Reason and courage

In his forthcoming book, “The Assault on Reason”, Al Gore recalls Sen. Byrd talking to an empty Senate chamber on the eve of the Iraq war:

clipped from www.time.com

In describing the empty chamber the way he did, Byrd invited a specific version of the same general question millions of us have been asking: “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?” The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable.

A large and growing number of Americans are asking out loud: “What has happened to our country?” People are trying to figure out what has gone wrong in our democracy, and how we can fix it.

I think it’s important not to just be able to understand that an argument is wrong, and not just that it’s wrong on the facts, but wrong on the logic. Progressives need to get sophisticated about such things — to recognize rhetorical sleight-of-hand techniques (strawmen, ad hominem attacks, false choices, etc. — and here’s more) that allow irrationality to flourish. To some extent, it’s become a part of the blogosphere’s lexicon, but we could stand to expand our sensitivity and knowledge of this stuff. People often know when an argument “just doesn’t feel right”, but they can’t always enunciate their objections in a clear and powerful way.

In addition to logical fallacy, I do hope that the recent pushback against fear as a political tool is a real trend: Check out this op-ed by two military men, specifically regarding torture …

The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp. Regrettably, at Tuesday night’s presidential debate in South Carolina, several Republican candidates revealed a stunning failure to understand this most basic obligation. Indeed, among the candidates, only John McCain demonstrated that he understands the close connection between our security and our values as a nation.

And then Deval Patrick’s speech at Mount Wachusett Community College yesterday:

“The willingness to face down passion and fear with reason and courage — and to speak truth to power — is the hallmark of the active citizen,” Patrick told the graduates and several hundred guests lined up in folding chairs in a school gymnasium. “It represents a deep and honorable tradition in our country.”

Sound familiar? This is the way out of the hole, folks: Reason and courage. We can do this — these traits are in our national DNA, if only we recognize and rely on them.

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