When You Say It Like That...

Theory

Anyone who defends a position with the statement, "Well, when you say it like that..." either has an indefensible position, or hasn't thought their position through. Those with consistent logic based on evidence will not use this defense.

Practice

Example One

Me to the Santa Claus Believer: So you believe in a fat man who constantly wears a red suit and has an army of elves to make toys for him. You believe that once a year, he distributes these toys from a magical sleigh flown by eight magical reindeer, and that he enters homes through the chimney, eats cookies and drinks some milk...all this at millions of homes worldwide in the space of one evening. He does this with absolutely no sense of self-interest. When he's not spending one night a year in worldwide charity, he's chilling at his home at the North Pole. Nobody has ever actually seen the real Santa Claus, though many of his "helpers" seem to pop up at malls just before Christmas each year. Am I getting it right so far?

Santa Claus Believer: Well, when you say it like that...

Example Two

Me to the Christian: So you believe in a non-physical, all-knowing, all-powerful consciousness in the sky who created the world and has handed down rules for us humans to live by. Some of these rules you follow, some you ignore, and others you decide are parables and metaphors, and are not to be followed literally. Every Christian has a different idea of which category all of these rules fit into. You believe you can psychically communicate your wishes to this sky-brain, and that they'll be granted. Nobody has ever directly seen God, though you say that certain people past and present have claimed the ability to more directly experience God, and that gives them religious authority over the rest of us. Your proof for all of this is a book, written by men, but supposedly dictated by this omnipotent, omniscient God. All the same, it's imperfect in that it can be interpreted and re-interpreted a thousand ways, and is not communicated in some sort of 'perfect' language.

You believe that if you're good, this sky brain will send you to eternal bliss in the sky and if you're bad to eternal damnation at the core of the earth. Well, not you exactly, but a little tiny version of his invisible consciousness called a "soul." This soul existed before you were born, and will continue to exist forever into the future, despite the complete lack of any empirical evidence. Even though God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, terrible things still happen in the world every day. Do I have all this right?

Christian: Well, when you say it like that...

Example Three

Me to Government-Loving Statist: Alright, so you believe that people need to be controlled because they're generally evil, or will take advantage if left to do whatever they want. Your remedy for this supposed problem is to give a monopoly of firepower and force to a small, select group of people to wield over everyone else. This group of controllers is granted their power over everyone because a majority of a fraction of the population that actually votes, voted for them. There is no guarantee that the same evil people government is supposed to defend us from won't simply seek out government power for themselves. In fact, the very creation of positions of power will attract evil people to those positions.

Somehow these people (for a specific period of years) gain the ability to tell everyone else what to do--at the threat of murder or imprisonment--just by signing pieces of paper. You believe that your support of these people in positions of power gives them authority over me. Their power includes the ability to shoot me in the head, without repercussion, if I disagree with you or them and act on my disagreement. You openly admit the corruption inherent in this group of people on a regular basis, but continue to justify the existence of the institution they're supported by, for some reason. Am I getting things right so far?

Statist: Well, when you say it like that...

Explanation

These are just a few of the more obvious examples, but a good illustration of the sorts of conversations I've always felt a little strange about. Instead of addressing the contradictions within their position, the people above are basically saying that they think you're mischaracterizing their argument. What you're really doing is stripping away all the propagandistic and confusing language they use to justify their position. You're simply translating their ideas into plain English.

Instead of "somehow squeezing down every chimney in the world in one night, even the houses that have no chimney," Santa Claus's forcible entry into houses is explained to be accomplished by "magical" means. This introduces a falsehood into the argument (that magic exists) as if it's completely true and viable. Any conclusions they come to might even be--or seem to be--true (i.e. it's nice to receive presents) but only accidentally, because of their faulty logic (i.e. presents come to us by way of a magical fat man in a red suit).

Any objectively correct beliefs people hold will not be subject to this same line of deconstruction of falsehoods, because there won't be any falsehoods. For example, I know that the initiation of the use of force is always immoral. If someone attempts to deconstruct this by saying, "Oh, so you don't think I should be able to defend myself from a raving lunatic with a sword," they're not making a valid claim. I would never need to respond to their argument with "Well, when you say it like that..." because they're not accurately translating what I said into plain English. The non-initiation of the use of force still allows for self-defense. Since they're misunderstanding my argument, there's no need to bust out "...when you say it like that."

Thus, I'm pretty sure that whenever you hear someone say, "Well, when you say it like that..." you can take it as fair warning that they've got a position with contradictory or false premises, and save yourself a lot of time arguing over whether you have a "tone" or not.

Challenges welcome: I'm wrong a lot more often than I'd like to be, so please correct me in the comments if you see something wrong with the above arguments. Thanks for reading!

We Are Not Born Small

What was carved on our foreheads that says "Cannot grow?" What was carved on our foreheads that says "Stay small - Stay little - Don't attract attention - Don't offend - Don't upset people - Don't contradict - Don't confront?" I don't believe that that's carved on my god damned DNA, and I don't believe that that's carved on your DNA either. I think that's just frightened people boxing us in because they're small, and I've had it with that...I've had it with that.

There is nothing in our DNA that says we cannot speak the truth because people will get upset. So they get upset, so what? So what? You don't want to go to your grave--I don't--I don't want to go to my grave saying to myself, "Well, I didn't ruffle too many feathers. People liked me. They didn't know me well, and I certainly didn't reveal my true self to them...didn't even know what it was. But I got along. I sort of passed through life like a javelin into a still pond with barely a ripple. That is my legacy." That about 18 minutes after I die people say, "Oh yeah that guy," and without the aid of photographs they can barely remember my face. And without the aid of letters and e-mails, they can barely remember my words.

That's not what I want for me. That's certainly not what I want for you. There is nothing written into anything within us, deep within us that says we must be small.

- Stefan Molyneux

A YouTube video on the lovely mammoth largeness that humanity can achieve:


(YouTube link)

This video by Nielsio contains audio from a podcast by Stefan Molyneux. Molyneux has an amazing way of picking out the perfect metaphors to describe ideas, which the writer in me loves. This video has no shortage, as he explains that humans are not naturally timid, but must be ground into submission. The way out of this seeming natural timidity, of course, is to deny those who would grind us down the opportunity--to instead sharpen our swords of virtue, reason, and integrity on their grinding stones. To save virtue in humanity, we must actively seek out what is virtuous and then live it. To bring reason to humanity, we must know logic and its consequences and then live it. To give the world integrity, and to preserve and foster our own, we must be willing to understand virtue and reason. And then...then we must be willing to live it. Fully, invitingly, publicly, we must live it.

I'm having a particularly heavy day from a cognitive dissonance standpoint. I hold a number of philosophical ideas in the abstract that I'm not living out as completely as I could. It's ironic, considering my history (and therefore length of preparation and amount of knowledge) on the topic. With aesthetic problems like a desire to lose weight, cognitive dissonance has always popped up but never motivated a change. With lifestyle choices like being drawn to video games when I feel like I might more productively use my time, it's only ever been a passing anxiety. But not living according to the logical consequences of a reasoned philosophy is completely crippling. I feel it all: confusion, doubt, anxiety, self-hate, depression. I feel it all, but I know these emotions are not my own, they have been inflicted on me by those who would grind me down.

I do not hate myself, but simply display the projected hatred others show in the face of my allegiance to rationality. It's not me who doubts myself, but teachers from the past who doubted me to stew confusion and uncertainty into my young, curious brain. I'm not confused. In fact, I've never been more certain of the definitions of virtue, integrity, and of the power and accuracy of logic and the scientific method. This confusion belongs to someone else, and it's high fucking time I give credit where it's due. If I don't, I'm stuck with all of this crippling scar tissue of depression, anxiety, and last night's late entrant to the race, insomnia. If my certainty is upsetting to some people, so what? They can either show me where I've gone wrong logically, or we can talk about the roots of their feelings, or they can be the ones to shut up for a change. It's high time I step beyond thinking and talking philosophy, and into the living, breathing, and doing of philosophy.

Living to the best of my ability does not mean doing the best I can given the social constrictions of the world. It means staying consistent with my values even when--especially when--it makes me uncomfortable. Philosophy can be a dangerous tool for those who know it and willingly misuse it, but just as dangerous is for those who know philosophy and still refrain from living it.

Effective Protest: A Letter

Here is a letter I wrote to be included in a college newspaper of a liberal arts school near where I live. It's about an anti-war protest they had that I believe to have had no effect-to a negative effect compared to what they intended. The letter was too long to fit into their "letters" section, and there wasn't enough time for me to rewrite before a deadline. The letter became outdated for their school paper, but I think it still has some value in showing how misguided the will of a mob can be. Plus, it's satire. What man could withhold a work of satire from publication and still call himself moral? No man at all. No man at all...


Dear Macalester College students:

I got some details of your recent protest/walkout/strike against the war in Iraq from a few of your classmates, and found some interesting parallels to a protest I had recently organized. I wanted to help you avoid certain disaster with your protest, but I've been dealing with an annoying arson court case. I haven't been able to write this until after your event, and it's regrettably too late to stop you from making the same mistakes I did.

The other day, I got fed up with the war in Iraq. I decided to hold a protest. I'd heard of other people doing the same thing, and wanted to try one out for myself but didn't want to get cold, so I stayed inside my apartment. I called in to work sick, "Yeah I'm sick...sick of the war in Iraq! I'm on protest/walkout/strike today!" My boss was confused. Some people just don't understand political action. I pushed forward even though this absence would count against me as unscheduled, and would just make for more work the next day. I handed out signs to my roommates and started shouting about peaceful solutions to armed conflict, despite the fact that my roommates are both already vehemently opposed to the war. I may not have changed any minds, but it made me feel better for some reason.

In the euphoric fervor that always follows a good round of slogan shouting, I decided to write some anti-war epithets on the walls and steps of my apartment with a permanent marker. I knew the only likely people to see them would be people who already agree with my position, but it made me feel better for some reason.

After that, I went to the grocery store and held a banner that said "War: None for me, thanks." In order to get some good mileage out of my banner (after all, I had spent a whole 15 minutes making it!) I decided to block the exit and hold it high and proud. I left when people started complaining about how my behavior was annoying, and some sort of fire hazard. Maybe I was a hazard, but who ever said war protest wasn't dangerous?! I took this as a sign that it was working. Even though people exhibited nothing but visible annoyance, I felt better for some reason.

On the way back to my apartment I met up with a friend of mine. He has questionably violent views on how to deal with this ever-expanding government, but we agree that the war sucks, so I hang out with him anyway. After mixing up a couple of moltov cocktails, it was time to go back home.

When I got there and tried to continue the protest, my roommates told me the landlord had stopped by and said he was going to have to take the cost of cleaning up my anti-war graffiti out of my deposit. Furthermore, my roommates were sick of me shouting at them about things with which they already agreed. To top it all off, my boss left me a voicemail saying that skipping work was irresponsible and unacceptable, and that I was fired! My friend had used used the moltov cocktails to start my neighbor's house on fire because my neighbor is an Iraq war supporter. After his house was reduced to a pile of smoking ashes, I was shocked to find out that he hadn't changed his position on the war one bit, and was instead interested in filing a police report accusing my friend and me of arson!

I was just about to contact a lawyer to sue my employer for discrimination against my beliefs when it hit me: I had gone about my protest in completely the wrong way. As it turns out, the Mac protest regretfully followed very much in the same vein. I called in to work, while at Mac there was a mass exodus from classes. Some of the largest parts of the protest took place on-campus and indoors. The media was not alerted, so you ended up with rooms full of people shouting to one another about points they already agreed on. Like my marker art, several instances of stenciled anti-war graffiti showed up on Mac campus, which looks more like a confused effort to destroy your own property than an effective war protest. Some protesters blocked traffic near one of the city's busiest intersections with designs on forcing people to see their indignance toward the war. Unfortunately, this only inconvenienced people who agree with you, and likely solidified some seething hatred into the hearts of those who already disagree with you. In effect, I'm not sure either protest (mine or yours) changed even one mind in a positive way. We destroyed the good will of others, and destroyed our own property. We wasted time skipping out on opportunities to learn and work for a better life.

Finally, just like I associated with a violence-prone friend, Mac had the "RNC Welcoming Committee" as a guest organization at the protest. This group, according to their website, is intent on disrupting the Republican National Convention, through the use of violence if they deem it necessary. I have realized that war is wrong because the use of force is wrong, and have stopped associating with violence-prone friends. I humbly suggest Macalester College do the same. Violent opposition to my neighbor only confused the issue and led to charges being pressed. Violent opposition to the police state only seems to justify its existence in the minds of government officials.

Only through practicing the principles of non-aggression, and the common sense of logic can we win converts to and garner attention for the anti-war cause.

In the Beautiful Brains of Children: God vs. Einstein

Here's a short video of kids responding to the question, "What does God look like?" You can see from their responses that it's akin to asking the question "What color is a unicorn?"


(YouTube video link)

I find kids to be amazing and fascinating creatures of logic. They're so dang smart, it puts most adults to shame. I think the video above is amazingly telling of the abuse inherent in religious instruction. The kids at the beginning of the video are completely honest. When asked "What does God look like?" they respond that they don't know, or that they don't understand the question.

They have to be pressured to even answer such a nonsensical question. This is because children who are subjected to religious instruction are never asked whether or not God exists. They're told he does exist as an objective and solid fact. They're forcefully told it's true over and over again because there's not any way to arrive at belief in God through rational observation. Someone schooled in everything but religion does not arrive at a belief in gods on their own. It might sound strange to some of you to hear someone talk about religion as abuse inflicted on children, but it's hard for me to see it as anything else. Any system of belief that forces children to lie to attain the praise of their elders is corrupt.

In the video above, the children struggle to answer the question in the way that they figure the interviewer will want to hear. They often seem to be unsure of their statements, which they inflect as if they're questions. Several of the kids have goofy grins and look up and to the sides when ascribing fairly non-controversial physical traits (such as 'bearded' or 'tall') to this imaginary invisible being. Simple description of a real man they've seen before would never elicit such dodginess or evasion from kids. They'd just straightforwardly describe as much as they could remember about him.

Here's a video of kids explaining who Einstein is. Where they don't know, they just say so. None of them are embarrassed or shifty about their answers because they're based in reality. No goofy grins, no sidelong glances, no unexpressed uncertainties.


(YouTube video link)

These kids understand that the concept of describing a god is ridiculous. It's clear by their responses that they're made uncomfortable and embarrassed by the question. When asked to explain Einstein, it's a complete reversal. Weird...

As always, if you have a better explanation for this phenomenon than I do, hook me up with a comment!

An Unfortunate Philosophical History (Now With Happy Ending)

When I was a senior in college, I had to write a final paper. The idea was that we'd choose a topic of study that had likely been covered before and then find an interesting or new interpretation of that idea. With the discipline of philosophy, this is a lot like trying to write a fresh and exciting episode of Friends about Ross and Rachel's complicated relationship. There's not much left for territory unless you expand into completely new ideas or study one idea in depth. I decided to study an idea in depth: The idea that being living proof was the best possible argument for your ethical system. It wasn't a complicated or ultra-specific idea, like some of the other students had chosen, but it was problematic to my adviser, all the same.

ME: I'd like to explore the idea that a system of ethics is invalid if it cannot be lived, and that actually living according to the logical consequences of your ethics is the best proof for its validity.

PROF: OK. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you explain in more detail?

ME: Sure. It seems to me that if you preach a system of beliefs with logical contradictions, it'll be impossible to live out its logical consequences, since reality conforms to logic. It seems to me that any non-obvious contradictions in the argument, or any mistakes in the facts of the premises will come to the surface of any ethics as soon as you try to actually live by it. It also seems to me that any philosopher who does not or cannot live by (or point to someone else who lives by) his or her own moral ideas has little or no business telling others what to do. [Note: It seems to me that I had to use the phrase "it seems to me" a lot throughout college. This makes sense as long as you realize that college as it exists today is partially designed to convince you that you can't really know anything for sure...and that you should somehow be sure of your uncertainty.] Like Wittgenstein tried to live by his philosophy and failed miserably and gave up philosophy for a while to teach kindergarten. It's because there was a fundamental flaw (it seems to me, lots of flaws) in his thinking.

PROF: These are interesting ideas... [Then, after a few minutes of tapping a pen on the desk and stroking the philosopher beard...] I'm not sure you'll find much source material for reference. I don't really remember coming across those ideas anywhere.

ME: [Blank stare] You're kidding, right? It's just...well this is the whole purpose of philosophy, right?

PROF: Well, I guess some people might call that the purpose of philosophy. But, nope. Not kidding. Weird, huh? It's an interesting idea, but you don't really have enough room in such a short paper to present an idea so fresh. It's more something that you'd do in a graduate thesis, or even doctoral.

ME: I understand about the length, but I thought there'd be all sorts of writing on this stuff. Like I said, isn't this the whole purpose of ethics? To understand the logic of right living and then actually live it?

PROF: Maybe there's something for you in here...[takes a book off the shelf by some obscure philosopher] this would be a good counterpoint to Being and Time by Heidegger, which has some sections on the concept of genuinity, and might hit on the ideas you're talking about.

It didn't come close to what I was talking about, but by the time I got partway through my research, I had to commit to using Heidegger and all sorts of other obscure sources to argue a point I didn't even really want to make. It's a thirty page disaster, and is on file in my college library for posterity. It's proof that even when you pay thousands of dollars, education by others is always limited by their self-interest. If philosophy were actually simple, accessible, and understandable, then philosophy professors would have precious little time to explore irrational and non-functioning philosophies of the past. Plato, anyone? There are entire courses of study in college philosophy where at the end they say, "But everything we've taught you so far is bullshit and here's why." I wish someone had just passed out the bullshit detector on day one.

My paper was basically incomprehensible, and was ripped apart by my professors on presentation day. At first I couldn't believe they gave it a passing grade, but then realized that they were the same people who set me on the path to this complete nonsense. I considered myself an academic failure, and my idea as one that was either totally wrong or outside its time.

After college I studied up on rationality, and eventually found the novel The God of Athiests, by Stefan Molyneux. In this novel, there is a character who is a graduate student proposing a big new philosophical idea. His advisers respond in a similar way to mine. It's a lovely read otherwise, but contains an amazing breakdown of how and why postmodernist thought has disintegrated any hope of actually receiving a decent higher education in most modern universities. I learned more from this book for the price of a couple of DVDs than I did from thousands of dollars worth of credentialed and certified professional education.

It's amazing, the money you can save just by deriving your philosophy from first principles, using logic and the scientific method to test your ideas. It's lovely, the life you can live if you're tenacious about adjusting your actions to match that same philosophy...I'm only a fraction of the way there, but infinitely better off for it. It's astounding how few people attempt or accomplish this in life, and how infectious their disease can be.

Post number ones are never interesting...

...Until now! Oh wait, no. This one probably won't be too terribly interesting either. I'd just like to offer a bit of background before I get into all the this and that of my ideas. My name is Jason McLaughlin. I'm currently 26 years old and I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. In college, I majored in literature and philosophy. This qualifies me to write a blog on my thoughts and ideas. The diploma certifies me to do little else (like make millions of dollars), I've found. I'm not explaining my education to give you a reason to trust everything I say, but just so that you can feel a bit more comfortable lending me your brain if you haven't pursued a similar course of study. After college, my senioritis continued for a year or two. I've picked philosophy back up in the past couple of years, and found some amazing new ideas that we didn't seem to touch on in enough (or any) detail while I was in college. It turned out to be exactly the sort of stuff I was trying to study, but was discouraged from pursuing by my professors. Hm...weird! But more on that later.

I try my best to work with logic and evidence of my senses to understand the world around me. In philosophy, this is traditionally called rational empiricism. This means I use logic and the scientific method to determine what is true. This way, I can be more sure that what I say is actually objectively true, and not simply a projections of my opinions as "truth." If you ever have any disagreement with my ideas, I'm perfectly willing to correct myself as long as I'm wrong in my understanding of the empirical facts or have made a misstep in logic. Thinking like this has led me to some interesting conclusions about life. I hope you stay along for the ride.

Any discussion of my understanding of philosophy would be lacking if I didn't mention Freedomain Radio. This is a podcast/vidcast/online discussion hosted by Stefan Molyneux. It's the most exciting discussion I've ever come across, and it's not only limited to philosophy! It's about philosophy, psychology, relationships, governments, religion, literature, human interaction, family...basically everything core to life. It's a lovely community of thoughts, and just so happens to be the best use of my time I've ever come across. Wow. What a ringing endorsement.

I have an interest in movies, television, video games, technology, and music which I'll bring my philosophy to bear on. And in a way more interesting way than in this first post. Post number ones are never interesting...