Public Opinions and Reasoned Arguments

If you've spent any time communicating online, it’s likely that you will have encountered one or two expressed opinions that led you to intervene with a contrasting view. You may even have been involved in a heated exchange or an outright argument. Such public disputes rarely end amicably and the chances that later discussions with the same person will be free of antipathy decrease in proportion to the level of derision and vitriol reached.

Human psychology is shaped by attitudes and dispositions that have evolved over millions of years, yet many modern forms of communication create new forms of interaction that demand new skills, new social norms and perhaps even new ethical standards. Adaptable as we are, it might be argued that of our social skills are much less informed by deliberative debate and rational analysis than they are by more direct forms of physical interaction. In a physical conflict for instance, it would almost never be wise to switch sides, especially in full view. Such a move would be practically suicidal. Perhaps this explains why online arguments so rarely result in anyone admitting they’re wrong. The impulse is always to defend your corner, to go on the offensive or to duck out altogether but almost never to say: "Oh, I see now that you're right and I have been wrong all along."

An important factor in many disagreements is known in psychology as the "Backfire Effect", which is what happens when people become entrenched in their position when confronted with evidence that conflicts with their beliefs. If the theory is correct then the prognosis is pretty dismal. When we develop beliefs we often invest significant amounts of time, energy and, on occasion even lost friendships in the process. No wonder then that people are loath to renounce their hard-won beliefs. How often do politicians or philosophers radically change their minds and shift their views? Very rarely, yet they can't all be right in their adopted positions. On the contrary, most must be wrong in some very significant ways.

Only scientific evidence seems to exert any substantial force in overturning false assumptions and even here people show astonishing resilience in the face of the facts placed before them. Take climate change denialism or creationism for just two prominent examples.

Until very recently I assumed that it should be possible to change people's minds through reasoned argument. I was under this misconception because it seemed to me that I had experienced several instances, even very recently, where my own opinions were radically altered by the force of reason. It strikes me now though, that this wasn't quite what happened at all. I was receptive to new ideas because my thinking wasn't yet settled on these issues. I was conducting my thoughts on certain subjects in a kind of hazy but workable uncertainty that was probably relatively easy to overturn, even though the reconfiguration was far from easy on my part. Now that my mind is made up, a much greater investment of evidence and argument would be required to persuade me that my thinking needs to change once again on these issues.

But what about the many experts whose theories are based upon false assumptions? What would it take to persuade them that there are better ways to explain the issues? As it turns out, trying to persuade experts is nothing more than a vain and hopeless fantasy. Expert beliefs are simply too entrenched, and confronting people with their errors, no matter how subtly or politely, is rarely, if ever, effective and never endearing. The more successful approach is to cultivate experts by other more ingratiating means, essentially by befriending them, in the hope that that they might at least acknowledge your alternative theory and perhaps discuss it with others or cite it in their own work. But getting them to change their mind, especially in a public context, will almost never occur by force of reason alone.

If however, an expert were to encounter a well reasoned theory in private, where the stakes are significantly lower, then perhaps there is a chance that this might find them receptive enough to begin the journey of reconstituting their ideas. But, of course, they would first need to be exposed to this well reasoned theory and to recognise that it's worthy of their close attention. The likelihood of such an eventuality is actually pretty slim.

So, if I am right in this analysis, and I should say that I'm not yet entirely certain, then the only reliably fruitful application of reasoned argument in a public context is in helping people to see the flaws in other theories before they commit themselves to them, before they make their minds up. Perhaps reasoned argument has its most important place, not in changing minds but in keeping minds open long enough that they might have an opportunity to recognise the most coherent ideas available.

As far as your own beliefs go, all you can hope is that none of your mistaken assumptions are so strongly held that you can never be persuaded to change them.

How to Cheat the Word Count

Many of the students I teach are finishing off their dissertations at the moment.

Recently I also had to submit a written paper to be assessed, for a teaching qualification. Previously, whenever I had to write long essays, or a BA dissertation, the mere thought of a minimum word count filled me with dread. This time, instead of worrying about the minimum word count, I had to be careful not to exceed the limit of 4250. In the end I honed it down–(without cheating) to 4249.

Since the paper had to be submitted as a Microsoft Word ".doc" document it occurred to me that,–if I was willing to take the risk, I could write as many or as few words as I liked (within reason). If I wrote too many words I could hyphenate lots of them and make the hyphens white; (essentially rendering them invisible)–or if the word count was too low I could add lots of white; text.–For-example if you-select this-sentence and-paste it-into Word-you’ll find-that it-adds up-to 21-words (half-its actual-count) whereas-if you-select what-appears to-be empty-space below-you’ll have-1000 words.

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However if you’re a student, I wouldn’t advise using this technique –-your teachers may have read this blog too!

Stencil

School of Life

“Ultimately, teaching art means teaching life.” –Boris Groys “Education by Infection” in MADOFF, S.H., ed., 2009. ART SCHOOL (propositions for the 21^st Century)

Room 42, Glasgow School of Art, © Lesley Punton & Jim Hamlyn, 2010

Ground Rules or Guidelines?

There are two mainstream films that contain similar phrases about rules and guidelines. The first is the 1984 film Ghostbusters where the character played by Bill Murray is on the verge of being seduced by a possessed Sigourney Weaver. He says: “I make it a rule never to sleep with possessed people…They're really more guidelines than actual rules”. The second is Pirates of the Caribbean where a ghostly Capt Barbossa explains the subtleties of the pirates code: “the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules”. Interestingly, both uses of the phrase are employed during a verbal exchange between the "normal" and the paranormal; between a world whose physical rules govern everything we do and a realm where rules and reality itself evaporate into meaninglessness.

In our world of gravity, time, dimension and light we’ve created countless measures to gauge and quantify both limits and extent. We’ve explored and discovered many of the underlying principles of a multitude of physical processes and phenomena. We’ve mapped the heavens to infinitesimal detail and subdivided atoms to ever diminishing fractions of existence, all with the laudable aim of establishing the fundamental laws of reality and gaining a deeper understanding of this contingent moment which we so precariously inhabit. In our certitude of the value and applicability of these truths we’ve reproduced our conceptions of fact and codified them in social laws, rules and codes of conduct such that there’s barely a facet of human endeavour which isn't regulated, modified or influenced by our perceptions. But despite the breadth and dimension of our wisdom there is still much that is not dreamt of in our philosophy, or as Wittgenstein wrote: “We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.” And yet we persist in using our understanding of the ubiquity and value of rules as a closely woven net to catch and ensnare all kinds of intangible creatures, both forbidding and innocent. My question is this: what rare life are we suffocating into the bargain - what gentle, unassuming and fragile creatures are we casting out as useless flotsam in our desire for control and mastery?

Civility, propriety, courtesy, common decency - call it what you will - few would disagree that such things are being eroded in contemporary society. For some people the solution is to put up walls and to create boundaries and rules which protect themselves and the people they care for from perceived danger and harm. For others, such things are just an inevitability, a consequence of social change and human progress. But we shouldn't submit to such reactionary or deterministic conclusions, especially since the solution is part of what makes us who we are: the ways we treat people and the way we wish to be treated.

"The knowledge of courtesy is a very necessary study; like grace and beauty, it breeds mutual liking." Montaigne

The 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that man, in a state of nature, was ruled by the most primitive and aggressive instincts. The solution therefore, for Hobbs, was that man requires the authority of law to attain civil society:"law is established only by artificial Power, and Reason enfranchised only by Authority."

In his inspiring book “The Gift” the poet and writer Lewis Hyde examines this naïve but still widespread notion and contrasts it with his own research on gift exchange and, in this example, an anarchist perspective:

"The anarchist begins his politics on a different note and comes to a different resolution. Anarchist theory is like an aqua regia applied to the state and its machinery to see how much might be stripped away before people begin to suffer more than they do under law and authority. The anarchist begins with the assumption of man's good nature, contending that law itself is a "cause" of crime."

Hyde quotes James Joll’s 1979 essay on the anarchist movement which discusses anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s ethnographic work which contradicts Hobbes unfounded claims from an empirical standpoint:

“The primitive tribes he observed seemed to have customs and instincts which regulated their social life without the need of government or laws. For Kropotkin, primitive society, so far from providing an example of Hobbesian conflict and of the war of all against all, showed rather that cooperation and 'mutual aid' were the natural state of man if left uncorrupted by government and by laws which result from the 'desire of the ruling class to give permanence to customs imposed by themselves for their own advantage', whereas all that is necessary for harmonious living are 'those customs useful for society. . . which have no need of law to insure respect'.”

Hyde concludes the chapter opposing Hobbes

once again

:

“It is this double conceit – first, that passion will undo social life and, second, that coercion will preserve it – that anarchist philosophy and the traditions of gift exchange call into question. The former imagines and the latter stand witness to a social life motivated by feeling and nonetheless marked by structure, durability, and cohesion. There are many connections between anarchist theory and gift exchange as an economy – both assume that man is generous, or at least cooperative, “in nature”; both shun centralised power; both are best fitted to small groups and loose federations; both rely on contracts of the heart over codified contract, and so on. But, above all, it seems correct to speak of the gift as anarchist property because both anarchism and gift exchange share the assumption that it is not when part of the self is inhibited and restrained, but when a part of the self is given away, that community appears.”

In recent times Anarchy has become synonymous with chaos and civil disorder and much of it's insight has therefore been obscured, but the discerning belief that human beings are essentially good is one from which we have a great deal to learn. Whereas, if we continue to propagate the Hobbesian view, that the only way to manage our social relations is by extending the rule of law into every quarter, then George Orwell's bleak vision is even closer than we had ever dared to believe. Certainly rules are necessary in many instances to protect people from injury and danger; the Highway Code for instance or Health and Safety measures (though these can also be raised to ridiculous levels of absurdity), but there are many walks of life where an over emphasis on rules simply infringes freedom, debilitates creativity and smothers the delicate value of what I have called The Social Gift.

We need as few rules in the educational context as possible - especially in an art school. The belief that it's important to institute conspicuous regulatory measures, no matter how nuanced, seems to me to be both retrogressive and antithetical to the true nature of high-quality education. Education should aim to instil the very best in people, which means that education itself should uphold the very best principles, including genuine trust and mutual respect. If we choose to employ impoverished ad-hoc solutions like ground rules then what underlying message are we really promoting? But if we must regulate our fellow citizens (students) in our higher institutions of learning, let's use guidelines instead and leave ground rules to the ghosts of meaninglessness or cast them adrift on the sea of unnecessary, humorless and ill-conceived errors.