qumbler

“People who are good at making arguments overrate the value of arguments. The verbally adroit among us often demand that disputes of many sorts should be decided on the basis of debate. This demand is particularly acute for public policy disputes. The idea is that policy choices should be subject to rigorous public scrutiny and that this should result in the the adoption of the policy for which the best arguments can be marshaled.

This is an odd claim. No society has ever really attempted to govern itself in this way, although a few have at time imagined that they were governed according to this system. In reality, governments of all sorts are controlled by interests and prejudices not arguments. Intellectuals react to this in horror but it is far from the calamity they imagine. Indeed, much of the horror over the non-deliberative nature of politics and society is attributable to their over-estimation of the value of arguments. And some of it is simply self-serving—they favor a kind of government that would empower them.”