People Argue Wrongly

Another HOT one from the Devil's Lexicon

One of my newsletters I get in my inbox is Matt Stoller. He has 99,000 subscribers. Here is proof: “history and politics of monopoly power. Over 99,000 subscribers”. That is to say I cut and pasted it from his cover page where it says how many subscribers. So if my computer screen SAYS he has 99,000 subscribers (or more) then it is true? You know I am not just making it up because it actually SAID so, on his cover page.

What is a cover page? What is a subscriber? What is a computer? What is a screen? What are my eyes? Oh, we know all of those things, don’t we? It is just a few little details we need to argue about because OF COURSE we have all the background knowledge we need.

All of our arguments are based on other arguments. Copernicus argued that the earth is round. The next thing that happens is that it becomes a fact, or what we call a fact, so now you do not need to ARGUE that the world is round. Everybody “knows” it. White supremacists “know” that black people in the U. S. are inferior.

So what is the difference between the roundness of earth idea and the white supremacy idea? There is ZERO difference, in the sense that they are “facts” that someone came up with. They were not just plain common sense. (Common sense was not sufficient either to believe the earth round or the negro inferior.) Somebody creates those sorts of ideas; it is later ratified by the group consensus. If every “normal” person in Alabama -except the black ones -“knows” that blacks are inferior and they deserve to be called names (n____r) it must be so. It looks like something becomes “true” when everybody believes it. If the group believes it is true, it is. Of course science is like that as well; if you believe in science that is another of the same sort of thing—no difference there at all. Scientists are simply an interest group lobbying for what they say is “true.” They say they have proof. So did I have proof, on the facts about Matt Stoller’s subscriber number. It was on the screen and I cut and pasted it and now you know too.

If you do not believe me I will take your job, cut off your access to your bank account, and put nanoparticles in your food. You will either die or you will start believing me.

A democratic society does not possess the “true fact,” or any number of them. It allows dissent. That is all it does. It does not have any facts. We only have theories and ideas and intellectual movements and fables and fiction and stories and myths and songs. Oh yeah—and science. All praise science. If there’s a man in a white coat with a test tube you believe him, too.

On any current “hot” issue such as the ones Matt Stoller writes about, you have a mountain of assumptions called facts and popularity is achieved by agreeing to most of the things known as fact. A few stones at the top of the mountain are the currently-debated issues. Who decides which parts of the mountain of data are facts and which parts are open to argument? The critics do. Stoller is critical of a few things: a few stones atop the at mountain. Mostly, his writing is pretty safe. He makes persons feel comforted and he gets a lot of readers.

The question, “who decides what is fact” is pretty easy to answer in another way as well: everyone in the consensus group. They are the ones who make things facts or not facts. “Everyone” knows that if the cover page of Stoller’s newsletter Big says he has 99,000 subscribers he does. It is “true” because nobody in the given social unit gains anything by saying it is not. If you play along, you can have all sorts of success on Substack. If you do not you certainly don’t get no 99,000.

You might get 25. But I am not at all unhappy or angry with that—that I am up to 25, no 26!, subscribers. (Had to quickly check my facts!) What I write are not the accepted facts of the real society. It is just some awful trash and lies that I nefariously concoct out of my devilish imagination.

And I know that. That is why I don’t go crazy.

Because I know I AM crazy; and you shouldn’t listen to anything I say. I should look up everything in Strunk & White before I use a semi-colon.

Because I had the damn book. And “they” who represent the group say (the two persons who wrote the book together, although I have never really understood this except in the case of a book where each writer gets a chapter and they alternate chapters) or they teach — that we find we have “and” or some short word after a semi-colon the always must put a comma after it, e.g. “…I AM crazy; and, you shoudn’t listen to…” Anything I say… So if you just DO NOT LISTEN to anything I say YOU will remain a total success. Your life will be swell and you won’t have to revise your views on anything. Now you will be a happy white supremacist; and, you will always have full, factual access to the money you got in da bank!

(I am so happy with this piece of shit “argument” about argumentation that I am eager to hit the sacred “Continue” button followed by the holy —what is that one? Publish? Well, here goes!!!!#) [I revised it made it better, though, as of 10/13]