From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 03:22:50 MST
Nathanael wrote:
> It is to the best of my knowlege that the decisions of the UN
> and of each nation are still left up to a few people.
Mine too. At least a relative few.
<snip>
> It is much more likely that the US choosing war or France
> choosing anti-war derives from irrational ideas of a few people.
I don't think its so much the number of people deciding an issue
that determines whether or not any decision is rational what seems
to be more important is the process by which they decide. Because
the UN is a "club" of Member nations who gets to sit in the General
Assembly and on the Security Council on behalf of their particular
country will in very large part be effected by the processes of
by which governments are formed (which in turn appoint their
representatives) in any particular country. What I think we can be
fairly confident of however is that those who are representing any
country at the UN will be pretty capable in comparison to the run
of the mill member of their society when it comes to being able to
make and rebut arguments. Intelligence matters in all countries and
all countries have enough members to choose from to ensure that
more rather than less intelligent representatives will represent the
governments of those countries at the UN.
> Then the media takes hold of the positions and propaganda
> flourishes. Before you know it you have two people arguing
> over wether France sold Iraq illegal weapons. To argue about
> something when neither party in the argument can give accurate
> information is futile.
Its only futile if you assume the point of all arguments is to
communicate or to find the truth. In political forums this is almost
never the case. In political forums the point of argument is seldom
to persuade the person one is ostensibly arguing with the point is
to make some sort of impression on the far greater numbers of
people listening in. In political forums it is more often numbers that
count not the power of an arguement. A powerful argument is only
of interest politically when it results in larger numbers of people
agreeing with what you (or your government) want them to agree
with.
> It would be like me trying to argue that two people on this list
> I don't know but I heard from this third person are idiots. The
> argument is meaningless.
Its only meaningless if you keep thinking in two dimensions as
an argument being basically about two adversaries engaged in
a search for the truth. If you think that the speakers are speaking
for the benefit of the audience then a lot more things will make
sense.
The truth is almost never the point in political discourse, because
political discourse is concerned with creating an environment that
will facilitate a particular outcome and this usually takes numbers.
In political discourse what matters is which "truth" gets to be talked
about. If you and I were to get into a public discussion about the
truth or falsehood of me being a rotten scoundrel then regardless
of whether I am a rotten scoundrel or not I would in most cases
be performing poorly as a politcal operator to even be having
such an unhelpful discussion for me in front of an audience. If your
intention was to discredit me and you could entice me into a
serious discussion about whether or not I was a rotten scoundrel
then their would be a point to what you were doing and I would
be obliging you by taking you up on your choice of topic rather
than making another one of my own.
> The first question of an argument
> should be "what are we hoping to solve" it he answer is nothing
> than what's the point?
This is true if both parties are seeking to discover shared truth. Alas
when you add an audience as in debates in front of an audience
or in all political exchanges it ceases to be entirely about that.
-Brett
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