How often do we get a good argument?

Separated at birth? Walter, Dennis the Menace's arch enemy, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In a recent interview with BBC News on Radio 4, our favourite (not really) Edwardian throw-back, Jacob Rees-Mogg, made a personal attack on the Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney. Mr Mogg opined that Mr Carney was a “second-tier Canadian politician” who had "failed" to get a job at home and should not have been in his post for some time. To me this exchange encapsulated the piss-poor standard of debate and argument we've seen throughout the entire Brexit debacle. Evasion, abuse, distraction, falsehoods: we've had them all. Our political discourse, and much beyond for that matter, is dominated by binary debates, often drenched in anger and blind dogmatism. How to make sense of it all? How to recognise a poor or good argument?

Of course, formal philosophical techniques can be deployed but, let's face it, these are neither easy to remember nor use. Something that I came across somewhere a while back and which I do find useful in the present context comes from Paul Graham. In 2008 he proposed a seven-level "disagreement hierarchy" (see here for the original article, if you are interested) with the strongest, most logical form of disagreement/argument at the top, and the weakest, least logical at the bottom. He saw it as a pyramid (cf Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) with the lowest forms of argument, being more common, forming the base and the much rarer highest forms at the top. This ranking makes sense to me as, with my admittedly jaundiced view, probably 99% of arguments drop into the bottom four levels. Here's what it looks like.

 

The various levels are:

 

Level 1: Name-calling

This is the lowest level of argument and is playground stuff. This is when you call people names. It can be done crudely by saying things like “you are an arsehole” or more pretentiously (but still to the same effect) like, “he is a second-rate Canadian politician”. Amusing though they may be, the more florid and articulate forms of name-calling beloved of Boris Johnson and his ilk are no different from crude insults.
 

Level 2: Ad hominem

An argument of this kind attacks the person rather than the point they are making - the literal Latin translation of this phrase is: ‘to the person.’ It involves trying to devalue a person’s opinion by devaluing the person themselves. Again the term "second-rate Canadian politician" falls into this category as well. In footballing terms, it's "playing the man rather than the ball". What the person is saying is not directly addressed neither is the question of whether he/she are correct or not.

 

Level 3: Responding to tone
This is a slightly more evolved form of disagreement as the response moves away from personal attacks and on to addressing the content of the argument. However, in this, the lowest form of responding, it's all about undermining the argument by faulting the author’s tone. For example, one could point out the “cavalier” or “flippant” attitude with which a writer formulated their opinion or, a perennial favourite, evoking political correctness. But does the tone really matter, especially when judging it can be so subjective? Of course not! It's a diversionary tactic. Far better is to stick to the topic under dispute. What matters much more is whether the author is wrong or right than what their tone is.

Level 4: Contradiction

At this level, things are moving closer to addressing the actual meat of the argument. In this, an opposing case is presented but with very little evidence to back it. You simply state what you think is true, in contrast to the position of the person you are arguing with. An example? How about: "I can't believe the author dismisses the benefits of staying in the EU such a cavalier fashion. The benefits are there for all to see".

Level 5: Counterargument

This next level sets us up on the path to having more productive disputes. A counterargument is a contradiction with evidence and reasoning. When it’s aimed squarely at the original argument, it can be convincing. But, alas, more often than not, passionate arguments end up having both participants actually arguing about different things. They just don’t see what they are doing. But we can see it every week on Question Time.

 

Level 6: Refutation 

This is a convincing form of disagreement but, as it requires work in preparation, people don’t do this as often as they should. A good way to refute someone is to quote them back to themselves and pick a hole in that quote to expose a flaw. It’s important to find an actual quote to disagree with—“the smoking gun”—and address that. 

 
Level 7: Refuting the central point

In general, the higher you go up the pyramid, the fewer instances you find come across. And now we reach the apex and encounter the most powerful form of disagreement - refuting someone’s central point. This is in contrast to refuting only minor points of an argument, examples of which would be correcting someone’s grammar (which slides you back to Level 1) or pointing out factual errors in names or numbers. Unless those are crucial details, attacking them only serves to discredit the opponent (Level 2), not their main idea. The best way to refute someone is to figure out their central point, or just one of them if there are several issues involved. Graham thinks that a truly effective refutation is along the lines of "The author's main point seems to be x. But this is wrong for the following reasons..."

I've found this idea of Graham's to be very useful to bear in mind when listening to politicians and figuring out how well they construct their arguments. It should come as no surprise to realise that most of them are rubbish at it and seem to hover around Levels 1 to 3. Perhaps this is symptomatic of playing the game of getting better and instant sound bites rather than engaging in longer, higher level debates? Having this tool helps to weed out dishonest arguments and providing a pin for popping the balloons of fake news.

And if you really want to have fun, think about it the next time you listen to Trump trying to marshal an argument.