Against one who denies the principles, there can be no debate.
— Aristotle
Breaking my pledge to ignore reactionary loudmouths, I recently reacted to a Facebook post by just such a loudmouth.
He posted a meme blaming the high price of gas on Canada.
Yes, Canada.
When I challenged his unsubstantiated claim, citing the consensus of oil-industry analysts—namely, that Canada is doing its best—he responded by calling me "snarky" and insisting that analysts are all just "spin doctors."
"Facts shmacks," he wrote.
(ICYMI: Canada already supplies the US over 4 million barrels of oil every day, according to oil-industry analysts, who agree the country's oil exports are maxed out because investors refused last year to expand Canada's production facilities.)
"Against one who denies the principles, there can be no debate."
In America today, we can't agree on facts.
We can't even agree on that there are such things as facts.
Norman Mailer predicted 50 years ago that America would wind up in this place when he coined the word factoid.
Conservatives dwell in a world of factoids. Trump won. Covid-19 is a flu. Blacks are just immigrants. Disney grooms queers. Canada is denying us oil... and we should nuke them.
Aristotle saw 2,500 years ago that parties who cannot agree on the facts of a case simply cannot reasonably discuss it.
The best the parties can do is name-call.
The 20th-century philosopher Karl Popper believed mankind's greatest enemy was irrational relativism, which prevents our mutual acceptance of facts.
By caving into irrational relativism, "one cannot rationally discuss anything that is fundamental," Popper lamented.
Alas, until every conservative is willing to let go of fear, we're stuck with irrational relativism.
But there is a quick exit from our impasse.
It's the solution to relativism known to philosophers as the argumentum ad baculum ("appeal to the stick"), first suggested by the 11th-century Aristotelian, Avicenna.
Its forcefulness derives from force.
I like that solution!
