argument and propaganda

Jen had posed two questions in an earlier post:

How is argument different from force, and why is it preferable?

Of course, argument can be seen as a kind of force; after all, you're trying to logically (instead of physically) compel someone to accept your position. But we think of argument as a legitimate means to convince someone, whereas pure rhetoric or propaganda represent an illegitimate means of "force" through psychological coersian. So, to re-phrase the question, what's the difference between convincing and coercing? What makes one legitimate and the other not?

The major difference between these has to do with the use of reasons. As a first pass, we could say that argument provides reasons, whereas propaganda attempts to bypass them. Ridicule (name-calling, stereotyping), for example, can be a way to get someone to dismiss a position without ever considering reasons for or against it. More generally, propaganda often functions by trying to associate a position directly with something that will be evaluated positively or negatively, in the hopes that these feelings will transfer.

This isn't quite sufficient, though. There are other forms of psychological coersian which don't it this model. Lying, for example, involves providing false information in the hopes that it will lead someone else's reasoning in the direction you want. Deliberate oversimplification would be another example; it also aims to influence the other person by using their reason.

I think the real unifying feature of these illegitimate techniques is their attempt to manipulate. In this sense, legitimate argument is an attempt to work with (cooperate with) someone's capacity to reason. The alternatives try to "work against" it. Let's flesh this out a bit more.

Providing reasons isn't the distinctive feature of legitimate argument, since the alternatives do that, too. Legitimate argument involves helping someone else's reasoning system do for itself what they would wish it to be able to do anyway. We do this, for example, by providing accurate and relevant information, or by pointing out logical inferences. It's very much like helping someone do a math problem. You can point out things they didn't see, but would have wished they could see.

This analogy works because both activities involve trying to find the truth about something. Because arguments are so often framed as a debate, it's easy to think the purpose of argument is to convince someone. The real purpose of legitimate argument is to help them see the same truth you do.

Let's consider some difficulties:

#1 "What if their reasoning system is so faulty (or, "different", let's say) that "helping it do what they would want to do with it anyway" violates your own standards of reason?" For example, how do you legitimately convince a fundamentalist Christian who only believes in the literal word of scripture that evolution is right?

One option here would be to accept that sometimes you just can't get what you want with legitimate argument. I think this is dangerous. For the above case, I would seek principals of reason you both do accept and leverage those. It will probably be a long (maybe life-long) conversation, because before you can tackle evolution, you might need to convince them (based on shared principals of reason) to modify how they reason.

Those who are severely mental abnormal are a much more difficult example. Patients whose perception of the world, or faculties of reasoning are radically different may, in the end, be unreachable by a shared process of reasoning. Just because someone's reasoning process is different, however, doesn't mean that it shares no commonalities with your own, or that you can't build commonalities.

#2: "Your characterization implies that if there is no external truth, there is no possibility for legitimate argument, since such argument involves helping them come to see this truth." For example, when discussing issues of personal taste, aesthetics, and arguably, morality, the "truth" might just be a certain way of looking at the world; and no one way is fundamentally better than any other.

These are interesting cases. Let's consider something definitely subjective, such as whether "chocolate is more delicious than vanilla." It's definitely wrong to say that a legitimate argument for this position involves helping the other person discover the truth about this statement. But a legitimate argument for this claim might involve helping someone see if the truth _for them_ is the same as the truth _for you_. You do this by describing aspects of your own experience that are decisive in the hopes that they may discover they agree. This need not be manipulative.

This same idea seems as if it extends to other aesthetic questions fairly easily. What about moral questions?

This idea is similar to that of "framing" an issue. Linguists have long thought that the specific words you choose to describe something carry with them a set of assumptions that will partially determine what makes "common sense". George Lakoff discusses the use of framing for political/moral questions in his books _Moral Politics_ and _Don't Think of an Elephant_.

At first glance, framing can look a lot like illegitimate manipulation. After all, the words you choose can establish "hidden" assumptions that will influence the other person's reasoning system.

Certainly, frames can (and are) used manipulatively in this way. The question is, can they be used as part of legitimate argument? We all frame issues all the time anyway; we can't help it--it's the way our brains and language work.

So if frames are always manipulative, this might put a serious kink in any hopes of purity.

I said that a frame carries with it certain assumptions. What are these assumptions? They represent a particular way of understanding a situation; a way of looking at the world. In fact, they underlie how we experience the world. I think they also contain a mix of objective and subjective elements.

This makes them difficult to know what to do with.

If frames were purely my subjective way of looking at things, then using a frame might be like testing out to see if someone else also finds that way of looking at the world natural. It would be directly analogous to the painting case.

Too often, however, the assumptions a frame brings have elements that could be checked objectively. The fact that a frame hides these, however, means that typically they are not.

I will leave the issue of framing for consideration in another post.