I do enjoy squabbling on the internet, and anyone who knows me will confirm that I'm a pedant. But with both of these things, there are limits. Two months ago, I involved myself in a particularly bitter, protracted, and pathological altercation, which had already been running for several weeks.
Ridiculously, the whole disagreement (extending to over 8,000 words) hinges on a semantic dispute about the meaning of
dumping a thing in a skip. So, although the discussion undoubtedly touches upon several important political issues, you’ll not be getting any of that here. I'm just going to follow the principal thread through, from the start.
It's a long haul, I'm afraid. So here's a sketch:
1. Blogger makes political statement X.
2. Blogger is challenged with evidence that X is empirically false.
3. Blogger leaves the nuanced world of political debate, and attempts to force through a version of X as an exercise in pure logic.
4. Blogger is confronted with the fact that logic doesn’t do what he says it does.
5. Blogger responds with hoots of derision at the idea that pure logic can replace nuanced political debate.
6. Blogger makes no comment as to where this leaves X.
In more detail, then:
1. Back in September, Jonathan Freedland, reporting on the labour party conference
wrote that there is close to a consensus on the debacle of foreign policy. Voices of left and right agree that Blair's doctrine of "liberal interventionism" is one part of the inheritance that should be dumped in the nearest skip. Even those who liked the idea in theory concede that its practice proved disastrous.
Enter Norman Geras, who
summarises this consensus position as the belief that
"when genocides are in progress, the killers should just be allowed to get on with it".
So, X above is Norm’s assertion that these unnamed conference delegates necessarily hold the view that he attributes to them. The entire subsequent debate - at least the bit I am interested in - is about whether this is a legitimate conclusion for him to draw.
1½. Obviously, it is not a legitimate conclusion for him to draw, but a flippant insult dashed off in a moment of annoyance. If Norm conceded what others can plainly see, that would be the end of it. Perhaps then a proper political debate could take place, instead of all this. But, for whatever reason, he has continued to insist on the validity of his summary. The rest of this post details the elaborate defensive manoeuvring this has forced him into.
2. Conor Foley
volunteers himself as an example of someone who believes that liberal interventionism should be dumped in the nearest skip, while
not believing that killers should just be allowed to get on with genocide. (I’d place myself in the same category, and would guess that many other people, including a good chunk of the original consensus, are similar.)
Therefore Norm’s original summary is, as a matter of empirical fact, false.
2½. Exactly how and why anyone might take Conor’s view is a more serious question which I shan’t go into. Conor did discuss it,
at some length. In response, Norm, well, let’s just say he would do well to take some of his own
advice: “When criticizing someone else's view he might try thinking about it a bit more, try getting some sense of its inner contours.”
3. At this point Norm has apparently lost the original argument. His characterisation of Conor’s views (and mine, and others’) has been exposed as flatly incorrect. Rather than giving in, he comes up with a new ruse by which he may be able salvage something.
If he can prove that his summary
would be accurate, if only our views were internally consistent, then it will be our fault and not Norm’s, that he is wrong. His only mistake will be in underestimating the depth of idiocy of his political opponents. (No doubt he’ll be only too happy to put that right next time around.)
So he
sets out to prove, using logic alone, that
his conclusion follows from
our premise:
It's a simple logical point, the very simplest: if you say that a certain doctrine - call it 'liberal interventionism' - should be dumped in the nearest skip, and if you also believe that military intervention to stop genocide is, in certain circumstances, a justified policy, it better not be the case that the doctrine of liberal interventionism includes the proposition that military intervention to stop genocide is, in certain circumstances, a justified policy. Otherwise you'll be dumping something in the skip that you don't really want to dump there.
4. I
chip in with the observation that accepting Norm's “simple logical point” leads to absurd consequences. In short, if dumping a doctrine in a skip entails jettisoning each of its component policies - and I repeat that this is Norm’s position, made explicitly in the above quote, not mine - then
no doctrine should ever be dumped in a skip. Every doctrine, even the most evil or inane, contains some bits you’d want to keep.
This is not, then, an acceptable interpretation of “dumping a doctrine in a skip”.
That was the purpose of my post. It is therefore not a legitimate platform for Norm to stand on to reach his desired conclusion. His logical defence has failed.
5. In his latest post, Norm is
overcome with mirth at the absurdity of my conclusions, even adding some extra of his own. He successfully illustrates how ludicrous I am being in crudely applying hard logic to such complex social phenomena as political doctrines. He is apparently unconcerned that it’s his own argument that he’s demolishing.
6. So where does all this leave us regarding the original question? Norm has finally arrived at the view that “you may keep the baby (so to say) while throwing out the bathwater”, a revelation he delivers with a terrific flourish, as if anyone other than he had suggested otherwise.
Anyway, he is right. Given this new agreement between us, perhaps he’ll consider whether it is
at least conceivable that this was the consensus’ view discussed right at the very start? That is to say that the metaphor of “dumping a doctrine in a skip” might have a similar meaning to that of “pulling the plug in the bath”, and neither need imply that
everything be junked, just some significant, undesirable components?
If he's going to address that question (again), he should factor in that this really is the expressed view of a number of people, and that it's a perfectly coherent one.
7. Nevertheless the form-book strongly suggests that he won't accept this. In which case, what he might try next? Personally, I’ve got my fingers crossed for a crotchety analysis of the procedural differences between draining political bathwater and chucking doctrines into skips...
