Fragmenta Philosophica

Civility

Reflecting on my own (mis)adventures in commenting 'round the blogosphere, and observing the differing proportions of heat and light that radiate in blogospheric discussion, I've been meditating on the question:

What is civility?

I'd say: a disposition which aims to treat an antagonist in such a way as to cultivate an environment of maximal mutual respect. Hence civility might be taken as an aspect of being humane - "reaching out" and acting on the assumption of an opponent's good faith.

I think, within limits, civility is defensible both on principle and as a matter of expediency.

On principle, we might be alive to the fact that, subjectively, the experience of "certitude" tends to press on us each equally (experience of conviction), even if the quality of our certainty - objectively considered - isn't the same.

Practically, if our goal is the truth (a big if), then it's in our interest to keep our temper in check, so that our judgment isn't distorted, and we don't put ourselves in the position where to admit being mistaken down the line also entails having to apologize for arguing obnoxiously on behalf of the mistake;

and:

we don't want to give our interlocutor-opponent any reason to feel that to accede to our view entails the admission that previously he was a "fool" or an "idiot" to think as he did.

In other words, the aim is to remove impedimenta to acknowledging merit in the opponent's view; humility is fine - but let's leave humiliation out.

That said, I do - to a point - value "passion" in argument: after all what we're disputing usually is a pressing matter of life (i.e., pertains to ethics-politics), and it seems artificial to treat differences over such things similarly to a merely "academic" discussion. I guess, as with many things, there's a fine line.

Speaking of lines, we each have a different one which, if crossed, nullifies the utility of civility. If it could be imagined, picture debating with somebody who propounded the merits of, say, rape. Presumably at some point in such a discussion, the proper response would be ... force.

The logician from Sudan

According to this article:

'Sudan warned Britain and the United States not to interfere in its internal affairs Thursday after British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he had not ruled out military aid to help combat the crisis in the Darfur region.

' "I don't understand why Britain and the United States are systematically increasing pressure against us and not operating through the United Nations ," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said on a visit to Paris.

' "(This) pressure closely resembles the increased pressure that was put on Iraq (before the war)," he said.'

Perceptive fellow, huh?

But - wait:

' The United States has drafted a U.N. resolution that would impose an immediate travel and arms ban on militia members.

' "We don't need any (U.N.) resolutions. Any resolutions from the Security Council will complicate things," Ismail said. '

The minister must be a zen master, as he seems to delight in paradox - operate through the United Nations, don't operate through the United Nations. Maybe he meant: operate through the General Assembly! (Yes, I know, we can thank the U.S. for "emboldening" the Assembly way back when, on the cusp of the Korean War). Perhaps his position isn't incoherent - it may be unintentionally honest: the minister learned from the debacle over Iraq that U.N. deliberations are a nearly sure-fire way to arrest the momentum of some pressing action. If he was a gamblin' man, he might even have added, " Heck, let 'em pass a resolution!"

And, anyhow - what's the good minister doing in Paris? I thought that despots aren't welcome there. Maybe their emissaries are ...

WMD, Again

If I can find the time, I'm keen to read certain portions of the Senate Committee report.

The focus of the inquiry is, ostensibly, the recent CIA estimate on Iraq's weapons capabilities. How do the conclusions reached in that connection redound to other relatively independent assessments of Iraq's WMD possessions which have been offered up over the years - for example, The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Crisis of Global Security by the last head of UNSCOM, Richard Butler; or Endgame : Solving the Iraq Crisis, by the then-unreconstructed Scott Ritter?

For that matter, what of the kind of thing which William Shawcross recounts in Allies: The U.S., Britain, and Europe, and the War in Iraq?

"One senior British politician, Paddy Ashdown, recalled in his diaries that when he went to see Blair on a domestic matter at the end of 1997, all Blair could talk about was the threat from Saddam's WMD: 'I have now seen some of the [intelligence] stuff on this,' he told Ashdown. 'It really is pretty scary. [Saddam] is very close to some appalling weapons of mass destruction. I don't understand why the French and others don't understand this. We cannot let hims get away with it. The world thinks this is gamesmanship. But it's deadly serious.' " [emphasis added]

In other words, it wasn't only in 2002 that only the CIA reached affirmative conclusions about Iraq and WMD - there is the UNSCOM legacy, as well as the conclusions of foreign Intelligence agencies, not to mention conclusions reached under the Clinton Administration (which led to drastic measures such as Operation Desert Fox). Whatever was inadequate, even culpably so, in recent conclusions of the CIA surely cannot wipe away the wide and deep body of opinion that it was reasonable to err on the assumption that Iraq retained WMD.

Thinking of Hume's humorous formulation in On Miracles, what would be the greater "miracle" - that Iraq had WMD and somehow managed to dispose of them before the invasion, or that multiple apparently authoritative individuals and Intelligence agencies, over a span of years, wrongly believed that Iraq was hiding WMD , especially in light of Iraq's history from the '80's onwards? (Yes there are more nuanced possibilities than this stark dichotomy suggests, but a simplistic rendering focuses on the "fundamental alternative")

Fractals

After a hellish, nearly 60 hour work-week, I return with a few links and "shorts."

I hesitate to pick out some interesting posts I've noticed of late while making the rounds of the blogs, because I certainly do not mean to imply that those I won't mention aren't valuable and interesting. It's just that a few dovetail well with what I've been thinking recently - in the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states, if you, like, know what I'm sayin' sayin'.

...

David Adesnik has a strong post at Oxblog which exposes the vacuous soul-searching undertaken by some "liberal hawks" over at TNR in light of the question whether they regretted supporting the invasion of Iraq. Perhaps predictably, most credit their own instincts and intuitions, blaming Bush and Co. for every shattered hope and expectation.

...

Melanie Phillips, at times a Bush critic but never a hysterical Bush hater, outlines an interesting case that Bush was foolish to insist that Turkey be admitted to the EU, since, superficial appearances notwithstanding, Turkey lacks genuine cultural affinity with Europe. I'm not sure if Melanie intended this, but she almost seemed to suggest that Chirac's concerns and her own are isomorphic - whereas I would suspect other raison d'Etat as motivating the French President primarily.

...

Saddam shows a sense of humor? In the BBC write-up on Saddam's court appearance:

'Hearing the charge relating to Halabja, where about 5,000 Kurdish civilians died in a single day, Saddam Hussein said, "Yes, I heard about that."'

..

Thinking about intellectual integrity ... I'm not sure whether or not to see "Fahrenheit 9.11." I find Michael Moore to be a loathsome individual, but that's no refutation of his assertions - he could be right, wholly or in part, for all that. But my aversion to his person makes me hesitate to add to his "war chest," though the cost of not seeing the film will be having a considered opinion about it. But if I do see it, I want my attitude to be such that I'm not in attendance simply in order to be able to attack it, firsthand. You know, have the conclusion first, and subsequently find the "evidence" to fit it - like Moore himself seems to do (I can hear it now: "Like Bush did over Iraq too"!). Until then, I'll give provisional ear to critics whose opinions I respect.

...

A considered, sharp post over at The Stopped Clock relating to music licensing and piracy (one of my pet protests). More broadly I addressed this issue in one of my first blog entries.

...

The redoubtable Roger is really on a roll, ranging across the landscape of philosophy, literature, etc. Good stuff, even though we often disagree.