FILL: A Commentary on Un-American Ideas

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting 21 March 2008

A Commentary on Un-American Ideas

Recently on another list, there was an outbreak of unhappiness (aka at least a fire flurry, if not a full-fledged flamewar). Along with the normal irritations of electronic communications, in the lengthy diatribe that triggered the event, one of the participants threw out this statement as a final stance:

That is an un-American idea!

Apparently this was supposed to convince us all to draw back in horror and join in condemning that evil notion. Instead it caused a number of us to condemn his argument.

I refuse to continue the argument, and there have been apologies all around, yet . . . I was intrigued as to why this label should be considered both as a strong argument and as highly irritating to some of us. Of course, one of the difficulties is that the list actually crosses the national boundaries, and some of us don't even live in the United States. So insisting that we should condemn a notion simply because it didn't originate there seemed less than desirable.

Then I got to thinking about parallel arguments, such as:

That is a woman's idea
That is a [insert preferred despised minority here] idea

And I realized that this is the tarbrush approach to debate. I think it falls in the same region as such logical fallacies as ad hominem, genetic fallacy, guilt by association, personal attack or ad hominem abusive, poisoning the well, and even a bit of red herring. The argument is based on the idea that if I can show you that there is something nasty or ugly about the source of the idea, then you will reject the idea without ever considering its merits.

Aside from the creakiness of the logic, this assertion also has the property of backhanding groups -- since to portray the source as tainted, we have to blacken the reputation of an entire group. At some level, that is the exclusionism and discrimination that occasionally threatens to overwhelm the American ideals of inclusion and equality. If American ideals stand on anything, it's the acceptance of all people and ideas on their merits, without regard for where they came from.

My point, if I have one aside from working through my own irritation at this line of argument (or should it simply be invective, given that it is really a single assertion?), is to warn us all to avoid this kind of attack. Saying that this is a bad idea because it came from those people . . . as Pogo said, they is us. One of the greatest gains of the digital age, with the internet rapidly dissolving national boundaries, has been a realization that ideas must stand or fall on their merits, and that the tarbrush of national origin now blackens us all if you try to wield it. So . . . stick with the high ground of principle and reason, not the swamp of emotional attacks and discrimination.

No real conclusions here, just another step on the road of life.

When we write, we learn about ourselves.