Logos, Part III: Keep Your Logos to the Grindstone--Fibber McGeeskiis
Last week I shared a memory about my adorable baby Jane trying to sell me on a story about how she innocently climbed our stairs because our kitty cat told her to. I claimed that I knew she was being creative with the truth because I used deductive reasoning. Then I laid out examples of formulae and we all laughed and had a good time. But there’s a problem with deductive reasoning that I haven’t addressed yet: how did I evaluate Jane’s logical argument and conclude that she was a Fibber McGeeski?
Quite simply, to evaluate a deductive argument, we can look to its validity and its soundness. We know that an argument is valid if its premises cannot possibly be true while its conclusion is false. So an argument can be valid even if its premises are false.3 We know an argument is sound if it’s valid AND the premises are true. That means that sometimes deductive arguments can be valid, but not sound. Manipulative or deceptive or immature arguments of one-year-olds are often valid but not sound. Let’s take a look at such an example from a recent tweet:
“The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda. Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration. Go for it! WIN!”1
Okay, I’d like to take a brief pause to say something: I am not arguing partisan politics, I’m evaluating logic. I welcome Swimmers from across the political spectrum as long we’re approaching each other with dignity and respect and in the spirit of working together. With that said, let’s all cautiously continue swimming forward here and break down this statement into its logical premises; I’ve added the italicized portions for clarification:
A = Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration. These are the requirements of immigration reform.
B = The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda. Families are separated because the Democrats refuse to negotiate immigration reform.
This tweet does not connect the logical dots for us, so we must form the conclusion for ourselves:
C = Therefore, families are separated because Democrats refuse immigration reform.
This argument is valid because the conclusion would be true if the premises were true. The argument isn’t sound though, because its premises are, in fact, not true. Let’s leave the first premise alone and forego debate on the need/scope of immigration reform and focus on the second premise—that “Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda”. This is untrue; the Democrats are, in fact, not responsible for the breakup of families. In the wake of the crisis of separating children from their parents at the U.S./Mexico border, the rhetoric of blaming the Democrats has heightened:
"I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That's their law. … That's the Democrats’ law. We can change it tonight. … The Democrats forced that law upon our nation."2
The statement is untrue because the crisis of family separation and its aftermath is the direct result of the Trump administration's brand new zero-tolerance policy of an existing law. This policy was enacted during a time that Democrats have very little power because they don't occupy the White House nor control either chamber of Congress. Here’s a description of the law being referenced, according to Politifact:
Whenever parents are charged with a federal misdemeanor (entry without inspection in this case), or awaiting trial, they are placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. Children cannot go to jail, so they are transferred to the custody of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. They are then placed with relatives, juvenile detention centers or foster care. That’s a longstanding Homeland Security policy.3
The current Attorney General took this longstanding policy, reversed legal precedent, and reestablished it regarding claims for asylum. Everyone crossing the border will now be prosecuted, even people coming to the U.S. under circumstances of historically valid claims of asylum, like domestic and gang violence. Such claimants were suddenly subject to prosecution for illegal entry and had their children taken from them. You can read more about that here and here. According to Politifact,
Trump said a "horrible law" requires that children be separated from their parents "once they cross the Border into the U.S."
There is no such law. The Homeland Security Department’s longstanding policy is to separate children from their custodians when they are referred for criminal prosecution. Trump’s administration has decided to prosecute all illegal crossings. Families were rarely prosecuted under previous administrations.
We rate this statement False.3
The premise of blaming Democrats for the separation of families at the border is demonstrably untrue. The logical rhetoric defending the new zero-tolerance policy may be valid, but it is certainly not sound because its premise is false. The Trump administration created and implemented this policy, not the Democrats. President Trump used false logic reliant upon what George Orwell coined doublethink in his novel 1984. Doublethink means
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.4 (Orwell 35)
I know that sentence was meandering and confusing, but that’s the point of doublethink. To enact new policy and blame its consequences on preexisting law is doublethink. To pivot from proudly owning the policy (Senior Policy Advisor, Stephen Miller: “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period.”5), to abject denial of it (Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”6) is doublethink. To enact policy that forces families to be separated and then to blame political opponents is doublethink. And the Trump administration knows this; President Trump used his power to sign the executive order that ended his own administration's policy.
Many of us are disillusioned by politicians across the political spectrum that lie and manipulate, but the U.S. is at the precipice of something altogether more dangerous than status quo dirty politicians. This isn’t about Democrats vs. Republicans; this is about our ethical compass as a nation. It’s about the manipulation of our humanity. As we wade further into a reality of unsound logic and doublethink—where taking babies from their mother’s breast is supported by Christian scripture, and a nation of immigrants prides itself on being a beacon of light to the world—on being the City On A Hill—while it denies asylum to some of the most desperate and defenseless victims of violence—I think of 1984 and Winston Smith’s courage in insisting on the truth. But unlike Winston, we aren’t alone, and we aren’t extinct. I implore you to keep struggling; really look at what you see and hear. Evaluate arguments for validity and soundness and if they don’t meet those criteria, reject them, even if they’re labelled with partisan terms you use to identify yourself. Call them out for what they are: lies. Be outraged when reason is subverted and lies are told as truths. Reason is at the heart of humanity. Reason is humanity. And even if you do feel alone in your outrage, remember:
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. (Orwell 217)
If you would like to do more to speak out about the zero-tolerance immigration policy, please contact your elected representatives. If you’re not sure who they are, you can find out, easy-peasy, right here. You can also go to the Women’s Refugee Commission for suggestions on more actions you can take. Please leave a comment below with your thoughts, suggestions, and strategies we can take to combat unsound logic. Cling to Truth, dear Swimmers. And remember that you are not alone.
“These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely” (Orwell 225).
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Notes:
Image: “Teddy” by Robert Pastryk is licensed under CC0 Creative Commons.
1. Follow @realDonaldTrump. “The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda. Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration. Go for it! WIN!” Twitter, 15 Jun 2018, 10:08 a.m., twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1007671131841671169
2. Greenberg, Jon, et al. “Fact-Checking Donald Trump's White House Lawn Interviews.” www.politifact.com/Truth-o-Meter/Article/2018/Jun/15/Fact-Checking-Donald-Trumps-Unusual-White-House-la/, Politifact, 15 June 2018, 1:08 p.m.
3. Tobias , Manuela. “Trump Blames Democrats for Own Policy Separating Families.” www.politifact.com, Politifact, 29 May 2018, 5:29 p.m., www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/29/donald-trump/trump-blames-democrat-own-policy-separating-family/.
4. Orwell, George. 1984. Signet Classics, 1961.
5. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld and Michael D. Shear. “How Trump Came to Enforce a Policy of Separating Migrant Families.” The New York Times, 16 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separation-trump.html.
6. Follow @SecNielsen. “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.” Twitter, 17 Jun 2018, 2:52 p.m., twitter.com/SecNielsen/status/1008467414235992069