{"id":43317,"date":"2014-04-23T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2014-04-23T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=43317"},"modified":"2014-04-23T09:25:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T14:25:04","slug":"a-critique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=43317","title":{"rendered":"A Critique"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is walking through the garden store looking for organic potato seeds.\u00a0 He spots Avery LIBRELLE, over in the tomato section.\u00a0 BERG turns and tries to quietly leave, but LIBRELLE turns and sees him.<\/em><\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Merg!\u00a0 (Hurries over toward BERG)<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Oh – uh, hi, Avery.\u00a0 What’s up?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I read your stupid piece yesterday about the supposed decline of logic<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Yeah?\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 The first thing I thought was “It’s only Berg.\u00a0 Who cares what he has to say?”<\/p>\n

BERG: In other words, the ad hominem…<\/em><\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: Oh, shush with all your Greek words.\u00a0 It lowered my self-esteem for a bit – until I realized something; an argument can be fallacious but still be logical!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Er…sorta.\u00a0 You can use logic to persuade people of something that’s not true.\u00a0 I mean, that’s basic rhetoric.\u00a0 But the problem is in the audience’s ignorance, or the lack of information they have, or…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Exactly!\u00a0 Logic is one of those things lawyers use to hide the truth.\u00a0 Anyway –\u00a0what I do is, at the beginning of an argument, I ask “What is the truth”. <\/em><\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Er…OK.\u00a0 So before the debate starts, you find out….what…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I find out whatthe truthis.\u00a0 And then I run with that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 OK…so you just ask “what is the truth, here?”<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Yep!\u00a0 Because the truth of something isn’t related to how well it’s argued!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 So you figure “I’ll just go straight for the truth”.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 Truth is truth, whether people or know or discuss it or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Huh.\u00a0 And so how do you find what is “the truth”?\u00a0 Say we’re on a jury, and the prosecution has their version of what happened, and the defense has a different version of what happened.\u00a0 Do you just ask the judge “what is “the truth” here?”<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Well, empirical evidence helps.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 OK, now we’re onto something!\u00a0 Where does “empirical evidence” come from?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Western Thought!\u00a0 And modern western thinking started when thinkers became willing to consider the illogical!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Good lord – the process of getting “empirical evidence” is called “the scientific method”, and it is built on classical logic!\u00a0\u00a0 And then when your evidence leads you to a conclusion, you have to convince others that your conclusion is valid!\u00a0 And logic is how you build a valid argument that focuses on fact!<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Just like Johnny Cochrane did!\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Er, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” was part logic, part rhetoric.\u00a0 It was closer to marketing than classical logic…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: \u00a0I demolished<\/em> you with that!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Look – logic is how we convince ourselves, and others, what the truth is.\u00a0 For example, if I’m trying to convince you that “Stand your Ground” laws make sense, I would show you, logically, how such laws are immediately correlated with drops in unjustifiable <\/em>homicide…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 …and then I call you racist!\u00a0 Because I read something in the Daily Kos that said so!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Er… (slowly backing away) I hadn’t thought of it that way… (notices that LIBRELLE has started chewing on a tomato start.\u00a0 BERG slowly turns and walks away .<\/p>\n

(And SCENE<\/em>)<\/p>\n

(AUTHOR NOTE:\u00a0 While the names and flow have been changed, the conversation above actually happened with a liberal on Twitter.\u00a0 Yes, it did.\u00a0 Remember; the left are the smart ones).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is walking through the garden store looking for organic potato seeds.\u00a0 He spots Avery LIBRELLE, over in the tomato section.\u00a0 BERG turns and tries to quietly leave, but LIBRELLE turns and sees him. LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Merg!\u00a0 (Hurries over toward BERG) BERG:\u00a0 Oh – uh, hi, Avery.\u00a0 What’s up? LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I read your stupid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,73],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-43317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battle-for-the-language","category-western-civilization","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43317"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43321,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43317\/revisions\/43321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}