When Jane was a wee, itty-bitty baby—15 months old—I turned my back for one second to clear dishes from our table, and in that moment, she climbed the flight of stairs leading from our kitchen to the second floor. She was a quick little bugger. When I had her safely in my arms, I said What are you doing up here? You know you’re not supposed to climb the stairs by yourself! She looked me dead in the eye and said Dory told me to do it. As in Siduri, our beloved family cat. Jane was claiming that Siduri made her an offer to climb the stairs that she couldn’t refuse.

Jane’s argument smelled like fish. It was dubious that Siduri encouraged Jane to climb the stairs because 1). the cat wasn’t anywhere near the kitchen, 2). as sleep-deprived as I was, even I certainly would’ve remembered if our cat had started talking, and 3). Siduri was a responsible cat and never would have approved of such shenanigans. But as arguments from one-year-olds go, I had to applaud Jane’s creative attempt.

How did I know that Jane’s logic was fishy? Because I used deductive reasoning to figure it out. This is the process of deducing a logical conclusion from one or more phrases. Syllogism—arriving at a logical conclusion based on two or more phrases assumed to be true—is one of the most common tools of deductive reasoning. If you want to get math-y about it, syllogisms are typically laid out in three lines with the formula:

A = B.
B =C.
Therefore, A = C

If that hurt your brain, here’s a famous syllogism from Aristotle:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Syllogisms in literature are not always as clean-cut and elegant as mathematical formulae. In George Orwell’s 1984, logos is central to the struggle of the protagonist, Winston, who relies upon his deductive reasoning skills to navigate an authoritarian regime. The premises are not always lined up in neat order, but take the following as a first premise:

“Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”1 (Orwell 217)

Winston grounds himself in the belief that the truth, regardless of what anyone else believes, is rational and logical. This premise could be summed up as Truth = Reason. For a second premise:

“It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.” (Orwell 27)

Winston believes that clinging to reason is “staying sane” and it’s at the heart of our humanity: Reason = Humanity. Therefore, to complete the syllogism, we can conclude that Truth = Humanity. The problem within 1984 lies in that the antagonist—the Party—is skillful at using and subverting logic for its own purposes. The villain O’Brien says:

‘You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the proletarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Party. The others are outside—irrelevant.’ (Orwell 269)

O’Brien lays claim to humanity, limiting it to the select few that comprise the governing class, rendering everyone else irrelevant. But Winston clings to his truth:

“I don’t care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later they will see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces.” (Orwell 269)

But O’Brien undermines him using the very reason Winston believes in against him:

[O’Brien]‘Do you see any evidence that this is happening? Or any reason why it should?’
[Winston]‘No. I believe it. I know that you will fail. There is something in the universe—I don’t know, some spirit, some principle—that you will never overcome.’ (Orwell 269-270)

Poor Winston is unable to hold to logic and begins mucking about in the murky area of belief, which is to say, emotion, or pathos. From here, O’Brien smells an easy victory and dismantles what is left of Winston’s logical appeal and therefore, Winston’s humanity:

‘Do you believe in God, Winston?’
‘No.’
‘Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?’
‘I don’t know. The spirit of Man.’
‘And do you consider yourself a man?’
‘Yes.’
‘If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are nonexistent.’

O’Brien establishes that Winston is the last man and utterly alone.
If Winston is the last man and alone, humanity is extinct.
Therefore, Winston is extinct.

There’s another form of deductive reasoning called modus tollens, which means "mode that denies by denying".2 Modus tollens is the rule of logic stating that if a conditional statement is accepted, and the consequent does not hold, then the negation of the antecedent can be inferred. Okay, now my brain hurts. Here’s an example:

My kid said the cat told her to climb the stairs.
Cats cannot speak.
Therefore, my kid is full of bologna (okay, okay, more properly: Therefore, the cat didn’t tell her to climb stairs).

O’Brien continues his assault on Winston’s reason (and by extension, his humanity) using modus tollens:

‘And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?’
‘Yes, I consider myself superior.’
O’Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After a moment Winston recognized one of them as his own. It was a sound track of the conversation he had had with O’Brien, on the night when he had enrolled himself in the Brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child’s face. (Orwell 270)

To simplify O’Brien’s modus tollens:

If Winston’s humanity is superior to the Party, he wouldn’t engage in lies and cruelty.
Winston lied and committed himself to cruelty.
Therefore, Winston’s humanity is not superior to the Party.

Winston, isolated and frightened is no match for the rhetoric of the Party. It’s a bleak cautionary tale in these times when many of us feel alone and frightened. But we aren’t in Winston’s shoes, not really. We aren’t completely isolated; we can swim together and help each other along. Join me next week in exploring how we can evaluate the integrity of a logical argument. In the meantime, please share your thoughts and experiences with logical appeal. And even if Winston is right that It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage, Team Icarus sure could use the reminder of unity by hearing your voice in the comments below.

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Notes:

Photo: "Siduri, the Reasonable And Responsible Cat" by Elizabeth Welsh. RIP, sweet kitty.

1.       Orwell, George. 1984. Signet Classics, 1961.
2.       Stone, Jon R. (1996). Latin for the Illiterati: Exorcizing the Ghosts of a Dead Language. London: Routledge. p. 60