Teaching Logic in a Post-Truth World

English teacher peeps, I may need your help on figuring this out.

At the end of the calendar year 2016, a confluence of events personal and political rushed together, creating a fissure in my pedagogical core, one that I’ve been musing over for some time.  On a personal level, I was doing what I often did at that time of year in my Philosophy and English classes: taking the time to “enlighten” my students on the nature of logical fallacies.  But as the year came to a close, the presidential election concluded.  And with the Trump presidency, no one—supporter or detractor alike—can deny that the word “fake news”—for better or worse—entered into our common lexicon.  Add to that, the venerable OED, a year after hilariously adopting  ? as its 2015 Word of the Year, switched to a more political tone, identifying the word “post-truth” as the term that most defined the 12 months previous.
As a teacher who makes his rhetorical bread and butter on the structure of argument, this rapid succession of events has put me on a path to consider the new relevance of teaching logic and argument in our current political climate.  As the beginning of the school year nears, I muse on this to consider the context in which I try to make lessons meaningful to my students.  I’m jealous of math teachers here.  Their smug straight lines and cool, unwavering numbers seem so self-evident in their necessity.  Teachers of Language often must adapt to the times, drawing on current trends and events to contextualize.  So when a great sea change occurs in our language and culture like it has the in the last two years, the idea that “it’s now more important than ever” seems to give short shrift to the importance of learning how to argue.
I find myself fighting this front in class discussion the most.  There’s an old, threadbare cliché in rhetoric that “you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.”  In class discussions, I hope to see that over a series of class periods and readings, we have developed in students the capacity to be thoughtful, reflective consumers of language, able to use that skill to build understanding with others.  But students contradict the maxim in several ways; many often fall victim to the dreaded confirmation bias, in which we simply exclude facts that contradict our beliefs.  Classical argument teaches us to respect our opposites as equals, whose opinions are worthy of respect, and concede what we do not know so that we can form a better understanding of “the truth”.  Conformation bias means we believe we know the truth and only pay attention to facts and ideas that confirm our understanding of truth; in the age of “post-truth” allows us to simply discount anyone who might disagree with our point of view.
But at least those kids are consuming.  Perhaps the more dangerous part are those who accept the maxim to a ludicrous reductio: that everyone has a right to their own opinions; because they have this right, I have to respect that opinion by not questioning it.  It becomes an easy way for students who can’t think of a good counter argument to avoid having to articulate their thoughts, sidestepping any uncomfortable confrontation.  It drives me up the wall.  I remember looking for something to throw when after reading Thoreau and King, I would have students laconically say that “everyone has a right to their opinion.”  Would King have conceded the Klan had a “right to their opinion” that denigrated him as sub-human?  Would Thoreau, or any of us, concede that a stance supporting slavery is “a matter of opinion” to which one is entitled?  This shrugging apathy allows a student to engage in a discussion only for the grade–not for the ideas– and not feel any moral compulsion to convince their classmates to change their mind.  Perhaps worse, it means they don’t have to have opinions; they can shrug it off go back to staring at prom dresses or playing Two Dots on their phones. Opinions and arguments, in this apathetic paradigm, simply don’t matter.
Neither of these dangerous viewpoints are new, but they have flourished to fresh soil in the “post-truth” world.  If we elect to pay attention to the news, we often choose our news sources based on our political leanings.  Couple that with the phenomenon in the 2016 election that more and more people were getting their news via social media, which due to its algorithimic underpinnings filters the sources we respond to.  Amplify that by the fact that social media networks released data considering customer information to allow target use of “factually suspect” stories that were intentionally posted on the web for profit.  A perfect storm to create a conformation bias nightmare.

But for the second group, there is an intellectual malaise that sets in as a self-protection mechanism.  When everything seems confusing, it’s easier to shut out all the bullshit.  Justification for this tact can come in different forms.  In my own personal meditations, I struggle with the emotional weight that being politically vigilant can bring, and wonder if for my own peace of mind if it wouldn’t be easier to tune it all out and concentrate on the small things in my life that I can change, like I’m living some AA serenity prayer.  Others turn to nihilisim: saying none of it matters and you can’t trust anyone makes it so you don’t even have to filter the info.  It’s very punk.  Give the system the finger.  Turn your back.
And not trusting our societal institutions in this—our religious leaders, our government, our media—is an attractive path.  They often seem so dishonest that it’s hard to like any of them.  And so, it’s easy to distrust all of them.  A blanket conceit that means we don’t have to make any judgments about truth.  One of the best examples of this is the use of the word “fake news.”  It’s a term in class we once employed to describe articles from The Onion.  But in 2016 it morphed to more accurately identify the very real proliferation of objectively false stories posted online during the election.  Post-election, some tried to honestly and intellectually analyze the impact of this phenomenon on our democracy.  However, the winning party, having a vested interest in warding off all potential attacks on its legitimacy, smartly (if morally corruptly) turned this term right round, using “fake news” as an epithet against its critics as in “Jim Acosta is a member of the ‘fake news.’”  In logic, we refer to this as a genetic ad homenim fallacy, in which we castigate our opponents and critics, shifting the issue and making our opponents less credible to where their arguments aren’t heard.  So if Jim Acosta criticizes the President’s immigration policy (which he does) and the White House refers to CNN as “fake news” (which it does), then people who believe that “all fake news is bad” without any context to the actual discussion may stop listening to Jim Acosta, whether his points are valid or rubbish.  What’s really fascinating, as happened last week in Tampa, is that ad homenim attachs shift to the subject of the debate: “is Jim Acosta a member of the ‘fake news’?” and “is the media the enemy of the people?”  I’m sorry, what were we talking about?  Immigration policy?  Oh, right.
Before all you people on the right side of the political spectrum jump ship, hear me out. My concern is that the proliferation of logical fallacy is a) almost too overwhelming to catologue and b) rarely penalized, as people frequently make absurd, illogical statements because it covers up uncomfortable truths AND it breaks through and grabs people’s attention.  One of the common critiques of the current media is that they are complicit in the confusion.  It makes them relevant.  Controversy sells.  While people argue about the relative “conservative/liberal” bias of the media, they ignore that media outlets will often post more and more controversial content to get more viewers.  Or as John Stewart eloquently pointed out in all the way back in 2004, it becomes to partisan hacks spewing whatever the party line is–regardless of logic– without ever thoughtfully analyzing an issue outside this limiting lens.

It becomes its own form of disinformation as it covers meaningless arguments, eschewing the important ones.  Thoughtful, sober analysis has been losing a long war of attrition for decades to the flashy and easily digestible.   After all, what fits more cleanly on a chyron, stories about how we’re going to actually bring home soldiers and treat them after nearly two decades of continuous war, or the eye-popping question “Is Donald Trump a racist?”
So, it’s easy to see how people get disaffected and apathetic to what seems like petty squabbles among the talking heads on television.  I’m holed up in my little classroom, fighting the good fight to teach my students about the ethics of argumentation; meanwhile in the real world, they see the prevaricators of illogic succeeding, flashing their bright smiles on TV, pulling in six and seven figure salaries, spouting nonsense, yelling over each other.
Who are they going to believe?
If they follow the conformation bias, they will likely believe the information that best fits their world view.  Socrates, in the The Republic, classifies these as the vicious philosophers.  They know the tools of rhetoric.  They can make an argument.  And, like many of the best talking heads in media, they can take those tools to the marketplace and work to earn a living.  Socrates basically argues that these are like philosophers for sale.  They will make any possible argument to get what they want, or fulfill the directives of those who employ them, regardless of whether or not they are logically consistent moral, or in the public interest.

Let’s take Mitch McConnell, for example.  In 2016, he successfully stalled Garland’s Supreme Court nominee arguing that the people had a right to voice their opinion by voting in the 2016 election.  In 2018, he argues that Kavanaugh’s nomination must go through uninhibited, preferably before the mid-term elections, in which the balance of the Senate may change.  While the WaPo points out the presidential/mid-term distinction, this much is clear: McConnell—like many politicians–can make well-reasoned arguments to cover up what they’re really saying.  Orwell called political language “the defense of the indefensible” without judgment.  There are often good reasons that would horrify the public, so inflated, political language obfuscates the truth; so the lie is told.  For McConnell, the argument seems on the surface to be  what’s best for democracy, even though he offers to contradictory arguments; deeper down, we realize that his words are simply a smoke screen to cover his motivation to ensure power for his party (which, admittedly, he would likely argue is inherently best for the country–maybe he needs a lesson in confirmation bias).    His words do not enlighten; they obfuscate.  We have to dig deeper so that his real motivation becomes clear: I will say what it takes to ensure that my party has the best chance at retaining power.  He’s free to say this, but he won’t.  It’s not the question he wants to discuss.  So, as Orwell says, he bloviates and dissembles to cover his true intentions.
The unfortunate outcome of this media/political subterfuge is that so many people just tune out.  If they don’t get caught in the conformation bias trap, they just get plain nihilistic, believing no one ever tells the truth, and hence, there is no point in even trying to keep up.  Socrates might have called these the the useless philosophers.  Seeing the futility of a marketplace polluted by dishonest rhetors crafting arguments for their overlords, they check out of the system, give the finger to all authority, get lost in their Instagram feeds, focusing on their own happiness as opposed to what is the truth.  Their gifts, their potential benefit to society?  Lost.
Ironically, this train of thought has been entering the station with great frequency.  With the continuing coverage of social media bots forwarding stories, specifically at the behest of Russia, many experts in Russian soft power tactics have come out and claimed the same truth over and over: disinformation campaigns have the primary goals of causing people to distrust any notion of truth, pay less respect to societal institutions, and adopt a general attitude of apathy to the politics a democratic citizen must attend to.  TL:DR?  Apathy and distrust are the goal of disinformation campaigns in the media.  The result?  It’s much easier to fleece a populace who is not paying attention to its leaders.
The disaffected student who becomes the disaffected voting adult poses an even greater challenge.  As they continue to distrust what their leaders tell them, they are more prone to the tyrannous leanings of a person who is not a normal candidate.  I’m going to try to short hand this, but if you’ve never watched the Netflix serious Black Mirror, the episode called “The Waldo Moment” is a perfect example.

Disgusted with the traditional politicians, the crowd warms to the insult comedy of an animated blue bear named Waldo–an ursine id of an internet troll–as a potential leader.  Waldo doesn’t stand for any actual policy.  Waldo openly admits that he doesn’t stand for anything; Waldo simply stands for getting more ratings, generating more revenue for the media company that owns him, consequences on the population be damned.  And yet, because he doesn’t sound like a politician by doing little more than mocking them with f-bombs and dick jokes, he surges in popularity.
(the video below is much longer with spoilers, but if you’ve seen the episode, you’ll really enjoy the creator’s thoughts)

It what seems like a throwaway line, Mr. Monroe, the conservative MP, routinely mocked and publicly hassled by Waldo, utters the line of the episode.  He fears that having an animated bear as a candidate makes the whole system seem absurd.  But even if it is, he concedes,”it still built the roads.”  Government has a practical function, and language–often mundane, jargonistic, and boring–is the tool used to perform that function.  In order to do the practical work of governance—building a road—its need must be identified, its use must be justified, its cost must be acceptable.  All of these are mundane, everyday uses of language.  Pointing out hypocrisy and making quick comments on a social media feed is easy, often hilarious use of language.  Making decisions, building communities, edifying the structure of society is slow, laborious, trudging–but of the utmost importance
I think I’m starting to figure this out, or at the very least, I’m starting to wrap up this digression.  Thanks for your patience as I wade through these waters.  It still murky, but maybe that’s the point.  In the past, I would tell my students that the rationale for knowing logic was not only sally forth in to the world and seek truth, making the arguments they need to get what they want.  Also, the tool would help them disarm the poorly argued, catch the politicians in a lie, resist the subtle machinations of the advertising world.  What is unfortunate for these current students is that they are entering into the world that through the development of media and messaging has become more and more dishonest.  Logic and argument often is grounded in the idea that there is some kind of objective truth we can reach or at least approximate.  But misinformation is no longer a one-off cover-up for an unpopular argument; it is a carefully calculated strategy employed to disorient and fleece the general public.  It is inherent in the new game.
While this sounds extremely tin-hat conspiratorial, even as I read the last paragraph, it brings me to a new point of emphasis, one that I’m not even sure how to implement as the first school bus rounds the bend on a student population.  Theirs is a generation that will have to build on top of the foundations we have left; as far as honest discourse goes, those foundations are crumbling more than ever.   They are entering a world where they will have to describe, analyze, repair, and contextualize this for the generations after them.
In short, they are entering a world that at some level is actively conspiring against them, encouraging them to not be smart, not overthink things, take care of their little corner of joy, illuminated by their tiny little screen, and not worry about the big problems.  For that world, they don’t need the tools I’m selling come the last week of August.  However, if we’re going to continue to live in a functioning democracy–the foundation of which is an informed electorate–they will need every tool at their disposal to make sense of the disinformation–both active and passive–thrown their way.  The world they build as they grow into adults will be populated by ideas, formed by language, of which they will either be passive receptacles or active creators.  I can only hope to gird them for the tools they need and the awareness of the challenge as they move forward into hopefully improving the world we’ve left for them.