> No, actually, I think we are not wired for logic. We
> are can be trained by brute force into thinking
> logically -- this is what I used to do to students who
> hated it, and it is the main effect of grad or law
> school, the ability to reason logically in a partial
> and limited way,a t least if one makes the effort. But
> it's not natural.
I too used to teach logic to undergrads, and found it not the most satisfying experience of my life. BTW, brute force was not my preferred method -- "Yesss, we of the philosophy department have *ways* of making you use valid arguments, my dearrrr!" -- but occasionally it did come in handy. :-)
Of course, formal logic is not necessary for most people to master, since they are not going on to get advanced degrees in philosophy. (Even scientists and mathematicians, for the most part, don't know much formal logic, I think.) But effective reasoning in daily life is something more people can use a lot more of. Since leaving the academy, I have tried from time to time to come up with a good way of teaching this skill to folks who never have and never will study logic in a formal way, but I've never come across or come up with a good method.
Actually, it's not too surprising that a lot of Americans don't think very logically about foreign policy. For one thing, it's not something they consider very important to their daily lives, and they are too overwhelmed with daily concerns to spend much time pondering such an abstruse subject -- one might as well expect them to spend a lot of their free time mastering quantum mechanics. So they tend to leave it up to the "experts," like (saints preserve us!) Colin Powell and Connie Rice.
It will be somewhat interesting to see if W's recent remarks on the non-connection between AQ and Saddam will bring down the famous 70% poll number, but the fact that he and his minions are still hedging -- mumbling that, well, there was probably *some* connection somewhere -- will probably be enough to keep the number from changing much. Actually, I think that this particular number is not so important, though anti-war people have become somehow fixated on it. More important is that it indicates how confused the public's ideas about foreign policy generally are.
Another reason for this failure of US-ers (especially white ones) to think entirely rationally about war and foreign policy, I think, is that they have enjoyed a geographical separation from enemies, for the most part, unlike other parts of the world, especially Europe and Asia, where wars were fought on the home territories of the populations in question. (The Civil War is much too remote to make a difference, and of course European-Americans never considered their wars of conquest of Native American territories really "wars." Instead, they converted these conflicts into a convenient template of "bringing civilization to the darker-skinned of the world" which was very handy for justifying adventures such as the Spanish-American War, Vietnam War, and now the War on Terrorists.)
> The problems is that we have the cognitive equipment
> of hunter-gathering primates, useful for getting by on
> the African veldt of 1 million BC, in a complex modern
> society full of Hellfire missiles and hijackable
> airplanes. Consequently we tend not to be smart in the
> way we need to be. This, btw, =is why the Chomsky
> technique of overwhelming people with arguments and
> information does not work, but only irritates people.
> I have a hell of a time making myself remember this
> and act accordingly.
Yes, political argumentation almost always has to have a large component of irrational persuasion in it, because very few people (outside of political science departments, think tanks, etc.) treat politics as an exact science. Even the most high-minded fighters for truth and justice have to sway their audience largely by appealing to its emotions, which is what makes political action such a risky, scary business. (Thucydides and Machiavelli remain the best text-books on this.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax