I stumbled across a short but fascinating work by the 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called variously the The Art of Controversy or The Art of Being Right. Wikisource has one version; another site has what seems to be the same English text alongside the original German. Read it in full!
His topic is controversial dialectic:
...the art of disputing, and of disputing in such a way as to hold one's own, whether one is in the right or the wrong—per fas et nefas. A man may be objectively in the right, and nevertheless in the eyes of bystanders, and sometimes in his own, he may come off worst.
The prefatory rationale for this discussion is interesting, but more useful are the thirty-eight tactics proposed in the body of the work. For example, here is #24 ("State a false syllogism"):
This trick consists in stating a false syllogism. Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from it other propositions which it does not contain and he does not in the least mean; nay, which are absurd or dangerous. It then looks as if his proposition gave rise to others which are inconsistent either with themselves or with some acknowledged truth, and so it appears to be indirectly refuted. This is the diversion, and it is another application of the fallacy non causae ut causae.
I have no idea of the popularity of this work among modern politicians, but even if they are entirely unaware, Schopenhauer literally wrote the book on argumentation—in 1831! The presentation is neutral, but I am inclined to read it as a spotter's guide to dishonest debate. Of statements by public figures and the online commentariat which infuriate me, not a single example falls outside his categories.
Armed with this knowledge, I have been able to point out the underlying fallacies or distractions when I see these methods in use, instead of falling prey to them. Often the author retreats from an unsupportable claim. When I prepare arguments myself, I check to see that I am giving my case honestly, and not using these shortcuts to merely appear persuasive via distraction.
Some time ago I stumbled across the following:
Despite the objections of purists and the present high cost, it's clear that this is the way of the future. Reviews point out the sophistication of the electronic control; for example, the cages adjust slightly when cross-shifted (an outer gear at the crank and an inner gear at the rear cassette, or vice versa) to eliminate the familiar rattle. The rear derailleur also overshoots so that the chain is driven into the new gear quickly.
Only professional cyclists could have the finesse to do this through delicate control of conventional shift levers, and I know I would be never be capable—certainly not while pounding up the steep hill on Walmer Road, near Casa Loma.
This, and other other innovations such as Cervélo's hidden rear brake and powerful, two-watt LED front lights suggest further ideas:
A more modest idea is a crankset side light. Many cranksets (including the FSA Omega on my 2008 Kona Jake) have one arm—on the side opposite the chainrings—clamped around a hollow axle that passes through the bottom bracket. The tube is covered by a small dust cap. Instead of the cap, insert a small device with a dynamo, battery, and a single, blinking LED. This side light would serve the same purpose as spoke-mounted reflectors.
The general concept is that small accessories don't require huge, or any, batteries. By efficiently diverting a fraction of the rider's output, electronic parts can be powered reliably whenever a bicycle is in motion.
To avoid the taint of modernity, I'll lie and say that a friend once remarked, apropos of nothing, "'Welcome' mat in an empty field."
Some weeks later, I was walking behind the University of Toronto Press warehouse on Dufferin when I saw the item in question. It was about noon early in the summer, before the oppressive, July-August Toronto heat scorched the colour out of the city. There was a welcome mat sitting on a low, grassy hill, where the back of the warehouse faces G. Ross Lord Park and the West Don River.
What strikes me now is the minimalism with which the idea was conveyed.
Were I first to see it, I might have tried to write haiku. Another friend, a photographer, would have stepped back and pulled out his DSLR camera for a shot, which to the average Flickr browser would have even odds of being carefully staged. Others I know would write contemplative short fiction.
Instead the concept was presented bare, without even an imperative — "Imagine an...", or, "Ask me where you can see the..." — anchored only by the unmentioned existence of the thing referred to. It took me some time to realize the elegance of this method.
And, full disclosure: It was his instant messaging status!
At the risk of stating the obvious, democratic government is unlike running a business in a number of important ways. David Olive gives one of the similarities in his excellent blog at the Toronto Star:
It is the death of any commercial enterprise to starve itself of necessary expenditures on R&D, new-product development and marketing. I'll never understand how today's conservatives fail to make that connection, slavishly devoted as they claim to be to free-market principles. Maybe it's because so few of them have run a business. Or had to make their way in the private sector - as I do - without being subsidized by a Rupert Murdoch, the Fraser Institute or the Heritage Foundation.
Incompetence is universal. It should be evident that the architects of such spectacular failures as the overdue Boeing 787 project, the GM bankruptcy or the Wall Street meltdown would do no better in public office, where oversight is more open but less effective. However, even successful companies are usually inappropriate models for government.
Choose Apple, for example, whose innovation and focus on design has made it wildly successful and won it hordes of fans who might well vote for a President Steven P. Jobs. But the breath-taking, march-stealing nature of Apple's product launches depends on a rigid and well-documented culture of secrecy. As much as politicos might envy the impact of Apple announcements, they would be ill-advised to try and duplicate it. Funding announcements without stakeholder input will miss the mark and be ineffective; unannounced funding and/or cuts make the granting government look guilty when they are inevitably unearthed.
Yet governing parties at all levels, in Canada and elsewhere, continue think they can engineer positive surprises and suppress negative ones—and they continue to fail in doing so.
You can observe a number of common privacy tactics among your friend with an online presence:
I use none of the above. If identify theft is a concern, they will foil only casual (harmless) attempts. As for sharing details of one's personal life, it is mostly pretentious to expect they are consequential, or that large numbers of others will be interested in them. I—and certainly others—often neglect life proper, so why further the problem by spending time writing about it?
Alternate identities are another easy target. We spend entire phases of our lives struggling with identity, so maintaining a second (or third, or fourth) introduces needless complications. Where concerns about one's employer motivate anonymity, there is doubtless a value conflict that deserves close examination.
Having grown up before the advent of cyber-bulling and, being male, unlikely to be the target of sexual violence, I am no doubt privileged in being able to hold these views. Still, I firmly believe in consistency and honesty of online identity.
Finally, the Walrus (after disappointing in May) redeems itself with this excellent short story by Zsuzsi Gartner in its September issue. Delicious! If the quality of writing remains so high for a full year, I can quit whining forever.