ARGUMENTS: IDIOSYNCRATIC TRUTH:
1. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT OBJECTIVE TRUTH: One should not expect the dialectical format to produce anything resembling objective truth. Instead, the “truths” adopted by the agonists are idiosyncratic expressions of “truth” that each party sees fit to adopt as his very own, rather than some truth objectified by authority, as in (“I’m the parent and I said so!”), or by preponderance of evidence, as in (“The security camera caught you on tape.”). Because the objectified truths are not present, the dialectical argument cannot end immediately, and the parties of the argument can hold onto their idiosyncratic notions of what is “true,” as follows:
a. EXAMPLE: OBJECTIFICATION BY AUTHORITY: A twelve year-old girl asked her mother for ten dollars. When the mother refused to give the money to the child, the girl said, “Why not?” The mother said, “Because I said so.” The child was not satisfied with that response and said the mother had to give her a reason. The mother replied that she didn’t have to give a reason: “I’m the adult here and you’re the child and I say you can’t have the ten dollars. Okay? End of discussion.” The twelve year-old insisted that the mother give her a detailed explanation for her refusal to give her ten dollars. The bickering went on and on until the father, who was sitting nearby, told the child that her mother had told her she couldn’t have the ten dollars and ‘that was it.” The child stood there with her hands on her hips and then stuck her tongue out at her father. The father, seething with anger, jumped off the couch and chased the daughter around the dining room table. The child ran out of the house and didn’t return until some time later, after it became dark outside.
Once the argument was objectified by the father pursuing the child and the child leaving the house, the dialect ended. More significantly, the child was so shocked by the incident that she immediately ceased arguing in later cases when she recognized that “the point of no return” had been reached in the argument, when the father signaled a “time-out” gesture with his hands.
b. EXAMPLE: OBJECTIFICATION BY PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE: Frank used to take barrels of sawdust home with him to be used as bedding for his dogs. Frank’s employer had no objection to his taking the sawdust because it otherwise presented a disposal problem for the employer. And normally Frank would get a co-worker to help him lift the barrel onto his truck. But one night the security guard noticed that the men were using a fork truck to load the barrel on the truck. It seemed strange that something as light as sawdust would require a fork truck. So, the guard came over and asked Frank what he had in the barrel. Frank told him that he had a barrel of sawdust. “Then why do you need a fork truck to load the barrel? You never used a fork truck in the past.” Frank told him that it was “real heavy sawdust.” The guard removed the cover on the barrel and found a shallow layer of sawdust on top of a barrel of carbide cutting tools. The carbide had a scrap metal price of about $5.00 per pound at the time and the barrel contained hundreds of pounds of metal. Inadvertently the guard had caught Frank in an incident of Grand Theft - Felony, because the value of the carbide tooling was about $4,000. Frank was fired on the spot.
2. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT CLOSURE: Moreover, often the dialectical argument cannot end on a decisive note, as in, “Shut up! You’re the kid and I’m the parent and I carry the big stick in this household. Got it? Now, get to bed!” Lacking any clear end point or strategy, the dialectical argument can continue as long as the parties are willing to dispute with each other, or until the argument ends by imposition of the superior will.
3. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT SYSTEMATICITY: The dialectic format does not lend itself to systematic study or investigation. Instead, it directs the focus of the disputation to the particular portions of arguments being made at a given instant, rather than to the sequence or panorama of arguments leading up to that point in time. Such arguments become the classical, “you can’t see the forest for the trees,” type of argument because the parties are concentrating on the petty details of particular propositions instead of attempting to precipitate some universal principles from the context of the arguments.
4. ARGUMENTS FILLED WITH OPINIONS INSTEAD OF FACTS: The dialectical argument often ends in a he-said-she-said deadlock because vapid opinions are being bantered about instead of unassailable facts. The parties retreat to their own houses and harbor the opinions they have just exposed in the dialect, smug in the assurance that they are completely right. From behind the facade of newspapers and magazines, they hurl opinions back and forth as if those words could do genuine damage to the opponent. Only later do they discover that fact-finders out in the world make mince-meat out their “arguments,” which the agonists have pretended to be factual, when, in fact, such arguments can be shown to be only opinionated thoughts arising from unthinking minds. One recalls, for instance, the Presidential Election of 1984, when Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale traded barbs with each other. A disinterested observer might have heard only trivial opinions being proffered by each candidate. But when Mondale told the whole world that he would “raise your taxes,” the dialect - and the election - was really over at that point in time. The mere opinions that many people heard (or held about the candidates) had changed into hard facts that affected their wallets, and Mondale went back to Minnesota crushed in utter defeat. The dialect had ended when mere, silly opinions had mutated into a hard, crystallized, unassailable fact of the threat of rising taxes.
1. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT OBJECTIVE TRUTH: One should not expect the dialectical format to produce anything resembling objective truth. Instead, the “truths” adopted by the agonists are idiosyncratic expressions of “truth” that each party sees fit to adopt as his very own, rather than some truth objectified by authority, as in (“I’m the parent and I said so!”), or by preponderance of evidence, as in (“The security camera caught you on tape.”). Because the objectified truths are not present, the dialectical argument cannot end immediately, and the parties of the argument can hold onto their idiosyncratic notions of what is “true,” as follows:
a. EXAMPLE: OBJECTIFICATION BY AUTHORITY: A twelve year-old girl asked her mother for ten dollars. When the mother refused to give the money to the child, the girl said, “Why not?” The mother said, “Because I said so.” The child was not satisfied with that response and said the mother had to give her a reason. The mother replied that she didn’t have to give a reason: “I’m the adult here and you’re the child and I say you can’t have the ten dollars. Okay? End of discussion.” The twelve year-old insisted that the mother give her a detailed explanation for her refusal to give her ten dollars. The bickering went on and on until the father, who was sitting nearby, told the child that her mother had told her she couldn’t have the ten dollars and ‘that was it.” The child stood there with her hands on her hips and then stuck her tongue out at her father. The father, seething with anger, jumped off the couch and chased the daughter around the dining room table. The child ran out of the house and didn’t return until some time later, after it became dark outside.
Once the argument was objectified by the father pursuing the child and the child leaving the house, the dialect ended. More significantly, the child was so shocked by the incident that she immediately ceased arguing in later cases when she recognized that “the point of no return” had been reached in the argument, when the father signaled a “time-out” gesture with his hands.
b. EXAMPLE: OBJECTIFICATION BY PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE: Frank used to take barrels of sawdust home with him to be used as bedding for his dogs. Frank’s employer had no objection to his taking the sawdust because it otherwise presented a disposal problem for the employer. And normally Frank would get a co-worker to help him lift the barrel onto his truck. But one night the security guard noticed that the men were using a fork truck to load the barrel on the truck. It seemed strange that something as light as sawdust would require a fork truck. So, the guard came over and asked Frank what he had in the barrel. Frank told him that he had a barrel of sawdust. “Then why do you need a fork truck to load the barrel? You never used a fork truck in the past.” Frank told him that it was “real heavy sawdust.” The guard removed the cover on the barrel and found a shallow layer of sawdust on top of a barrel of carbide cutting tools. The carbide had a scrap metal price of about $5.00 per pound at the time and the barrel contained hundreds of pounds of metal. Inadvertently the guard had caught Frank in an incident of Grand Theft - Felony, because the value of the carbide tooling was about $4,000. Frank was fired on the spot.
2. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT CLOSURE: Moreover, often the dialectical argument cannot end on a decisive note, as in, “Shut up! You’re the kid and I’m the parent and I carry the big stick in this household. Got it? Now, get to bed!” Lacking any clear end point or strategy, the dialectical argument can continue as long as the parties are willing to dispute with each other, or until the argument ends by imposition of the superior will.
3. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT SYSTEMATICITY: The dialectic format does not lend itself to systematic study or investigation. Instead, it directs the focus of the disputation to the particular portions of arguments being made at a given instant, rather than to the sequence or panorama of arguments leading up to that point in time. Such arguments become the classical, “you can’t see the forest for the trees,” type of argument because the parties are concentrating on the petty details of particular propositions instead of attempting to precipitate some universal principles from the context of the arguments.
4. ARGUMENTS FILLED WITH OPINIONS INSTEAD OF FACTS: The dialectical argument often ends in a he-said-she-said deadlock because vapid opinions are being bantered about instead of unassailable facts. The parties retreat to their own houses and harbor the opinions they have just exposed in the dialect, smug in the assurance that they are completely right. From behind the facade of newspapers and magazines, they hurl opinions back and forth as if those words could do genuine damage to the opponent. Only later do they discover that fact-finders out in the world make mince-meat out their “arguments,” which the agonists have pretended to be factual, when, in fact, such arguments can be shown to be only opinionated thoughts arising from unthinking minds. One recalls, for instance, the Presidential Election of 1984, when Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale traded barbs with each other. A disinterested observer might have heard only trivial opinions being proffered by each candidate. But when Mondale told the whole world that he would “raise your taxes,” the dialect - and the election - was really over at that point in time. The mere opinions that many people heard (or held about the candidates) had changed into hard facts that affected their wallets, and Mondale went back to Minnesota crushed in utter defeat. The dialect had ended when mere, silly opinions had mutated into a hard, crystallized, unassailable fact of the threat of rising taxes.
