The Logic of Exceptionalism

I usually listen to NPR while I'm driving. NPR provides extensive coverage of all the major issues facing the country and the world, and strives to do so as accurately and impartially as possible. To that end, it gives air time to the entire spectrum of opinion and does in-depth interviews with people representing all sides of the issues.

One day back in the first decade of this century I heard the president answer a question as follows: "America (he pronounced it Amurrca) has the most modern factories in the world and the best workers, therefore all countries should have free markets."

There are so many things wrong with this statement, I have a hard time knowing where to begin. The president was attempting to make an argument, so let us analyze it on its terms. It begins with two premises (we have the most modern factories in the world and the best workers). Arguments should take one premise at a time, but we can give him a pass on that. The real problem is that both premises are at best questionable and probably demonstrably false, so the argument falls from the beginning.

The second problem is that there is no middle term. An argument (also known as a syllogism) must have three terms, for example: 1. All normal humans have two ears. 2. Joe is a normal human. 3. Therefore Joe has two ears. This is an argument of practically no importance, but it has a use: to illustrate how to construct a syllogism. So the argument the president was making lacked the part corresponding to 2 and thus has no validity as a syllogism. It is incomplete.

Now you will notice in my sample syllogism that the conclusion follows from the premise and the middle term. All three terms are interrelated. In the president's argument, the conclusion concerning the advisability of free markets bears no relation to the factories or their workers. That is technically called a non sequitur (something that does not follow). Consequently it fails on all counts.

Why in the world did we elect as president someone who has no idea of how to make an argument? Think about it: that means that he was unable to detect the falsity of arguments presented to him. As a result he was subject to being swayed by manipulators using faulty argumentation. I never heard anyone call him on that, not even NPR. Far too many of us have never bothered with making or analyzing true arguments, which leaves us as a people open to being manipulated by politicians and advertisers.

There is, however, another aspect to it that is even more troubling. He was convinced that the US is more advanced than any other country and superior to them all. When one is so convinced, there is no motivation to question whether, for example, the people of Iraq share our values and would want a government and a society such as ours, we fail to learn, and we make mistakes with tragic consequences.