What Offends Me Most in the Public Arena is Sloppy Thinking

What follows below began as a reply to a comment elsewhere. I expand it here, because there's a point to be made. During the next year, when political and social discourse is only going to get more and more heated, and stupid, and partisan, and uncivil, do think hard about what you're going to say, before you open your mouth and prove yourself to be an idiot. NONE of my friends are idiots; and occasionally some of them do look that way. Why? Read on. (I won't be offended if you don't; however, next time we disagree on something, I might not take you very seriously.)

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Lots of folks get offended very easily these days. The interwebs are full of outrage, and manufactured outrage, and partisan political discourse, and angry rhetoric, and name-calling ad hominem attacks, and friends yelling at each other because of some political opinion. Its ridiculous. As if people cannot bear to be disagreed with, ever, for any reason. But the echo-chamber of complete agreement does not serve us in the public intellectual arena: you cannot go deeper into your own beliefs and understanding if they are never questioned.

I don't say I never get offended; I do. However, what I find offensive is rarely about the content of your argument, but rather about the consistency and logic of your argument. I get along perfectly well with people I disagree with on many issues; I get along poorly with people who throw half-baked aphorisms at me and expect to nod my head in instant agreement. Even if I otherwise agree with them on many points, I don't give their half-baked opinions a free pass just because I mostly agree. This does offend people, yes. Such friends do get upset with me when I point out the gigantic holes in their arguments; they need to get used to that, because that's not going to change. I think for myself, do my own research, and rarely take things at face value.

Because what offends me most is not the contents of peoples' opinions, no matter how bizarre, but the logical inconsistencies and contradictions that they present.

The main thing that ever strongly offends me is blatant hypocrisy. Inconsistent logic comes a close second, though. (Hypocrisy itself is logically inconsistent, of course, which is one reason it's so heinous.) Most of the comments I make in socio-political discussions are to point out where rhetoric and logic aren't being used correctly, or at all. Which does offend some folk who prefer that their prejudices not be questioned or exposed to the light of logic. Typically, ad hominem personal attacks come from those who fear that their argument doesn't have a logical leg to stand on.

Sadly, this is true for atheists just as much as it is for religious believers. It is as true for progressives as it is for conservatives—although experience teaches that progressives generally tend to do their research more thoroughly than do conservatives. Again, the point is logical consistency, not the contents of your argument. For example, if people claim to be driven by reason rather than prejudice or superstition, they must consistently apply reason to their own arguments, and expose their underlying assumptions to the light of reason. No pre-judgment and no underlying assumption gets a free pass.

No one should be tolerant of prejudice or unreason, not even their own. No one gets a free pass.

I am not required to tolerate intolerance, prejudice, stupidity, or poorly-informed opinion. In fact, as followers and fans of Mark Twain, it is a public service to skewer faulty reason and prejudicial thinking wherever one encounters it. Even, yes, amongst one's erstwhile allies.

For example, while it is perfectly possible to hate that abortions happen and still be pro-choice—i.e. in favor of women having the right to manage their own bodies and their own health, while also wishing that every child was a wanted child—you cannot pretend to be logically consistent if you want to defund Planned Parenthood and still claim to be pro-women's rights: those two positions are oxymoronic when placed side by side, and yes you do look misogynistic when you attempt to do so.

For example, you cannot use the inflamed rhetoric of your antagonist without looking like a mirror image of your antagonist. You cannot call your interlocutor an idiot without opening yourself to the same charge. You cannot insist that your opponent's argument be subjected to rigorous logic and scientific experiment without exposing your own arguments to the same requirement. No double standards are allowable, ever. Period.

What also offends me is when people repeat a meme without fact-checking it; especially if that meme came from certain sources. Always Consider The Source (CTS). For example, Planned Parenthood receives Federal funding, yes, but none of that Federal funding goes to support abortion services; furthermore, Planned Parenthood provides many services such as birth control—which prevents unwanted pregnancies, and therefore reduces the incidence of abortions as well—and the abortion services they provide are only a fraction of their services. If you believe otherwise, you have bought into the disinformation smear campaign of the political right wing, and you need to check your facts. For example, if you believe that right wing charities and ethically and morally superior to charities that are either political neutral or sponsored by generally progressive religious groups such as the Methodists, you again need to check you facts, and not assume that every piece of disinformation you read is accurate or authentic.

Data overrules half-baked opinion, every time. Fact overrules political prejudice, every time. Period. Know your facts before you open your mouth, or you can expect to be challenged.

People, you look really stupid and uninformed if you repeat a meme because it agrees with your prejudices, or your well-considered opinions, but is provable disinformation or lies. (CTS)

People seem to get offended whenever I present a nuanced opinion rather than total agreement with whatever their current bumper-sticker opinion is. People also get offended when I point out the holes in their arguments. Oh well.

Finally, we all can be wrong. I can be wrong, you can be wrong, people you admire and respect can be wrong. The history of politics as well as the history of science is littered with strongly held beliefs proven to be wrong at a later date.

But here's the problem with being wrong: If you never admit you're wrong, or apologize for making a mistake, you have no credibility. By admitting when you're wrong, and moving on, you both grow as a person, and your group grows in wisdom. If you are completely unable to admit you are wrong, as people of fixed prejudices are unable to admit the light of reason into their opinions, you are a hypocrite, and logically inconsistent, and everything wrong that I've been talking about here. When you discover you're wrong, admit it, and move on. There is honor is honesty. There is no honor is face-saving lies.

If someone disagrees with you, you TALK to them about it. You find out if in fact you substantially disagree, or if it's mostly semantic. Coexistence requires communication. And that requires getting outside the comfort zone of your dearly-held opinions. It requires you to let them be challenged, so that you can hone them, or change them if required.

Mark Twain: In Celebration

A few random notes and quotes in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Mark Twain's death.

First a couple of my favorite short pieces from the man himself:

The Way Prayer

On the Decay of the Art of Lying

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A few random Mark Twain quotes:

This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
—Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, entry for April Fool's Day

Arguments have no chance against petrified training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff.
—from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

I will now claim—until dispossessed—that I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to literature. . . . The early machine was full of caprices, full of defects—devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After a year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought I would give it to [William Dean] Howells. . . . He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.
—"The First Writing Machines"

The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example.
—from A Tramp Abroad

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
—Letter to Orion Clemens, 23 March 1878

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A long interview with Hal Holbrook regarding a special performance he will be doing of his one-man Mark Twain show to mark the anniversary. (Hat tip to Frank Wilson.)

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This past month, even the SyFy Channel on cable has done a sideways Mark Twain celebration, by presenting a mini-series based on Philip José Farmer's epic RiverWorld novel series, a major character in which is riverboat captain Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. (This isn't the first adaptation of the Farmer's sprawling novel series undertaken, and I'm not certain that the previous adaptation wasn't more faithful to the letter of the books, but in my opinion this adaptation was certainly fun, and hit many of the right notes to capture the spirit if not the letter of Farmer's novels.)

Mark Twain

Lying is universal—we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather.
—Mark Twain, On the Decay of the Art of Lying



On a recent trip to Connecticut, I visited the Mark Twain Library, in Redding. Twain moved to Redding in 1908, where he spent the last few years of his life. He established the local public library by donating 3000 books to its collection, and by founding the Mark Twain Library Association shortly after moving to town. Redding is a town in Connecticut that I have a family connection to, since my aunt and uncle moved there circa 40 years ago. I've visited Redding several times, and have always liked that region of Connecticut, for its sheer physical beauty as much as for its cultural history.

Born on November 30, 1835, Samuel Langhorn Clemens was a prolific author of both serious and humorous literature, a famed public speaker and lecturer, and a man interested in the future of technology. He was involved with the early years of the typewriter. He was friends with Nikola Tesla, the electrical inventor and visionary. One of my favorite photos of Twain is this one, taken at Tesla's New York City lab: Twain is holding lightning in his hands, with Tesla in the photo's background.



The image of Twain holding the fires of creativity in his hands, symbolized by lightning, seems very apt for a writer and thinker who ranged across many literary fields with equal skill.



One of Twain's greatest writings, in my opinion, was one never published in his lifetime; he wrote it circa 1904, but his family thought it would be viewed as sacrilegious, and he did not feel he could publish it without being seen as a crank. This short prose-poem was The War Prayer, which I believe shows Twain's remarkable prescience about human affairs. I'll reprint it here, as a memorial for a century of continuous war, which seems to have no end, even now.

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It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came—next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams—visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

    God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest!
    Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory—

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside—which the startled minister did—and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne—bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import—that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of—except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two—one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this—keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer—the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it—that part which the pastor—and also you in your hearts—fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory—must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

—Mark Twain, The War Prayer