The antics of a group calling themselves '40 Days for Life' has been flagged up a couple of times in the past few days - standing outside an abortion clinic and filming women going in*. A video of them doing this filming was then posted (how meta we all are!).
The thing that caught my attention in this latter video was the presentation case of model foetuses that one of the 40 Days people had, as it seemed to underscore a point about arguments that I find interesting**.
I think that pretty much everyone would agree that if your position in a debate has led to you possessing such a thing then your arguments for that position are not good ones***. You are going to convince no-one that your position is the correct one with them - you are merely going to convince them that you aren't quite right in the head.
This is an issue that applies across the political spectrum, however. If your arguments for gender equality rely on you describing the situation in the Western world as 'apartheid' then your argument is lost. If your argument against taxation of any sort is that it is 'slavery' then your argument is lost. If your argument against anthropogenic climate change is that it is a big socialist conspiracy then your argument is lost. If your argument for a government response to anthropogenic climate change is that the world is going to end then your argument is lost.
Yet cliques of people shout these positions at each other and at everyone else all the time. The already convinced get whipped up into states of even more fervent conviction and the unconvinced get pushed even further away from agreement. Nobody learns anything and the world becomes that little more an unpleasant place to live.
The point of an argument must surely be to convince those who don't currently agree with you that your position is the correct one. If the way that you chose to put your argument makes you look mental**** then nobody is going to be convinced of anything other than that you must be wrong. Yet a large slice of the political world (left and right) clamours for more extremism, more hyperbole, more stupid arguments. Will it ever clamour for more evidence, more logic, more polite debate? One can only wish.
* The filming of women going into an abortion clinic does strike me as intimidation. Standing with your placards is fine (although I think they should take a long hard look at themselves if they think that adding to the distress of already distressed women is the right thing to do), but sticking a camera in someone's face seems to cross a boundary into the criminal. That applies to anyone sticking a camera into someone's face without good reason, of course.
** It also added something to the list of products that make one marvel at human variety (along with things like the realistic horse penis dildo (life size), 'cheese product', and pretty much everything in Japan). Somewhere out there is a businessman who spotted a gap in the market for a presentation case filled with model fetuses. And somewhere out there (well, in China) is a factory filled with baffled people working their grinding 14hr shifts making them. It also gives a nice example of the commoditisation of life - even religious nut-jobbery can be packaged and sold.
*** Which is not to say that there aren't good arguments against abortion - it's an issue that has been debated in the philosophical literature for decades - just that these people aren't making them (do they even know of them?).
**** I use the term advisedly and as someone who is on the continuum side of 'mental illness'. The arguments that I cite do all have elements of what are classed as mental disorders in them - paranoia, narcissism, delusion. I see no more reason for calling someone who believes that aliens are controlling things ill than I do for calling someone who believes that CO2 is a socialist conspiracy ill, for example.
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