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The Art of Reason
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 by Admiral_CoeymanWhy is Logic not taught as a basic skill anymore? As a stand up philosopher, I have an unhealthy fascination with reasoning. St. Augustine wrote that rhetorical skill without wisdom can be a dangerous thing. He may have been writing about me. I hope both that he was not writing about me and that I did not paraphrase him too badly.
Can a self governing people continue to rule wisely when it fails to teach its children the art of reasoning? Reasoning is at least as valuable a skill as mathematics, and it really does begin with an ‘r.’ Why would we want our children to know without having the ability to understand? The advertising that drives parents crazy in the effect that it has on their children is full of logical fallacies that we should be embarrassed to fall for. I would hazard to state that you have heard strawman arguments at least a dozen times in the past week. Do you know what they are?
A strawman argument is an argument assigned to an opponent in a discussion that is far from the opponents best argument. It is constructed just to be knocked down. You will usually see strawman arguments used by people who want you to believe that you could only disagree with them for malicious reasons. Most of us are now so unskilled with logic that we react emotionally to the assault instead of offering a reasoned counter to the argument. Biblically, “wisdom tempers the heart.”
I heard a report recently about forensic investigators having to work harder on their criminal cases because the juries are not more skilled with the sciences as a result of television and Internet exposure to forensic techniques. Do you wonder what has been pulled over our eyes in the past? Are our leaders becoming afraid of us now that we are beginning to, once again, develop our minds instead of relying on experts? The ability to reason is a dangerous thing in the hands of a labor unit who may come to understand that he is not simply a worker.
It has been written that republics are not murdered; they commit suicide. Maybe that is not entirely true. We still have time to add reasoning to the subjects that we teach our children. This is a unique position in history. Unlike sheep being led to slaughter, we have the chance to wake up our minds.
