Empty Sophistry

It was when I was talking to Siew Mei last Saturday that she mentioned to me she'd been reading attacks on Barack Obama as a hypocritical elitist for having armed guards to protect his children whilst wishing to deny this privilege to others. It took me possibly less than a second to process the utter feebleness of this argument in logical terms and it's my guess the same would be true for you, Gentle Reader. Just in case you struggle a bit on this one, Mike LaBossiere, who generally posts first rate stuff at Talking Philosophy, has a painstaking piece on this topic which scrupulously covers all the bases.

But what I find fascinating about all this, and sort of frightening, is this thought: I just don't believe that there aren't people at the NRA intelligent enough to be aware that this little argument is fundamentally barmy - so why do they let it out into the public domain? My guess is that they figure a fair percentage of those hearing it will be too lazy or too foolish to think it through, and will, therefore, buy into the argument, even though those propounding it know it to be without substance. Or, on an even more sinister level, they figure that, like themselves, those who are basically against gun control will grab hold of any superficially attractive sounding denigration of any of their opponents and use it to rubbish them with a kind of malicious delight in simply having the seeming power to do so.

I'm reminded of the first time I read 1984, when I was a young teenager, and felt the horror of a world in which those in power simply decide what the truth is with a kind of perverse glee at being able to make one and one make three. (A lot worse than those rather silly rats, I always thought.) And I'm further darkly reminded of the National Socialist Party's understanding of the power of the Big Lie.

The problem is, though, that we are so eager to reward those with the ability to influence public opinion, whether that influence is for good or evil.