From: T0Morrow@aol.com
Date: Thu Jun 03 1999 - 14:18:15 MDT
In an earlier post I suggested that flamewars might, among other positive
side-effects, encourage the development of increasingly effective rhetorical
tools. More recently, various posts have discussed whether responding to
anti-gun messages changes any minds. In regard to both notions, allow me to
share some comments of Benjamin Franklin.
In his autobiography, Franklin relates that he enjoyed sharp argumentation in
his youth and won a reputation--a justified but not favorable one--for
stirring up trouble. He reflected, as he matured, that while fellow
travelers often admired his rhetoric and awarded him points for demolishing
their common opponents, he never seemed to change anyone's opinion on the
merits of their disputes. Instead, Franklin discovered, his chastened
adversaries merely retreated in anger to find new (and seldom better)
justifications for their views or merely to repeat more heatedly what they
had already asserted in vain.
That Franklin found it easy to attribute such reactions to human pride and
irrationality soothed him, but still left him with empty victories. Franklin
thus resolved to find more convincing rhetorical tools, ones that would both
root out error *and* encourage the adoption of more correct views.
Franklin furthermore discovered, as he matured, that he had in many cases
embraced false tenets. He began to espouse a philosophy quite akin (I
daresay) to the pancritical rationalism that Max More has ably described.
Thus Franklin resolved to always preface his claims with, "It seems to me
that," "Evidence suggests that," "One might reasonably assume that," and so
forth. This, he found, not only proved more honest and accurate, but also
proved more apt to gently sway his listeners. He even organized a
wonderfully successful debate and discussion society--the listserv of his
day, I suppose--around such principles of rhetoric.
Franklin's autobiography includes a great many other useful and entertaining
observations about rhetoric, practical ethics, and human nature. I
wholeheartedly suggest it to transhumanists of all stripes.
T.0. Morrow
t0morrow@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/t0morrow/T0Mpage.HTML
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