Call functions and polarization

The initiating event was OH, MY: Mark Levin Drops a MOAB on @TheDemocrats' Public Relations Intern @JakeTapper. His claim on his blog is "Always 75% snark-free or your money back." I think this was part of the 25%.

Apparently Jake Trapper of CNN has been trying to defuse Trump's criticisms of various anti-semitic Democrats by trying to highlight moments when Trapper thinks Trump himself demonstrated anti-semitism.

This rhetorical "what about" is getting decidedly tiresome, especially since the counter-examples offered tend to be irrelevant, twisted representations, or otherwise not comparable. It is part of the great bag of bad behaviors which make the mainstream media among our least trusted institutions.

But Ross's observation sparked a thought.

I don't disagree with his overall observation - Tapper and all the partisan media attempting to cover for anti-semitism (and anti-catholicism, and anti-male, and anti-white, and anti-middle class, and anti-religious, anti-freedom, etc.) ought to be ashamed, if not shamed.

But dialogue has become something of a program written in C with function calls.

Tapper, or anyone, makes the rhetorical "but what about". That triggers an almost unconscious function call.

"Trump is . . . " is argument by accusation and so one gets accustomed to a lot of function calls: evidence for misogyny, racism, anti-semitism, idiocy, white-nationalism, boor, crazy, etc. A novel argument gets special epistemic treatment. You have to examine the nature of the argument, then muster pertinent information, etc.

Argument > Parsing of Argument > Assessment of Context for Argument > Search for Pertinent Evidence > Assessment of Argument against Evidence > Decision.

Six steps or so.

But after a few rounds, if the answer is always the same, you take a different approach. You create a dedicated function which can be called.

Argument > Function Call for Known Evidence > Assessment of Argument against Evidence > Decision.

Four steps or so. A 33% saving in cognitive effort.

Ross's listing is essentially a reasonably complete call function of evidence against the argument that he is anti-semitic.

• the praise Trump has repeatedly received from the government of the Jewish state of Israel
• his enormous popularity among Jews in Israel
• his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
• his movement of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem
• his appointment of an Orthodox Jew as ambassador to Israel
• his repeal of the Iran deal
• the fact that his daughter is a convert to Judaism
• the fact that he has three Jewish grandchildren
• the fact that the white supremacist who slaughtered Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue was a Trump hater
• Trump’s definitive statement after the attack about “standing with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat anti-Semitism,”
• and his unequivocal defense of Israel in the UN.

My call function is usually much shorter. His daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren are Jewish and he has taken hard stands on behalf of Israel. It suffices for most accusations. Ross's list is more complete and would cover more arguments.

I like this idea of discourse by function calls. I think it sheds light on the kinetic energy expended by the 5-10% of the nation who are monomaniacal fanatics about religion or ideology or policy or something. 90% of Americans are sensible people who go-along and get-along, invest energy in select arguments only if it is pertinent to their life and well-being.

Unfortunately, most of our 10% of monomaniacal fanatics reside in the press, in academia, and in politics. They have platforms for broadcasting their noise. Hence the appearance that we are living in dangerous polarized times when in fact we are wealthier, more peaceful, safer, healthier, more educated, etc. than at any time in our history.

I think the root is that the monomaniacal fanatics are arguing primarily based on function calls rather than a real consideration of evidence or the entertainment of the notion that there are alternate opinions founded in alternate goals which are not inherently evil but simply different.

Claimant: Socialism is great and so is the Green New Deal.

Respondent: Call Function:

> Communism
> Venezuela
> Zimbabwe
> Cambodian Killing fields
> Stalin
> Great Leap Forward

Claimant: But you aren't looking at the policies.

Respondent: I don't need to. Look at my call function results.

Claimant: But you aren't looking at the evidence.

Respondent: The call function is the evidence.

Claiman: What????

Or something like that. I don't think anyone thinks like this but it sure seems like that is what is going on.

UPDATE:

An excellent example of argument by function call.

The man has a story to tell. And whatever Andrew McCabe may have done, nobody will ever take away from him that he led the FBI with dignity and honor at a moment of true crisis, surrounded by people at the White House and DOJ who lacked dignity and honor. https://t.co/TQtJVGErwP

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 14, 2019

Which triggers Chuck Ross's function call.

He was fired for lying to the FBI https://t.co/UE7elkpwdB

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) February 14, 2019

Well, except for that, the rest of Wittes's argument remains strong. (Sarcasm alert).