts where that assumed role comes off inappropriate.”
And you will do so, I imagine, because you cannot succeed in successfully articulating your point that it’s inappropriate in this context.
You might as well be arguing that driving 50 MPH is irresponsible everywhere because doing so in a school zone is dangerous. Your context-switching is every bit as silly, especially when you make the bizarre assumption that one would behave identically in every context and then use that as a basis for your criticism of the person when you should know full well that people’s actions vary based on context.
“I felt personally belittled.”
“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
March 21st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I didn’t say I felt inferior, I said I felt belittled.
Is this issue really important enough to you that I must enter your context and argue on your terms so you can win according to them? Do you ever actually stop parsing or would it go on forever?
If your concern is that I, “make the bizarre assumption that one would behave identically in every context,” then OK, what is your justification for taking a position on personal responsibility that you admit you would (rightly) not raise in front of the families? Does your justification involve some concept of intellectual discourse, rational argumentation, the need for a debate freed from emotional appeals, or what the form of legal reasoning demands? If so, then we already understand each other full well. We just disagree about something fundamental.
I am not willing to admit that my challenge to your public/private context distinction is the same as pushing a categorical imperative about driving 25 MPH everywhere. I can say “you should drive slower here” without saying you should drive the same speed everywhere. Slippery slope arguments are popular here.
Note that this discussion is now almost entirely about form and procedure and boundaries of debate.
March 21st, 2007 at 2:11 pm
“I didn’t say I felt inferior, I said I felt belittled.”
I’m sure Ms. Roosevelt would feel much different about “feeling belittled” than she would “feeling inferior”, right?
“Is this issue really important enough to you that I must enter your context and argue on your terms so you can win according to them?”
It’s not my context here, Corey, it’s the one you started with. Changing the contexts is fine, too, as long as you do so in a way that’s not so patently disingenuous and cowardly.
“what is your justification for taking a position on personal responsibility that you admit you would (rightly) not raise in front of the families?”
I’m confused as to why I should need such a justification, but there are several. First, you asked me to take a position on it. You said “Care to blame those stories on failures of personal responsibility?” And I did.
Second, I sincerely doubt (for example) that pointing out to the father that it was his own irresponsibility that killed his son a) would do him any good at all, and b) is something he hasn’t already considered. That doesn’t make it any less his fault, but it certainly reduces the reasons one might have for pointing it out to him.
Now, were he and I talking about something else and he said “Well you don’t think I’m responsible for my son’s death in that accident, do you?” I could envision situations in which I would tell him that I thought he was, but I certainly would not bring it up myself to rub his nose in the fact that his own actions killed his son.
“I can say ‘you should drive slower here’ without saying you should drive the same speed everywhere.”
Yes, you can, and that’s precisely what I’m trying to do that you’re calling me out on.
“Slippery slope arguments are popular here.”
This is not a slippery slope, it’s an analogy. You continue to say that something is wrong in one context because it is wrong in some other context that you have contrived.
In your view, it’s wrong to say that the father was responsible for the son’s death here on the internet because one wouldn’t say so to his face.
It’s wrong in one context — here on the internet — because it’s wrong in some other context — in person. As I said, it’s just like arguing that driving 50 MPH is wrong in one context (a freeway) because it’s wrong in another (a school zone).
The fact that you dislike that analogy suggests to me that you already see the problem with your weasley tactics, even if you won’t readily admit to it, so I’d like to turn this around on you:
What’s wrong with being able to notice the individual failing that’s responsible for a tragedy and then answering a question directed at that very issue?
March 21st, 2007 at 2:36 pm
“In your view, it’s wrong to say that the father was responsible for the son’s death here on the internet because one wouldn’t say so to his face.”
Yes, exactly. Although I of course think it would be more wrong to say it in his face.
An analogy is a context switch.
You just called me “patently disingenuous and cowardly” and “weasley.” That’s not really OK either. Interpret my failure to respond however you want.
March 21st, 2007 at 4:34 pm
“Yes, exactly.”
Then it appears that you lack a sensitivity for context that seems conspicuous in someone of your age and educational experience. Nevertheless, I suppose sometimes it suits one’s argument to act/be obtuse.
“An analogy is a context switch.”
One could look at it that way, yes, and as I pointed out before, I have no problem, in general with looking at things in other contexts. It’s often helpful. The bait-and-switch technique, though, is most certainly not.
“You just called me ‘patently disingenuous and cowardly’ and ‘weasley.’ That’s not really OK either.”
No, actually, I didn’t. I called your tactics “weasley” and the way in which you switched contexts “patently disingenuous and cowardly”.
If you don’t like it, quit doing things that can so easily be interpreted as cowardly, disingenuous, and weasely.
…
Or maybe I should admit to having called you those things (even though I very clearly did not) and then disclaim all personal responsibility for them. Instead, urging you to be more “empathetic” of me and my “situation.”
March 21st, 2007 at 4:57 pm
So now it’s not ‘logic’ that’s coercive, its ‘devotion to logic.’ Although either way, it’s still senseless. Figuring out “if A, then B” does not involve the application of any sort of pressure, nor is it directed at controlling behavior–it just factseeking. Devotion to logic, or any other method of reasoning, does not involve either of the two aforementioned elements of coercion either, and could not unless it could be valid to say that a person could pressure oneself to do anything.
Quite simply, you’re either not talking about logic, you’re not talking about coercion, or you’re not making any sense at all. My best guess (best, meaning I assume you know the meaning of the words you use) is that what you actually mean that in an argument, the USE of the RESULTS of logic are coercive. If I’m filling in the gaps correctly, then you’re calling FACTS coercive.
March 21st, 2007 at 5:37 pm
He’s right. We shouldn’t use little things like “facts” stand in the way of good, solid emotion.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Ah, ridicule. Classy. The nice thing about having nothing left to prove to you is that I can feel oddly validated by your choice of method. I’m rubber, you are glue. What you say bounces off me and sticks to you.
Here is a quote I used in front of my journal Note. You won’t get it but maybe one of your readers will:
“For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion. . . . No matter which myths are invoked against it, by being used as arguments they are made to acknowledge the very principle of corrosive rationality of which enlightenment stands accused. Enlightenment is totalitarian.
MAX HORKHEIMER & THEODOR W. ADORNO, DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT 3–4 (Stanford University Press 2002) (1947).
March 21st, 2007 at 7:17 pm
u r right Corey. I are not smrt enuf to “get” ur quote.
Jesus. You’re the worst kind of law school kid… the kind that has to quote his own fucking journal note to feel good about himself. I hope it worked.
Honestly, I think we’d all be better off if you just stopped commenting around here. Get a blog if you want to self-fellate. I obviously have no problem with disagreement and discussion, but I simply have too strong a gag reflex to put up with comments like that.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Ridicule is easy when one is ridiculous.
Why do you even keep reading, Corey, seriously? Just to continue getting insulted by our comments and feeling superior by your little snotty put-downs? It’s not just ridiculous, it’s vaguely pathetic.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Oh, see, but look what has happened, now YOU are telling ME what not to do to make us all better off. How about I’ll stop commenting if you stop drinking.
One jab at your intelligence and you fly off. How many have you made at mine?
I only mentioned the Note to explain why I have these quotes lying around. Arguing with people who dislike me makes me feel bad. But you really don’t know what you are talking about if you think I am the sort of person who trades on his accomplishments socially.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:31 pm
“Why do you even keep reading, Corey, seriously?”
Pete originally posted extensively ridiculing something I said. I thought that I was somehow essential to this particular thread. Or did you just want to say or read bad things about me behind my back?
March 21st, 2007 at 7:36 pm
“For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion. . . . No matter which myths are invoked against it, by being used as arguments they are made to acknowledge the very principle of corrosive rationality of which enlightenment stands accused. Enlightenment is totalitarian.”
Two points.
1. You’re the one who doesn’t get your own cited quote. Utility is not logic, it is a value system–a judgment about what “good” should be sought and a theory on how to achieve it. I think in your need to, as Pete says, self-fellate, you drew a connection to something you were interested in when it really wasn’t applicable. (”Give someone a hammer, and everything will look like a nail to him.”)
March 21st, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Wouldn’t you say this has been frustrating? Maybe frustrating enough that now you have had as much discomfort as I felt reading Pete’s initial attacks on me (or what I said if you believe that is a distinct thing.)
March 21st, 2007 at 7:39 pm
“Perhaps if their logical skills were a bit more advanced, they would have realized their fallacy.”
You do know that they founded the Frankfurt School of social philosophy right? That’s kind of funny.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:33 am
Please keep in mind that, that comment is wholly dependent on the premise that their comment about totalitarianism is not elaborated further. The part quoted is indicative of a logical fallacy unless they somehow manage to dig themselves out of the hole their in.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they didn’t, though. Just because someone founds a school doesn’t mean that they can’t be kooky, take liberties with language, or engage in fallacy for the purpose of hyperbole. Political motives can do that to people.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:26 am
That’s fine Ken, the fact that the book has “Dialectic” in the title provides a clue that both sides get play and the only resolution that can come from it is ultimately ironic, but post-modern texts can still be mined for ideas. I posted a quote because I was tired of getting parsed and attacked and thought people would be more likely to read for understanding if it came from Adorno. You can parse and attack and then demand clarification all day, it silences all opponents eventually. (See e.g. talk shows on Fox News)
The core point is that “logic” or “enlightenment” or “deliberative democracy” or “the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure” or the PeteHoliday blog all have discourse rules. Those rules keep statements like, “your tone hurts me” from being in the category “logical”. Now, if I want to say “your tone hurts me,” or speak in myth, and you demand that only logical statements be made, I can’t speak without being called ridiculous or disingenious or at minimum off-discourse. Coercive rationality.
The person writing on offense can always “win” because they not only get the privilege of selectively quoting and recharacterizing what was said elsewhere, but their topic restrictions and procedural rules get presumptive effect. Emotional argument? Not logical. Logical argument? Parade of horribles, mischaracterizing analogy, narrowing (or broadening) scope of intended application, objections to form of the question. Any hack who has taken a torts class can come up with at least one argument. That they can also redescribe their opponents point, safe in the assumption that people won’t go back and look for themselves, just makes it easier.
Now this blog, is just annoying. I promised Pete to stop posting once many weeks ago. So why did he devote several days to sarcastically berating a comment of mine that he picked up? Did he secretly want me back? I missed you too Pete.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:09 am
So why did he devote several days to sarcastically berating a comment of mine that he picked up?
Actually, he just devoted one post to it, not several days until you started posting in the comments.
Or did you just want to say or read bad things about me behind my back?
Of course not. But you’ve now posted 20 comments, many of them defensive and indicating you have hurt feelings. Isn’t it getting just a bit counter productive yet?
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 am
“One jab at your intelligence and you fly off.”
A sarcastic comment in txt speak is hardly “flying off”.
“How many have you made at mine?”
Zero. How many comments have I made about things that you’ve said that you’ve taken personally? A lot. Your over-sensitivity, given the current state of affiars, is not my problem or concern.
“But you really don’t know what you are talking about if you think I am the sort of person who trades on his accomplishments socially.”
Uh huh. It’s very normal for people, in the course of typical human interaction, to go around quoting things that they wrote. Maybe you don’t know yourself well enough or maybe that comment was out of character. Either way, I can say this: whether or not you’re “that kind of person” doesn’t change the fact that you most certainly did quote your own journal note in my blog comments, and that’s sad.
“Maybe frustrating enough that now you have had as much discomfort as I felt reading Pete’s initial attacks on me (or what I said if you believe that is a distinct thing.)”
It clearly is a distinct thing. Boring people can say funny things. That does not make them funny. Intelligent people can (and do) say stupid things. That does not make them stupid. A broken watch is still right twice a day. Nobody’s entire persona hinges on the most recent thing they said.
Comment #41
Trying to “read for meaning” which means, I suppose, ignoring gaping holes in reasoning, false dichotomies, bad assumptions, and other flaws, the only thing I can really say is this: that one is hurt by another’s tone has absolutely no bearing on the factual issue that they’re discussing. You are welcome to say that my tone hurt you. Feel free. The ridiculous part, though, is when you try to trade on that to blackmail people into letting you have the last word and “winning”.
“Your words hurt me” is acceptable. “Your words hurt me, therefore your argument is wrong.” is not.
“I promised Pete to stop posting once many weeks ago. So why did he devote several days to sarcastically berating a comment of mine that he picked up?”
Wait. I don’t understand. You promised not to comment so why did I write a post about you? The question we should be asking is “You promised not to comment… so why have you written TWENTY comments on this entry?”
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Corey,
Getting clarification does not silence people unless clarity reveals that a person does not have a valid argument, leaving that person with no option but to shut up. I’m rather surprised that you think clearing up the issues takes away from, rather than advances, a discussion. Clarity helps ensure that people aren’t just talking past each other; that their arguments actually address the arguments made on the other side. That’s definitely a good thing, cheap shots at O’Rielly notwithstanding.
In our little tangent, you’ve finally started to make some sense in your 2nd paragraph. I can see (or infer, anyways) that your argument isn’t that logic, or devotion to it, is coercive, but rather that asking that a discussion is held within certain boundaries is coercive. I think that beyond that, you also mean to assert that compliance with that request is not beneficial. Now, I disagree with those assertions, but at least as a threshold matter, you’ve made an argument that is not necessarily facially absurd.
Your express argument (coercion) can be dispensed with quite easily, because it interprets the “pressure” element of coercion so broadly that the term loses all meaning. To be sure, asking a person to do or not do something, or criticizing a person for the same, places some de minimis pressure on a person–perhaps out of a desire to be compliant or to avoid a disagreement. But if ANY pressure satisfies the threshold for coercion, then it isn’t possible to have any social interaction that is not coercive, and thus, there isn’t any point of distinguishing coercive interactions from normal ones. A more reasonable threshold is whether pressure is brought to bear on the decisionmaker with the intent of compromising the ability of the person to make up his/her own mind. Coercion involves an attempt to exploit human weakness to obtain compliance; it does not involve mere attempts to persuade. Thus, for an advocate of rationality/enlightenment/logic/whatever to be coercive, that advocate must have done more than merely ask a person to play by the rules of civil and productive discourse.
As for the implied assertion that those rules advocated are “a bad thing,” although it is a value judgment not subject to a “logical” determination of truth or falsity, I think it is not persuasive–particularly with reference to a broader value, Truth, which is nearly always the driving value behind any sort of intellectual discussion. Quite simply, if the goal of a discussion is to discover Truth, then arguments and tactics that serve that goal are desirable, while arguments and tactics opposing that goal are not. Thus, tactics that pressure a person to abandon a line of argument for reasons independent of the merits of the argument are not desirable. This is also why emotion is generally not helpful in discussions, except in those rare cases when emotion is actually tied into the merits of the discussion, rather than something used to distract from it. (Hence, why Pete is correct that the argument “your tone hurts me, therefore your argument is wrong” is not an acceptable argument.)
Now, if the controlling value is something other than Truth, the merit of the “rules” might be very different. For example, instead of increasing the amount of knowledge in society, the controlling value could be advancing an agenda. In that case, emotional appeals, ad hominem attacks, etc. could very well be considered “legitimate” so long as their use benefits the person using them.
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Oh, and since I kind of let that hang there, allow me to state the obvious that I think that Truth ought to be the controlling value of the discussion, and that I’m glad that the legal system balances limits the role of advocacy with the truth goal in mind. (after all, advocacy is the method through which courts are supposed to arrive at truth; advocacy is subordinate)
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
I haven’t read these articles yet. I started to, and then I remembered that what I really want to do tonight is watch bad tv. And I don’t think any one person writing is drawing on only one of these schools of thought (and there are probably other schools going on that I missed).
But reading through the comments, it really struck me that different assumptions are being made, different authorities are being appealed to, and different ideals are being, um, idealized. Also, I don’t think it says so here, but I think generally appeal to personal experience is strongly relied on in po-mo, depending on who is defining po-mo today; and strongly rejected in classical liberalism, in favor of some objective truth.
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Thanks Ken, that is interesting. So Ken, do you, like Pete, also think that Pete was just questing for truth when he posted about me, or was he also trying, maybe just a little bit (or a lot), to mock or humiliate me in other’s eyes?
And Pete, import my comments and you get some response. But never again.
“Your words hurt me, therefore your argument is wrong.”
Actually Pete, what I really meant was much closer to, “your words hurt me, therefore you are mean.”
And that is all I’m writing.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:13 pm
He absolutely was. Your comment allocated blame to an object (alcohol), and to the people who use it, rather than allocating it only to the people who had engaged in wrongful conduct. As Pete pointed out, “alcohol breaks noses” is every bit as much bullshit as “guns kill people.” Your assertion deserved to be publicly debunked so that, hopefully, one day this unjustifiable way of assigning responsibility will be sent to the proverbial ash-heap where it belongs.
Complacently leaving that comment standing unchallenged would have led to a situation such as what occurred in Billy Madison (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDDnndY1a3Y). Everyone who read it would be dumber for having done so.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
And to complete the response, as I read it, the post was directed at the idea expressed, not the person expressing it.
March 24th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Pete, I was directed to this debate by a number of friends who relished in the self-imposed “can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees” fog with which Corey has enveloped himself. Here on the internet, we call that “trolling,” which can occasionally be fun in cyberspace. However, am I right in my assessment that Corey is one of the dreaded “real world” trolls?
“And that is how empathic narrative triumphs over rationality.”
And this statement is an example of how juries are lost in attorneys’ complex legalese rather than convincing yet simple phrasing. Misdirection only works when people pay attention to it, rather than the ignorant platform from which it is launched.
/begin sarcasm
“We shouldn’t use little things like “facts” stand in the way of good, solid emotion.”
My thoughts exactly.
/end sarcasm
I have no stake in this whatsoever. I just got the same kind of enjoyment from this blog entry and its ensuing comments that I get from watching a cat with tape on its paw.