Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Argumentation as a method of control.

In many cases we tend to think about complex ideas to test how smart we think we are. In a lot of these cases we get so wrapped up in things we forget that life is about people. When it comes down to it everything we do is connected to people, because we too are people. Even the most obscene things and ideas people come up with are tied back to people, and how we are connected to those ideas.

The purpose of my stating this is I have started analyzing different people's argumentation methods. We all like to debate ideas at times, and every person is a political animal. The difference between politics and law to me is that in politics we do not have to answer questions. We only have to give responses. In law we have to give answers to questions. Since people are political animals in many cases we like to create responses to situations instead of providing answers.

In a news show I heard Darwin's great grandson came to America to be a writer. One of the things that stood out to him was how much Americans tend to buy into superstition like astrology. Claiming things occur because of god's will or mysticism without any evidence to base their claims on. This had me pondering a deeper question about human action. If people are willing to put beliefs into ideas they do not have answers to in order to find comfort instead of fear through ignorance in their environments, and more ignorance without valid premise allows them to find comfort, then this observation is likely a survival mechanism. On top of this idea I superimposed the concept of survival of beliefs with no evidence to political debate grounded in the same kinds of beliefs. When I say political debate I do not mean we are speaking about government in everyday life, but that everyday interactions we have are about power and control. They happen so subtle we do not realize it, but in observing argumentation styles I have seen the modern survival of the fittest taking place in competition for social construction of beliefs and ideas that help people maintain self esteem in order to survive in their environments.

The most common argumentation style I have come across in general is averting a rebuttal to a conclusion by creating a new sub-topic, and instead of admitting defeat and/or making a counter-rebuttal, most people tend to create sub-topics out of topics at hand to avoid defeat. They do this in a political manner by changing topics and giving responses that are irrelevant to a matter at hand. The purpose of this defense is because people do not like to see flaws in themselves, and instead of looking at flaws and correcting them, they instead quickly reach for something different they can be right about. An example of this can be I refute a claim such as all apples are red. I state that not all apples are red because I have seen green apples. Instead of admitting defeat a common strategy for someone would be to say, yeah, but there are certain fruits that are all red. This has nothing to do with the topic at hand. It is merely the creation of a subtopic to distract you from the current topic. Of course in real life a debate is much more fast paced and it can be hard to catch this, but my common counter strategy has been to point out for example that other fruits are irrelevant to apples on this topic. In other words, I try pulling them back into topic as much as possible and beat them in the head till they cannot escape anymore.

Another argumentation method I have come across is the changing of definitions to situations instead of accepting situations flaws. I know a person who exists in the future I guess you could say. He only talks about the technology of the future. Everything comes back to people and not just things. We can care about things, but the only reason we care about things is because they can somehow change our relations with people. My belief therefore, is that the reason he lives in the future all the time is because he feels his life sucks now. If he had to live in the now he would not be able to live with himself. He could however change his actions in the now in order to get more control over his current environment, but he took an alternative survival approach, which is to deny the present and live in the future where everything in his life will be better someday. An example of changing the definition of things is when I try calling him on the possibility he may being escapist by always dwelling in the future. He claims that it is just foresight. I point out I have foresight about being an attorney someday, and I am excited about it, but I do not always think about it and talk about it, because I am secure in knowing that future, and O do not dwell in it. I live now and worry about my actions effects on now and the near future. By changing the definition of the same action to one with less negative connotation he could try convincing himself he was not in a world that not ours.

Another argument method is redefining premises when conclusions are proven false. An example of this is when I had a friend claim we should only care about things that give us direct benefits, because indirect benefits are irrelevant. My rebuttal is you cannot separate direct and indirect benefits. He tries making some complex political argument, and I stop him saying the situation you are describing has too many variables and exists at a highly macro level. We should observe such phenomenon at the micro level with less variables, because if it exist there then the same phenomenon must exist at macro levels too with many variables. I tell a story of a guy I worked with who told me about his band during lunch in more detail and much longer than I cared to hear. I could have said I do not care to hear this and hurt his feelings, but I listened because he might not listen to me later when I care about something, or the fact I have to work with him could have caused him to make my work day much harder than it had to be. Listening to the story was an indirect benefit connected to a direct benefit of enjoying work more. Fist he tries changing definition by saying that is a cost, and I respond a cost is an indirect benefit, because costs do not benefit you directly, they benefit you indirectly and connect to something directly beneficial. When he was cornered he claimed he was just trying to say we should focus on things that seem more likely to give us benefits versus trade offs that give us less. That was changing the premise after I put holes in the conclusion. Some people cannot admit they are wrong.

The last argumentation style I found the most interesting. In this one people tend to stay on topic, but they also tend to throw a lot of complex jargon and concepts in the air too. This one takes me longer to pick up on, but once I do I can take the appropriate action. This method is used by people who tend to have a higher level of insecurity in their environments, so they are seeking to gain control of it by adding a lot of nonsense concepts and jargon to the atmosphere in order to create a state of anarchy. Now that there is a bunch of clutter existing with the simple idea you were putting forward anything can go in a state of chaos, and this is where they try to seize control of the environment. These same people tend to like giving advice you do not want, because this too is a method of controlling you in their environment. In many cases they combine these two methods by making things very confusing and then giving you advice with confusing information that is not relevant to the situation at hand, but since all the mechanisms are about control, survival, and power that all connects back to people, this is more about their insecurity around people by showing off their intelligence in a way that make people confused and inferior than actually helping you or coming to a conclusion with valid meaning. My example of this is when I was telling someone I need someone to speak Spanish to if I am going to get better. The response was theta waves are higher when we are younger, and as we age beta waves increase that cause oxidization, and that is why it gets more difficult to learn, and there is music that plays theta waves you can listen to while you learn. This goes on for about five minutes and he finally stops. Then I say, yeeeaaah. I need someone I can speak Spanish too. I was not asking for advice on how to learn in general, or even how I can learn Spanish better. I made a statement explaining exactly what I need. This method was more about control and confusion by making the environment cluttered than helping me.

I guess to sum things up I would say, everything we do is because of people and for survival. Even in our everyday modern world that seems civil we are in combat with nature, and people are part of that nature where our current ideas of how to live are constantly being tested. Things we can test in practice will always be more valid than things we speak of theoretically only. In many cases we like to escape into a world of theory that can never apply to making the way we live each day better. It is purely a distraction that exists to speak of things that are not actually about current situations, but are being used to gain control over people in current situations as a method of survival.

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