Why Trump is a Tyrant

One of the lessons the Classics teach us is that freedom is fragile. They show people an age where humanity flourished during systems of government that, for all their faults, guaranteed some basic rights and the chance for people to speak up against injustice and to dethrone tyrants. And then these free systems were destroyed from within. Frustrations with partisan bickering and selfishness led people to look for a "strongman" to set things right. For the Greek city states it was Philip of Macedon, and for the Romans it was Julius Caesar and thereafter Caeasar Augustus. For the Romans a nightmare of despots followed, with the likes of Nero and Caligula displaying some of the most depraved behavior ever shown by tyrants. Then, except for sporadic glimpses, there was no real widespread freedom over all the Western world for over 1700 years. The first democracies and republics were not killed: they committed suicide. This is what made John Adams warn: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." This was the lesson John Adams took from the Classics.

Yet these societies did not go ignorantly into the long dark night of tyranny; nor, to their credit, did they do so without a fight. Demosthenes warned the Athenians and other Greek city states about Philip, and his Philipics are treasured today as masterpieces of rhetoric. The Athenians listened, although first when it was already too late, and took a brave last stance against the onset of tyranny. Similarly Cicero, in Rome, argued in his thirteen Philipics (inspired by Demosthenes) against Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Although ultimately unsuccessful, his speeches survived and helped fuel the flame of liberty throughout generations until freedom could rise again with the American revolution. Cicero and Demosthenes were major influences for the American and French revolutionaries. I am not sure the concept of a democracy or a republic would have survived without them.

So what lesson can we learn from them now that we see tyranny and autocracy rearing its ugly head once more in Western democracies? Only this: "Beware of the tyrant!" Do not let your partisan bickering jeapordize the fragile freedoms you have. Do not let your short-sighted and selfish goals imperil the liberty of this and all future generations. Do not sell your vote and influence in order to let "our tyrant" win over "their tyrant." If there was one painful lesson the Romans had to learn, it was the "equality" of oppression and fear experienced by rich and poor under the terrible reign of the tyrants.

On this blog, I have sometimes lamented the erosion of both morality and liberties in Western societies, and yet the present moment makes me more indignant and troubled than I have ever been before about the state of particularly the constitutional republic of the United States of America. In Donald Trump, a large portion of their populace seem to outdo the Roman republic in selfishness and short-sightedness. Instead of settling for a Caesar Augustus after years of civil war they skip right to a Nero in times of peace!

The Roman emperors were not the high-culture snobs they are sometimes depicted as. A great many of them were base buffons, displaying and indulging in behavior that would shock even Hollywood, using their power to break every written and unwritten law, and take depravity to such absurd lengths that no honest man or woman could bear it. Nero was Donald Trump + power. If power can corrupt even good people, what will it do for someone who already brags about affairs with married women, runs strip-clubs, encourages violence, and promises he will commit war crimes and silence anyone who opposes him by changing the law? Tyranny, for the Greeks and Romans was not a form of government. Tyranny was a disease of the mind, a madness. The Roman historian Tacitus writes, "How truly the wisest of men used to assert that the souls of despots, if revealed, would show wounds and mutilations - weals left on the spirit, like lash-marks on a body, by cruelty, lust, and malevolence" (The Histories 202).

You may say I am exhaggerating and that Trump could never become Nero because he is bound by the Constitution and checked by the Supreme Court and Congress. Besides, there is the public that voted for him and public opinion to keep him in check. I ask you, "What bonds can control a man that cannot even control himself?" He is a slave to his whims and desires, do you think such a person will be bound by law, morality, or bonds of trust? He who bought the Plaza Hotel to move his wife into its penthouse just so he could free up the penthouse of his casino for his mistress? The only limits that can check him are the limits of possibility, and I fear that a Trump presidency will reveal for everyone just how much power the Executive Branch of government has amassed in the past hundred years. The constitutional limits on the presidency were made to limit the damage a "Trump" could do, but for the past fifty years at least those limits have been loosened to better fit a president with the character of a saint. For all their excesses, neither Bush nor Obama have aspired to become tyrants. Pushed by their constituents they have strained the constitutional limits of presidential power, but they have never sought to consolidate that power.

Here is a brief list of what Trump the Tyrant could and possibly would do as president:
- Replace any leader of the military and any government agencies with stooges that are blindly loyal to Trump and do not hesitate to break any law to do his will. The CIA, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, and other departments as they currently run are impervious to oversight by Congress. Trump will then have a 3 million person strong army to do his bidding and punish his critics and enemies. If you thought the Obama IRS overstepped its authority, just wait for the Trump IRS, CIA, and Department of Justice.
- Threaten Supreme Court Judges to rule in his favor whenever he is challenged on executive overreach. His campaign is already threatening to put out the names and room numbers of Republican delegates at Cleveland who could possibly oppose his nomination to his rabid supporters who are not afraid of using violence. What would a "hint" like that do against the Supreme Court Judges? "Gee, Justice Thomas sure has a nice house. Would be a shame if anything were to happen to it." Especially when anyone who committed a crime in doing so would have the protection of the White House. Trump already offered to cover the legal bills for anyone who committed assault against protesters at his rallies.
- Threaten to use the power of his NSA spies against senators or representatives who oppose his legislative agenda. He has already threatened Speaker Ryan that "we'll get along, otherwise he'll have a price to pay." Speaker Ryan should, according to the Constitution, be almost as powerful as the president. The current situation and status of the Speaker just shows how far the US has fallen from that ideal.
- Wage war (against ANYONE he wants!) for 90 days. 90 days!!! Any liberal who felt smug about Eric Holder's unconstitutional defense of Obama's Drone War should choke on that grin as he realizes what potential powers he has helped bestow on a President Trump. And any conservative who has not bowed down to the altar of Trumpism and wants to maintain any right to voice a protest about potential abuses by the president should feel the call to act now. These powers mean that once Trump hits the White House EVERY single man, woman, and child on this planet is a potential target. American citizens are not exempt, because Holder made that legal. Children are not exempt, for Trump specifically said he would force the military to torture and kill the children of his enemies. For someone who takes every ounce of opposition to his will as a personal insult, that category of "enemies" and "terrorists" could expand to just about anyone. (Ask Michelle Fields, whom he has accused of being a potential terrorist)

He is someone who sees every power and authority as his leverage to crush those who oppose him, His Dad's Army of lawyers have sheltered him from the law his entire life. Imagine what he will do with the Department of Justice at his disposal. If you elect him, you just gave him the world's ultimate leverage. Nothing will then be able to stop him from doing whatever he pleases with whomever he pleases.

So, with the world open to his desires, the question would become: "What are the desires of this man?" His supporters freely admit and even applaud the fact that he would and could do all these things, but they justify it with statements such as this one by Twitter user @larrysr19701: "Ive survived Obama's Tyranny, so far. Im sure Trump wont disappoint." I don't care how right-wing you are: If you believe Obama is the worst tyrant to have walked the Earth then you need to read a history book. Trump supporters seem to believe there is some kind of moral quality to this man that would somehow make up for the immorality he has bathed in throughout his almost 70 year long life. Let's look at some of the personality traits he has shown:

Suspicion
It is incredible how uncertain of himself this guy is. He has the confidence of a schoolyard bully who acts tough to hide the fact that he gets beaten at home. The protesters at his rallies, they are a personal danger to him, and encouraging his supporters to beat them up is just self-defense. He sees every opposition to him as evidence of a conspiracy; he sees every loss as evidence of fraud. Name one single state that Trump has graciously conceeded to an opponent. Iowa? "It must be fraud, that's why I didn't win." Utah? "Romney stabbed my back and Cruz cheated." Wisconsin? "The establishment and Cruz are in this together." Everyone is out to get Trump according to him. He is nasty to everyone and acts all surprised and innocent when there is any kind of response. But of course, as Trump is fond of saying, he's just a "counterpuncher." Someone else hits him, and he hits back twice as hard. Except, Cruz had no hand in the ad that caused Trump to attack Heidi Cruz and accuse Ted Cruz of adultery (without any evidence). Trump is likely to respond to a terrorist plot hatched in a Muslim suburb of Brussels with a nuclear strike against Belgium. And this guy takes ANY criticism as a veiled personal attack. Megyn Kelly asks a critical question, he goes after her personally. Michelle Fields asks for an apology from his campaign manager, and he labels her a liar and a terrorist. Any news outlet opposes his policies, and he labels them corrupt. This guy thinks he is so brilliant that any critic cannot be acting out of anything but bias and animosity. If in his young years his Dad's army of lawyers shielded him from accountability, now his army of devotees are shielding him from sanity. Imagine an army of intelligence agencies and soldiers shielding him from scrutiny, dedicated to take down his enemies.

Arrogance
From the beginning Trump never had any substance on policy or solutions. His main reason for running was an ego trip. To be able to have the bragging rights of "almost" becoming the most powerful man on Earth. His main argument for electing him continues to be his massive ego. Just read one of his tweets: "News tells of massive foreign criminal gangs in our largest cities. Only I can solve!" It doesn't matter what his policies or preferences are, as long as HE is in charge the decisions are bound to be good. He'll solve a 700 billion gap in Medicare and Social Security payments by clamping down on 3bn worth of "waste, fraud, and abuse." He'll make a gigantic wall along the Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it. He'll solve the Israel-Palestine conflict by "making a good deal." Any problem in the world, just sprinkle som magic "Trump" dust on it and the problem will fix itself. If ever there was a man who claimed to be a god.... Oh, he can get these things done, no mistake. But his cures will be worse than the original problem. He can make up the 700bn by labelling, at random, half of all Medicare and Social Security payments as "waste, fraud, and abuse." He can make Mexico pay for the wall by threatening war and annexing Baja California until they pay the wall as a ransom. He can solve the Israel-Palestine conflict by killing off 1/4 of Gaza, including the entire leadership of Hamas, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority with all their families and extended families and "collateral damage." It really is amazing what you can get done if you don't let morals get in the way. Nazi Germany were particularly good at these kind of solutions. This is the kind of scorched-earth tactics Trump has lived by his entire business life. He has not studied up on any of the issues and gets his information from cable news (by his own admission). The fact that he can still consider himself fit for the hardest job on Earth tells volumes about the arrogance of this man.

Cruelty and savagery
Politics and real-estate business are blood sports, there is no doubt about it, but even in those venues Trump has earned a reputation for ruthlessness. As a business practice he breaks contracts and pays contractors just 90% of the sum agreed upon in the contract, hoping they will just take that sum and not sue, since that will cost them more. When anyone accuses him of fraud or abuse he responds by trying to destroy their lives. He even sued an author for 5 billion dollars for stating that Trump's fortune was worth 3 billion, instead of the 10 billion Trump claims it's worth. He is suing those who were defrauded by him in the Trump University scam for complaining. As a candidate, in the "job interview" stage of the process where people try to be their best, he has encouraged violence against protesters and Republican delegates, maligned non-rivals such as Megyn Kelly, Michelle Fields, Heidi Cruz, and a disabled reporter, and taken every cheap shot and ad hominem argument imaginable. In his personal life he cut vital medical care to a family member, a little boy with a dangerous neurological disease, because the boy's parents were in a dispute with him about his father's inheritance. The parents sued successfully, and the medical insurance was reinstated, but this clearly shows that no holds are barred against Trump's enemies. As a president he has already said he would torture and kill the wives and children of terrorists. He has applauded the tactics used by Putin to stifle dissent and the actions of the Chinese government during the Tianmen Square Massacre. If there is a low-road insult, a threat, or any use of force Trump can apply to impose his will and get away with it, he has demonstrated time and again that he can and will use it. Lord help us all if this man is ever given executive power and the sovereign immunity of a president.

Immorality and Avarice
One question I and a lot of people have been asking themselves: "Why in the world does Donald Trump want to be president?" He certainly has no desire for public service, as shown by the fact that he has never run for elected office even once. He clearly is uncomfortable discussing foreign policy or any kind of policy for that matter. As far as power and pleasure goes, is there no limit to his appetite for these things? Is there anything more a billionaire could wish for that his current sack of gold does not bestow upon him? If he ever achieves it, what will this guy do with ultimate power? My mind hesitates to go there, but it has to be clear to everyone what the consequences of electing him are likely to be. Bill Clinton was an adulterer, but he at least tried to keep a facade of decency. Contrast this with someone who brags about "sleeping with famous married women" and who runs strip clubs at his casinos. Imagine a mobster family taking over the White House and you would get the idea. He would turn the White House into a brothel. This would be the image portrayed to young men in America and throughout the world. This is the lesson: "Cheat, choose the low road, hit your opponent below the belt, use any advantage you have, and you too can become the leader of the free world some day." Make Chick Hicks the hero of Cars, make Gaston the hero of Beauty and the Beast, forget all that religion, philosophy, and civilization has taught man about morality and justice: "Might is right."

Immorality and avarice. These are the vices which a tyrant can exercise without restraint, and the very ability to do so constitute the lure and reward of tyranny. To have whatever one's eye lusts for, be it property, power, or people, this is the lure for the tyrant. The desire for absolute power would have little meaning for unscrupulous people if that power did not enable one to break all bonds which social position, morality, and laws would otherwise restrain. The Roman emperors would frequently display that power by taking the wives of men they had invited to the palace. Do not be surprised if Trump repeats as president the behavior he has bragged about as a billionaire. Remember the words of one of your Founding Fathers, John Adams:

"Those passions [vanity, pride, selfishness, ambition, and avarice] . . . when unchecked, produce the . . .  effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation." How much harder then for someone who has never resisted such temptations....

Turn around while there still is time! Do not elect "your tyrant" to beat "their tyrant" and recognize tyranny for what it is: madness. A tyrant is in your midst and wants to be at your head. Do not allow it!

The West has lived without tyrannies for so long that they cannot imagine anymore what it is like to live under one. Words like "tyrant" are thrown around and misused as soon as there is any new executive overreach. But tyranny, in its proper sense, has an entirely different scope. There is no private property in a tyranny, nor is anything sacred. There is nothing where anyone can say, "this is mine" or "this is private." What is there then to live or hope for?

As the Athenian Euripides writes:
"Why should one acquire wealth and livelihood
For his children, if the struggle is only to enrich the tyrant further?
Why keep his young daughters virtuously at home,
To be the sweet delight of tyrants?
I'd rather die than have my daughters wed by violence" (First Democracy, Woodruff 63).

 Cicero, who saw the death of the Roman Republic in his time sums it up like this in his The Republic: "As soon as a king takes the first step towards a more unjust regime, he at once becomes a tyrant. And that is the foulest and most repellent creature imaginable, and the most abhorrent to god and man alike. Although he has the outward appearance of a man, he outdoes the wildest beasts in the utter savagery of his behavior" (50).

I fear the American public will discover too late that their watered down public institutions and Constitution are woefully inadequate to meet the challenge of a tyrannical president. 

Philosophical Rhetoric: A Beginner's Guide to Perelman's Quasi-Logical Arguments, Part I

When I first read The New Rhetoric by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, and later The Realm of Rhetoric by just Perelman, I was struck by how elegantly these books describe the kind of arguments that are being used all around us. The second realization, was that this system, for different reasons, is often not used in areas where they could provide the most help. Part of the problem is that these books are sometimes seen as difficult or inaccessible.

Therefore, I have tried to make a "beginner's guide" to the system Perelman describes in The Realm of Rhetoric, beginning with his classification of what he calls "quasi-logical arguments."

Quasi-Logical Arguments
As far as I can tell, he calls them quasi-logical because they resemble formal logic, but are not as restrictive. More than anything, what we are dealing with here seem to be essential patterns of thought when we try to deal with a concept in some way (53). Perelman had a background in formal logic as an analytical philosopher, but he found that system to be too restrictive (for example, there was no way in that system to argue about what the meaning of justice should be). These, loosely defined, are "logical" patterns of thought that still do not pass the over-rigid test of formal logic. The point is that Perelman saw these as valid methods of reasoning, and felt it would be a mistake to overlook their effect just because of an over-rigid definition of logic.

1. Contradiction and Incompatibility
In formal logic, as in math, you can prove a system to be nonsense if you can find a contradiction in the system. This is not the case in general argumentation. In argumentation, as in life, one can allow for nuances which show that it is just an apparent contradiction rather than a real one (54).

In real life, what we really experience are not contradictions but incompatibilities which force us to choose in a conflict which rule will be followed. It is the fear of ridicule or disrepute which makes us try to avoid incompatibilities in our statements, and which makes us try to resolve them once they appear (55). The standard example, may be the charge made in the 2004 election that "John Kerry is a flip-flopper." This historical campaign ad shows how incompatibilities can be exploited to invoke ridicule against an opponent.

A version of arguments of incompatibility on stereoids is called "autophagia." An autophagia is when a rule is incompatible with the conditions or consequences of its assertion or application. If you prove that this is the case you retort the former argument.

Here are some prominent examples of how retorts have been formulated by pointing out autophagia:

Positivists famously have stated that, “To be meaningful, a proposition must be either analytical or empirical.” This claim was made by A. J. Ayer and many other prominent positivists. To this a critic can simply respond (and many have): “Was that statement you just made analytical or empirical?” Ayer's statement is a statement of definition or preference, but there is nothing analytically or empirically verifiable about the term "meaningful proposition" that gives it the meaning Ayer is endowing it with. In other words, Ayer is himself breaking the rule that he wants everybody else to follow! The very assertion of a rule of preference violates his rule against assertions of preference.

Similarly, the postmodernist may claim, "I have just discovered that all knowledge is subjective and everyone just sees what they want to see." But the critic can answer, "If all knowledge is subjective, how can you make a claim to know what everyone else sees? And how could you discover anything? Aren’t you also just seeing what you want to see? Perhaps only your knowledge is subjective." The claim that "all knowledge is relative" requires a perspective that is able to view knowledge somehow from the outside, from an objective vantage point. The philosopher Ray Bhaskar has argued for example that in order to even consider such a point as Thomas Kuhn's "incommensurability," you automatically imply the existence of an objective reality outside of the incommensurable theories of science.

Here are a few simple examples you may have heard:
A: Communication is impossible
B: Then why are you talking?

A: I’m not talking to you!
B: You just did.

Philosophers love to use this method to "catch" others in faulty thinking. This sketch illustrates the principle of autophagia in philosophic rhetoric:

So how does one solve an apparent incompatibility? Perelman mentions a few common strategies, though I am sure there are more.

- Escape from contradiction comes by interposing time

We recognize that the world is in flux, and so are our beliefs, values, and perspectives. Therefore, by interposing time we can show two incompatible statements to actually be compatible with a changing world and people who develop and grow. We constantly hear that the views of politicians "have evolved." That is an attempt at explaining apparent incompatibility by interposing time. Here are a few more examples:

A: You said that we didn’t have to worry about Russia, but now you say we do have to worry?
B: Well, back in 1994 we didn’t! Things have changed.

A: You said that Germany is the most evil country in the world, and now you praise them?
B: Yes, but that was during the Second World War. It is a totally different country now.

- Insist on the situated nature of the decision

We are human enough to realize that people make different situations when they are differently situated. The situation looks different on the ground than it does from space, we excuse a colleague who is frustrated on the day after his mother died, we condone some criminal actions perpetrated under situations of intense stress or fear. This is why insisting on the situated nature of a decision can be effective. Some examples:

A: Do you agree with what this platoon leader did?
B: I leave to the soldier on the ground to decide what action the situation requires.

A: You claim that you believe in law and order, but in 1998 you pardoned a murderer.
B: It was a young boy who saw his friend get beat half to death in front of him. In that situation I did not feel the mandatory sentence fit the crime.

- Hide the incompatibility

Of course, this is the least robust method, since all it takes for it to fail is someone to find the incompatibility and point it out. Still, if the incompatibility can remain hidden then one may never have to deal with it. All political parties are a walking incompatibility since they try to be a home for people with very different beliefs, personalities, and statements. We ourselves are walking incompatibilites since we have all done things that another part of ourselves would never do. Millions are spent every year to hid information that would expose incompatibilites about candidates, parties, companies, etc. But once this effort is exposed, the result is devastating. Nothing is more glaring than a lie to cover a lie.

2. Definition and Analysis
To give a name to something is actually an argument. That is clear in the example of “He is a RINO (Republican in name only),” but less clear in statements like “a human is a rational animal” or “this was an accident” or even “I am a student.” Still, these are arguments, not simply statements of fact. This is the case because a definition chooses some aspects and leaves out others. Yes, the person may be a student, but what he studies may be how to break into people’s cars. It is because terms are not defined once and for all that we have to make an argument for them.

For example, “Equality does not mean that there is no difference between people, nor does it mean that we should not treat people differently based on our relationship with them. How could we? Equality rather has to do with a fundamental respect for people, and that before we know anything else about them we see them as being just as deserving of that fundamental respect as we are.” This is one definition of equality. There are other definitions, some that seek economic metrics for it, others that are more philosophical. Still, the nature of the word "equality" means that anytime people are talking about it they are implicitly making an argument for what the word means or should mean.
As Perelman writes, “Every time an idea can be defined in more than one way, ‘to define’ comes to mean to make a choice” (62).

For example, Jeb Bush said that illegal immigrants/undocumented immigrants (whichever term you prefer) bringing their kids illegally to USA constituted "an act of love." That is one definition of the act. The video below is making an argument of definition to oppose that definition and replace it with its own.

- Analysis

Perelman writes that, “All analysis is directional, for it aims to make certain expressions interchangeable by leading the audience toward conceptions that conform to what the speaker has in mind and by setting aside what different interpretations another person might want to give to the statements being analyzed” (63). By making definitions we make some arguments, but the interpretation of the implications of those definitions are also arguments. Bertrand Russel wanted to claim that statements had an implied fact content, but Perelman argues that Russel is very selective in choosing exactly what implied fact content he claims the statement has in real life. Indeed, the very question of fact content does not come up in the statement itself before Russel discusses it. Just because someone says "the King of France" does not mean that France necessarily has or had a king. A statement doesn't have to have any factual correlation to the real world, as Russel claims it does. I might just as well have said "the King of Goose Egg." So when someone says they are only "doing analysis" remember that they are actually "making an argument for what this should mean." Here are two examples "analyzing" the same situation based on two definitions of the same population:

A: We are a nation of laws and do not reward lawbreakers. Illegal aliens have broken laws and are therefore criminals. If we reward people who break the law then we by implication make the law something that does not matter. It is an invitation to lawlessness. (analysis of term illegal alien)

B: We are a nation of people and we treat people as people, not like animals. Undocumented immigrants are people just like us, since we are a nation of immigrants. The only difference between them and us is a piece of paper. If we remove that disparity, we can restore them to the dignity that humans deserve. (analysis of term undocumented immigrant).

Arguments of incompatibility and definition work because of basic and almost universal patterns of human thought. Most people yearn for consistency (which is why incompatibilities are so frustrating and confusing) and for a clear concept of identity (which is why definitions are so powerful). These desires may be but symptoms of our overarching desire for order. Consistency and stable identities make our world more manageable, and we trust what we can easily comprehend. As John Dewey writes in Art as Experience:

"Order cannot but be admirable in a world constantly threatened with disorder—in a world where living creatures can go on living only by taking advantage of whatever order exists about them, incorporating it into themselves. In a world like ours, every living creature that attains sensibility welcomes order with a response of harmonious feeling whenever it finds a congruous order about it" (13).

Can Neuroscience Make You A Great Leader?

"Take much of what you have heard about how the best executives make decisions. Now, forget it." This is how The Wall Street Journal hails the new findings from neuroscience in their article "Inside the Executive Brain" by Andrew Blackman. Neuroscientists have revolutionized what we know about good decision making (according to the neuroscientists themselves anyway). So let's take a look at what these people have found and want to teach, and how they want to teach it. Are they really discovering new things or are they just reinventing the wheel? What have they discovered and what may they have missed?

Lesson 1: Deadlines can make people less creative. Pardon me, but this isn't really brain science is it? Oh, right, it is. Is anyone really surprised when they hear that people aren't the best at thinking outside the box when they are stressed and just have to get something done? At least for my wife and me, that is when we hit survival mode where we just have to get it done in the simplest way possible. Mistakes are made in such situations. According to Blackman, "Richard Boyatzis - along with another colleague Anthony Jack and others - has found that a tight deadline increases people's urgency and stress levels" (R1). Really? Wow, I never would have guessed that. Seriously, you needed to use "sophisticated machines to map what's going on inside the brain" in order to figure that out? I don't even want to know how much that study cost.

Anyway, the part of the brain that is activated is the "task positive network" which works on problem solving but does not come up with original ideas. Who knew? "The research shows us that the more stressful a deadline is, the less open you are to other ways of approaching the problem." Yes, that's when I shut all the windows, close myself to everyone, and just attempt to barrel through the problem. It leads to people not even seeing the box they are thinking inside. The solution, they say, is to teach employees to meditate more, which some were able to do before the whole tyranny of deadlines was imposed in the first place...oh well.

Lesson 2: Fear and anxiety lead to bad decisions. Wow, didn't see that one coming. Evidently, people who live in fear of losing their job or company tend to expect the worst and act accordingly, thereby often self-sabotaging or avoiding opportunities which may have saved them. Well, here's my comment:

Seriously though, is this really news to anyone but Wall Street Journal? Anyway, Srini Pillay, founder of the coaching firm Neurobusiness Group says the answer is not to avoid fear and anxiety, since they are apparently inevitable in modern workplaces. "The solution lies not in trying to avoid it, but in learning to accept it. It is important to be aware that your response is likely to be an exhaggeration." In other words: EMBRACE YOUR FEARS! 

Though he mentions that "consciously countering it by reframing an issue in more positive terms, can also be effective." (Instead of calling it a market meltdown, think about calling it a market waterfall! Ooh, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now ;)

Lesson 3: Good leaders look past facts and lean more on emotions and intuition than logic. Ok, here I am actually learning something, although I am not too surprised. After all, there is a reason why number crunching by itself does not lead to good decisions and why we need people rather than machines in leadership positions. Researchers gave a bunch of management scenarios to experienced executives and scanned their brain as they were analyzing. What they found surprised them. According to Blackman: "They expected to see a lot of activity in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain known for its involvement in things like planning and logical reasoning. There was activity there, but different areas of the brain were dominant - those involved in social and emotional thinking." This disparity increased in those who were known to be the best decision makers.

Of course, part of the reason is that leaders have to consider the emotions of those they are leading. David Rock, director of the research organization NeuroLeadership Institute says that "A lot of strategies that go wrong are because managers haven't thought through what happens when it hits people" (R2) and many leaders have problems shifting between the analytical number-crunching and social modes of thinking. In other words, they have gone to business school to learn all about finance and numbers, and as leaders they struggle to relearn what they once knew about people.

A tip from Matthew Lieberman, professor of psychology at the University of California, is "simple reminders" like sticky notes to remember not to get too caught up in numbers and analysis. Getting quite advanced here, isn't it? Meditation, embracing fear, and putting up sticky notes to remember to think about people. I can definitely understand why these consultants and researchers are paid millions of dollars for their absolutely invaluable advice and insights.

Lesson 4: Good leaders are positive. Evidently, although some people somehow think you have to be a jerk to get things done, "the data says that's just not true" according to Dr. Boyatzis. So now he can stop abusing his research assistants while thinking he is doing them a favor, I guess. I can't believe how surprised Blackman sounds when he is writing this! He writes, "The best leaders, it seems, are good at motivating people with things like encouragement, praise and rewards - thereby creating a strong emotional bond and sense of purpose among employees." Wow, business gurus have finally realized that you need to be nice to people to get them to work for you. Isn't this just basic common sense? There is a reason why memes like these are so common:

What is the point? you may ask? Have I written this article just to make fun of researchers in general and perhaps neuroscientists in particular? Actually, I find this research to be valuable. Yes, it often confirms things that we already know, but it adds the weight of science and numbers to common sense. There is an increased credibility when research like this has been done, credibility which has more power to inform policy than "common sense" does. It is one thing if you have read it in a book by the likes of Dale Carnegie, and something else if it has been "proven" by science. If you have a boss who has bought into some kind of new management craze and requires tighter deadlines, puts people more on their toes, prefers number crunchers to people who are socially intelligent, and says that being negative and tough is "just his style," you now have numbers and research of your own to convince him or his superior that his approach is mistaken.

However, I do have an axe to grind against some of the neo-positivistic thinking which goes into a lot of this research which says that everything that is important can be measured and quantified. This, I think, becomes most clear of all in the feeble and vague solutions they propose for these problems: Meditate, what kind of meditation? Not all meditation is productive. Embrace your fears and become aware of them? How exactly do you do that? Put sticky notes up to remember people? Right, because all we need to change our behavior and way of thinking is another reminder in a world full of checklists and notification devices.

Most absurd of all, Doctor Waldman at Arizona State University wants to train good leaders by making them watch TV! Yes, you read it right. He claims that "We are right on the cusp of being able to assist leaders to rewire their own brains." You see, they have found that good leaders have what they call "inspirational leadership" which they define as "the ability to articulate a vision that inspires people and makes them buy into your strategy. Not only can these people see the big picture, but they can put that picture into words and impart it to others." In other words, a good leader needs to be a good speaker and communicator.

This was the goal of the entire tradition of teaching rhetoric, with successful outcomes shown in people like Pericles, Cicero, John Adams, and Winston Churchill. They learned through exercises, principles, and practice to analyze a matter, find a good solution, and then to articulate good arguments and reasons for this course of action. Some of the core skills and practices involved articulating the larger principles at stake, showing their connections to the case at hand, and making the perspective vivid and compelling. In fact, the humanities and a humanistic approach is especially suited to this training (as I argue here).

According to Waldman, I guess they have been going about it in the wrong way. The real way to teach leadership is through neurofeedback. Here is how it works: You make people watch a movie while you are monitoring their brain activity. "If the people aren't displaying the desired brain patterns, for example, the screen they're watching may go fuzzy. When they do display the right brain patterns, it becomes sharp again. Gradually, people's brains learn to follow the patterns that are positively reinforced." Come on! They think the brain will reprogram itself simply by "giving it a cookie" when it is doing the right thing? Even dogs' brains aren't that mechanistic! I know, I have trained several. With this "brainwashing" activity they really think that they will train people's brains to "make those visionary-leadership connections naturally - and, with any luck, make it easier for them to inspire people more easily."

Wow, who knew that to become a visionary inspirational leader all you needed to do was to watch a TV which goes fuzzy when you think the wrong way. If only Cicero, Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. had known this! To think of all the hours, years, they spent listening to and giving speeches, studying the concepts, listening to people and trying to understand them, and then to find out that all they needed was a little bit of reprogramming through neurofeedback. Well, good luck Dr. Waldman. Of course, he says that neurofeedback still needs more research before researchers can be sure it will work in developing leadership ability. Guess who is going to fund that research, and guess how likely it is that he will be a recipient of government grants, stipends, and research fellowships in order to carry on with that research.

Have you heard the saying "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? In some ways it makes sense that if you have a machine like the fMRI-scanner which records activity and connections, the solution seems to be to rewire those connections which happen to be the problem. Yet the mind is more than just a ball of wires. I think it would be appropriate to end with a word from Kenneth Burke. He predicted that positivists will be blind to the non-mechanistic elements of human nature and reality. “The quasi-scientific reductionist theories, with their caricatures of perfection, will not only never see it in the first place, but will be so constructed that they never even miss the loss” (301). While looking for the secrets of leadership through the methods of neuroscience it seems like it is also possible for researchers to become blind to other aspects of what it means to be and become a good leader. As Kenneth Burke would say, "It's more complicated than that." Leadership is not developed in a day, and despite the short-cuts these people are promising, it takes patience, passion, and natural ability. Becoming a good leader is a lifelong pursuit. 

Putin's Strategy of Inaction and The Rhetoric of Doubt

Putin has shocked and puzzled the world by his actions since the Winter Olympics in 2014. People were shocked by his brazen invasion of the Crimean peninsula, but they have been even more puzzled by his fantastic claims and his support of stories about the invasion of Crimea and the subsequent violent uprising in Eastern Ukraine. We are supposed to believe that all who oppose Russian dominance in Ukraine are fascists; that this fact endangered the lives of Russians living in Crimea, even though not a single incidence of violence has ever been recorded prior to the invasion; that Crimea was in fact not invaded at all, but that some Russian speaking Ukrainians suddenly acquired armored vehicles, military uniforms, tanks, machine guns, sniper rifles, and a clear chain of command in order to spontaneously resist the "Ukrainian nationalist threat." It is said that the first victim of war is the truth, but this takes dishonesty to a new level. The stories aren't even consistent, but rather they change with whatever the situation requires. Phony and rigged referendums are just the top of the iceberg.

Of course, a large part of the explanation is that Putin needs a story to tell his own countrymen in order to justify his actions. His followers have performed a lot of revisionist history lately, writing Russian history books for education which claim that Stalin's mass executions and labor camps were just "a natural consequence of the difficulties of holding together such a vast and diverse country" and portrays the fall of the Soviet Union as one of the worst tragedies and mistakes of the 20th century.

As a former director of the KGB he also understands the use of disinformation and propaganda for external purposes, but what actually is he hoping to achieve?

Putin learned well the lessons from the Iraq War and Syria's use of chemical weapons: An act of war is judged by its justification, and the justification is based on what one could call "actionable intelligence" which convey a clear narrative which warrants a reaction which is appropriate or at least is esteemed to be so by common wisdom. The Iraq War has been condemned mainly because there were no weapons of mass destruction and so the act of war was not justified. The narrative by which an act of war was seen as potentially justified has proven to be false. Fuel is added to the fire when one learns of the faulty intelligence and the flimsy evidence which were used as the basis for the decision to go to war.

Thereafter, the public became increasingly skeptical of justifications for war and scrutinized more carefully the reasons and the evidence given by governments who wanted to do so. "Do we really know for sure that this is what happened? Are there other factors which give these facts a different explanation? Is this really the best course of action and a fitting response?" This was clearly displayed in the public backlash against David Cameron when he lost the vote for use of force to punish Syria for using chemical weapons. Barack Obama felt the same heat from Congress and public opinion. Where was the evidence that chemical weapons were used? How do we know for sure that they were used by Assad's forces? Who issued the order to use it? You claim they have been used by Assad's forces before? Why should we act now when we did not act then?

The opposition did not succeed in disproving that Assad used chemical weapons, but when your goal is not action but inaction you do not have to prove your point. All you have to do is to sow doubt about the narrative and the facts the other person is using to justify their push for action. In any argument aimed at effecting action, the rhetor has to take the audience along the four stases (discussed and elaborated in this post) of fact, definition, quality, and procedure. The audience need to feel they can be pretty confident that they know what happened or what the situation is, what it should be called or what kind of category it fits into, what quality it has (how good or bad it is), and that the proposed action or procedure is the appropriate one according to the facts, definitions, and qualities of the situation in question. Here the defence arguing for inaction has the upper hand, since they do not have to refute all the evidence: all they have to do is muddy the waters a little bit to create room for uncertainty and doubt. The one arguing for action has to defend all the four stases, whereas the one arguing for inaction can choose to attack any one of them. If he can win even one of them he has won the battle and inaction ensues, as any veteran saboteur of planning meetings knows. (just as a side note, this is also why the justice system inherently favors the defense. Not guilty is the default position as long as guilt has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt).

This is what Putin is doing with his rhetoric of doubt. What happened in Crimea? What do we call it? Was it an invasion? Well, no shots were fired, and the action did have the assent of some local government officials. So then it was an annexation? Ok, but that just means that one country took over another. It is not as clear how we should react to an annexation. We know what an invasion is, with all its negative connotations of aggression and war, but what does really an annexation mean and what is the appropriate response to such an action? Support of local government officials and the referendum further makes the case a difficult one to classify. A similar pattern is repeated in Eastern Ukraine, where the so-called "rebels" now have acquired Stinger missiles to shoot down airplanes. Did they get that from used army supply shops as Putin claims? Meanwhile, Russia escalates and then de-escalates their military presence on the border in order to give the pretense of "wanting to keep the peace" while at the same time watching out for its interests. The hope is that the rest of the world will tire and be confused and inactive long enough for Russia to gradually increase and strengthen its hold of the region.

This is the political equivalent of chess with a silent war fought on the stages of international diplomacy as well as through arms supplies, subversion, espionage, and open display of military force. Gradually, the world may learn to tolerate and accept a reality which just a year ago would have provided widespread outrage and the threat of nuclear war. And Putin gets to enjoy his prize with impunity.

The Orator and the Mechanic: Images of Rhetorical Practice in De Oratore

What do you need to know to change the world?

I am not the only one who has asked that question; it has been the central quandary for many philosophers, politicians, reformers, and preachers for most of the recorded history of thought. As Richard Weaver writes, we are all "born into history, with an endowment of passion and a sense of the ought. There is ever some discrepancy . . . between the situation man is in and the situation he would like to realize. His life is therefore characterized by movement towards goals." We want to make the world better, and make life richer, fuller, and more worth living. How do we do that?

Well, one central element is that we cannot do it alone; we need help from others. In order to help, they have to be persuaded through words that the endeavor is worth it. That is why Weaver goes on to claim, "It is largely the power of rhetoric which influences and governs that movement" towards goals. So what do you need to know to get others to enlist in such a cause? Is it enough to know which buttons to press, how do make people feel certain emotions or get certain desires? Will marketing and style do? What about the larger ideas about human nature and what builds and moves societies, what some people may call philosophy, what about them?

Marcus Tullius Cicero plays out this dispute elegantly in his dialogue between Crassus and Antonius in De Oratore. At the outset of De Oratore, Cicero references an important disagreement with his brother Quintus on the nature of eloquence: Cicero espouses that "eloquence is dependent upon the trained skill of highly educated men" whereas Quintus says "it must be separated from the refinements of learning and made to depend on a sort of natural talent and . . . practice" (290). These competing views (high education vs. practice) are then fully played out in the ensuing dialogue between Crassus and Antonius, yet they are not as far apart as they seem. The central argument is based on different perspectives of a similar idea: Crassus is normative and describes a "lofty ideal" of the Orator (320), whereas Antonius is descriptive and performs the Socratic work of defining and delimiting the strict boundaries of oratory (311). As such, it is logical that their definitions of the issue will be conflicting, with Crassus pursuing the greatest eloquence and Antonius cutting the craft of the orator to its barest minimum. What we see playing out in the dialogue is an artful display of an argument on the stasis of definition, where Cicero is able to instruct us about the nature of eloquence and oratory, and their roles in society from both idealistic and descriptive perspectives.

One of the main disagreements is about what and how much the orator needs to study in order to become an orator. Antonius limits the sphere of an orator to the law courts and public debates (311), and claims that although the orator may "taste" much which belongs to other fields of knowledge, he does not need to acquire it as his own (312). Philosophy in general is especially useless, since such ideas and precepts espoused by the likes of Plato are too far removed from reality to be of any utility (320). The one possible exception here is Aristotle, whose theory may be useful to more advanced students of rhetoric (326) but not to novices. What an orator needs is to be attuned to "the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and hopes of his fellow-citizens and of any men whom on any issue he would fain win over by his word" (313) since the oratory needs to be adapted to the ears of the audience (326).

Crassus, on the other hand, argues that an orator should seek after knowledge widely, since eloquence without it is empty (292) and cannot achieve excellence (294). Especially philosophy which deals with human life and manners must be mastered by the orator (299). Nor is oratory restricted to law courts and public debates. Oratory brings people together, creates and sustains civilization, law, and order, and brings pleasure and safety: "the wise control of the complete orator is that which chiefly upholds . . . the safety of countless individuals and of the entire State" (293-294). It is also the general art to which every specialist must come in order to convince people and gain consensus and support for any cooperative venture (298). As he concludes towards the end: "an orator cannot have sufficient cogency and weight if he lacks the vigor that public speaking demands, and cannot be adequately polished and profound if he lacks width of culture" (339). As for rhetoric, the education of the orator, they both agree that it is not an art in the strict "Greek" sense, but that it still has utility and value (309). The Isocratean tradition is clearly the most useful to rhetorical novices, but Aristotle and some other philosophers may have occasional helpful points to offer (338).

In my opinion both perspectives have value: Antonius' "mechanistic" perspective is helpful in order to settle the boundaries of rhetoric as an academic field, and Crassus' views show the potential reach of oratory which "embraces the origin and operation and developments of all things" (338). Oratory, as Crassus defines it, is the only way leadership can be practiced in a democratic society, and it is often the only way people can change the course of the world.

What's Not To Like About A Tyrant?

You'd think that this would be a closed case in a country founded as a reaction to tyranny, with a people whose very Constitution is based on a suspicion of government and trust in individuals and the choices of the people, where "freedom" and "liberty" are discussed and honored more often than just about any other concept. Yet, when you see not one, but two presidents applauded for promising to abuse and overstep executive authority in a State of the Union address, when you see government agencies and bureaucracies used to stifle dissent, and when you see massive surveillance of the press, opposition groups, and in fact the entire population, all of which happens without any public outrage, you start to wonder.

In the old rhetoric schools of Athens and Rome, one of the rhetorical exercises given to advanced students was to rhetorically "slay a tyrant" by using something called the "topos of a tyrant:" In a measured invective, the students would lay out the six vices of a tyrant to remind their audience what it meant to be free from tyranny as well as to move them to action against a budding tyrant or tyrannical tendencies in their society. The freedom they had to exhibit this exercise was a good indication of the actual freedom they actually enjoyed in their societies. Two rhetoricians, Secundus and Maternus, were put to death by Caligula and Domitian when they performed the topos of the tyrant as rhetorical exercises at a festival. I guess they did too good of a job, and the tyrants got a really good look at themselves. The topos of a tyrant is an exercise I think we could profitably adopt in our society, as a safeguard of liberty and a ready weapon against tyranny. In this post, I'll try to explain the exercise and give a model you can use and spread as you choose. So, here goes: Let's slay a tyrant!

First, a little bit of theoretical groundwork to define what I mean by tyranny. Paul Woodruff has the best description I have seen so far in his book First Democracy: "The idea of tyranny is among the greatest gifts we have from ancient Greece, because it nails down a vital way to think about freedom. The ancient Greeks realized that there is a kind of government that destroys people by dividing them, while it diminishes their leader by clouding his mind. The leader may be a person or a group, and tyranny may rise in what is nominally a democracy. Like a disease, tyranny is recognized by its symptoms. These symptoms are the features of political leadership that the ancient Greeks most feared. And the Greeks were right to fear them. If you observe any of these symptoms in your leaders, be wary. A plague could be on the way, and it could fatally weaken your freedoms:
1. A tyrant is afraid of losing his position, and his decisions are affected by this fear.
2. A tyrant tries to rise above the rule of law, though he may give lip service to the law.
3. A tyrant does not accept criticism.
4. A tyrant cannot be called to account for his actions.
5. A tyrant does not listen to advice from those who do not curry favor with him, even though they may be his friends.
6. A tyrant tries to prevent those who disagree with him from participating in politics" (66-7).

Any of these look familiar? Ask yourselves, when did the US last have a president who did not start campaigning for reelection from day 1 in office? When last did it have a president who followed the Constitution and refrained from fighting illegal wars? When last did a president voluntarily disclose and admit to a significant failure without being forced to do so? When was ever a president successfully impeached or held accountable for his actions? I'm not talking about losing an election or stepping down like Nixon, I mean impeached and prosecuted for crimes. Only two presidents (in over 200 years) have ever been impeached, and none have ever been convicted. And not because of lack of either crimes or evidence, I can assure you. Besides, the US president has what is called "sovereign immunity," and according to the US Attorney General's Office "The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" (i.e. "ya can't touch him"). Concerning point 5 and 6, do I even need to list examples? Didn't think so.

So why is this so bad? Why does it matter for example if the NSA is spying on Americans (and the rest of the world for that matter)? I have had university students actually say "as long as you don't do anything wrong, what do you have to fear?" If that's your attitude, why bother with any restraint at all. Why even care about having checks and balances. Have we forgotten that almost everyone who has been given absolute power has actually used it? The results have not been pretty. The rhetoric schools outlined six vices of the tyrant to help people keep this in mind. They are cruelty, savagery, suspicion, arrogance, immorality, and avarice. The student would then explain and amplify those vices by giving descriptions, examples, and stories. I will provide a brief outline, but you can easily fill in examples of your own.

Suspicion: A tyrant can have no real friends, for he knows that his power is illegitimate and is only supported by force. As a result, he is constantly suspicious, even of those who want what is best for him. He believes the slightest rumor of a threat against him and sees every talented individual as a challenge to his power. As Euripides writes,
"When the people govern a country
They rejoice in the young citizens who are rising to power
Whereas a man who is king thinks them his enemy
And kills the best of them and any he finds
To be intelligent, because he fears for his power" (Woodruff 63).

Every tyrant has needed informants, secret police, and surveillance. In our days the thought police have taken the role of the bodyguard as the vanguard of tyranny. The ancients recognized that a tyrant first asks for a bodyguard because he knows he will need protection from his people and the power of force in order to carry out his crimes. In our days, the tyrant first seeks intelligence about dissenters and the ability to spread an atmosphere of fear and distrust among his subjects. It is always defended with a need for "security," but too late do the people realize that the security he was talking about was his, and the threat was them. This is a necessity, for a tyranny of one over many can only endure by the oppressive fear created by a police state, splintering everyone into their own shell of terror, never knowing who is watching or listening.

This is a scene from  the movie The Lives of Others portraying the real surveillance practices of the DDR.

Cruelty and savagery: A tyrant relies on terror to silence opposition, and the fear of the citizenry must be kept vivid by regular demonstrations of power and cruelty. Thus, it is not a question of whether or not a specific victim deserves this treatment because of any action on their part. Rather, display of cruelty in itself is a goal, and so-called crimes against the state are often mere pretenses in order to organize these displays. This is one subject which I believe the recent UN report on the North Korean prison camps makes vivid enough. To give a more historic example, Tacitus describes the murders committed by Emperor Tiberius after he had seized complete power: "Frenzied with bloodshed, the emperor now ordered the execution of all those arrested for complicity. It was a massacre. Without discrimination of sex or age . . . there they lay, strewn about - or in heaps. Relatives and friends were forbidden to stand by or lament them, or even gaze for long. Guards surrounded them, spying on their sorrow, and escorted the rotting bodies until, dragged into the Tiber, they floated away or grounded - with none to cremate or touch them. Terror had paralyzed human sympathy. The rising surge of brutality drove compassion away" (209). This is the goal of cruelty, to paralyze human sympathy and drive away compassion by terror and brutality. This is the hollow existence of a people living under tyranny.

Arrogance: Along with being a vice, arrogance in some ways is a necessity for a tyrant. How else can he defend asserting his will contrary to the wishes of his subjects? He needs to believe that he is above them. He needs to make himself in some ways a "superhuman," almost a god as the Roman emperors did. His reign serves as a sign of devotion to his massive ego. Raised on a throne of power above everyone else, he looks down upon the puny humans below him as little more than animals with haughty disgust. They are there for his enjoyment and use, and serve no higher purpose than that. The Greeks believed this frame of mind above all the other vices show tyranny for what it is: a disease of the mind. For under this self-delusion the tyrant has to hide his knowledge of his weaknesses, frailty, and guilt. Tacitus writes, "How truly the wisest of men used to assert that the souls of despots, if revealed, would show wounds and mutilations - weals left on the spirit, like lash-marks on a body, by cruelty, lust, and malevolence" (202). The tyrant seeks confirmation of his superiority over mankind, and finds it in abuses of power. He seeks confirmation of his superiority to divine law, and finds it by breaking every sacred bond and violating everything deemed inviolable.

Immorality and Avarice: These are the vices which a tyrant can exercise without restraint, and the very ability to do so constitute the lure and reward of tyranny. To have whatever one's eye lusts for, be it property, power, or people, this is the lure for the tyrant. The desire for absolute power would have little meaning for unscrupulous people if that power did not enable one to break all bonds which social position, morality, and laws would otherwise restrain. The Roman emperors would frequently display that power by taking the wives of men they had invited to the palace. Nero made it a hobby to display the most depraved behavior imaginable. Tiberius had his soldiers throw the richest man of Spain off a cliff so he could confiscate his money. There is no private property in a tyranny, nor is anything sacred. There is nothing where anyone can say, "this is mine" or "this is private." What is there then to live or hope for?
As the Athenian Euripides writes:
"Why should one acquire wealth and livelihood
For his children, if the struggle is only to enrich the tyrant further?
Why keep his young daughters virtuously at home,
To be the sweet delight of tyrants?
I'd rather die than have my daughters wed by violence" (Woodruff 63).

Yes, freedom from tyranny is worth fighting for. Cicero, who saw the death of the Roman Republic in his time sums it up like this in his The Republic: "As soon as a king takes the first step towards a more unjust regime, he at once becomes a tyrant. And that is the foulest and most repellent creature imaginable, and the most abhorrent to god and man alike. Although he has the outward appearance of a man, he outdoes the wildest beasts in the utter savagery of his behavior" (50). Remembering the first tyrant slayer of Rome, he writes that "he became the first in this state to show that, when it comes to preserving the people's freedom, no one is just a private citizen" (49).

It is the duty of every citizen to guard against tyranny and from becoming tyrants ourselves. A whole generation is growing up now which has never experienced the world before the Patriot Act. Massive surveillance which has never before been experienced in free societies is a fact of life. Throw off this yoke and destroy tyranny and all that resembles it. Nip it in the bud before it can grow any further. We do not want to progress down this road. Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin

Symptoms of a Disease: Mass Suggestion and Arguments of Sign in Robert Welch's Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theories are everywhere today, in entertainment, politics, economics. You can even sense their shadows in organizations which are supposedly as far from the fringe as you can get. Democrats believe Republicans are accomplices in the great conspiracy of the rich financiers against the poor and the middle class, and Republicans accuse Democrats of supporting a statist agenda towards control and tyranny over the American people. Both sides assume the others are alligned with a small cabal of powerful elites who are silently dictating the development of the world towards a hellish future. There is plenty that could be said about these theories and their effect on public discourse (for example creating the assumption that everyone but you has a sinister hidden agenda for what they do). But why do these arguments work in the first place? Why are some audiences so eager or ready to accept arguments often based on the most flimsy evidence? Here is one prevalent conspiracy theory (which has recently had quite a Renaissance of interest on the web) which I analyzed using Toulmin's The Uses of Argumentation.

In "If You Want It Straight," Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, sets forth his theory about how the United States of America is threatened to its core by an almost ubiquitous Communist conspiracy. Welch relates a fantastical foundation myth for this conspiracy and interweaves its history with almost every significant political event of the last two hundred years. Then he gives what I think is a central clue to the construct of his argument and its potential appeal to an audience: "As we move down the years . . . and you find these items from the past meshing so neatly into a total design with the present pattern which you already recognize, most of your doubts about the earlier history will probably disappear." 1968, the time when he is broadcasting this message for the first time, is a very disorienting time in America. There are riots, protests, assassinations, and a great amount of civil unrest. In the middle of such disorientation, people often seek explanations. Welch offers one in this broadcast. In doing so, he uses mainly what Toulmin calls substantive arguments of sign to prove the "fact" of the Communist conspiracy, and relies on an implicit motivational argument to encourage Americans to resist the Communist campaigns.

"In arguments from sign, the data consist of clues or symptoms" (49). It is an inductive process where certain clues are interpreted as symptoms of an attribute possessed by a "person, object, event, or condition." By themselves, the data do not give a clear meaning, but the warrant "interprets the meaning or significance of these symbols" (49). As such, it works well with methods of mass suggestion such as those used by Welch. Welch claims he is displaying a complex mosaic, and does so by suggesting that just about every progressive initiative in the entire USA is a part of a Communist conspiracy. My model shows how his techniques may play out with his contemporary audience, focusing on the backing they fill in for him. (Key: D=Data or information which is already accepted, C=Claim or what the arguer wants to get accepted as truth, W=Warrant or the qualifying element which interprets the data and connects it with the claim, B=Backing or the support the argument find in existing attitudes, documents, laws, established values, etc.)

The first argument builds upon an assumption about the international Communist movement. Earlier in the broadcast, Welch provides a history of Communism and how it has spread through social protest, agitation, and armed revolution. He claims that this past is symptomatic of the Communist modus operandi and predicts that they will attempt the same in the US. With this claim, he is not doing much more than repeating the warnings of the US government and educational institutions from propaganda like Red Nightmare. Linking his arguments to this background provides him with all the backing he needs to proceed. 

In a second argument from sign, Welch mentions all the social upheaval and unrest in the 60s, including race riots, protests, the hippie movement, the sexual revolution, as well as black rights, Hispanic rights, and women's rights, and reads it as clear evidence of a Communist conspiracy to take over the US. The data is probably on most people's minds in this turbulent period, so it makes sense that he would have resonance with some people. The logical "leap of faith" it takes to see all these movements as symptoms of a Communist master plan makes this argument one that is less likely to be accepted. However, it does fit with the narrative established by the government about the Communist conspiracy, and it resonates with the impression perpetuated about Communists as devious and stealthy. This may be a field-dependent argument, which can only work with people who believe in the Communist plot and have reactionary sentiments towards the rapid change which is occurring in the US.

The third argument is an implicit motivational argument about how undesirable such Communist rule would be for Americans. Welch states from early on that this conspiracy threatens "your liberty and the very lives of you and your family in the near and quite foreseeable future," and keeps referring to the results of the Communist plot which will "destroy American civilization so they can rule over the ruins that will be left." The data says here that "US citizens need to resist progressive efforts to remain safe from Communism," and it builds upon the "fact" established previously about the nature of international Communism and the Communist origin of the social upheaval currently taking place in the US. This motivational argument is an evaluation of those facts based on the emotions of fear and anger, and the value of self-preservation. As shown in my model, all of these arguments can only work if the audience can supply the backing of an established attitude and belief about Communism and Communists. Without this backing, the model falls apart and the argument deteriorates to incomprehensible mass suggestion and threats.

A Warning From Ancient Greece About the Curse of Empire

"All those who come before you on this platform are accustomed to assert that the subjects upon which they are themselves about to advise you are most important and most worthy of serious consideration by the state. Nevertheless, if it was ever appropriate to preface the discussion of any other subject with such words, it seems to me fitting also to begin with them in speaking upon the subject now before us.

For we are assembled here to deliberate about War and Peace, which exercise the greatest power over the life of man, and regarding which those who are correctly advised must of necessity fare better than the rest of the world. Such, then, is the magnitude of the question which we have come together to decide." 

This is how Isocrates introduces his speech titled "On the Peace." It is a sober piece of writing, with a more subdued tone than most of his other speeches. Isocrates is speaking from his own experience. His family and property was devastated during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, and he has seen Athens rise from that devastation only to again entangle themselves in wars and intrigues. Now, after another serious defeat, Athens is seeking for peace. Isocrates sees this as the moment where he can lead Athenian foreign policy down a different track than they have been on for the last 50 years: He wants them to give up the disastrous dream of an empire.

In doing so, he realizes that he is speaking from a disadvantaged position. The speakers beating the drums of war have an easier case to make than the ones who urge for peace. One can appeal to pride and ambition, whereas the other can only appeal to humility and harmony: for the former put into our minds the expectation both of regaining our possessions . . . and of recovering the power which we formerly enjoyed, while the latter hold forth no such hope, insisting rather that we must have peace and not crave great possessions contrary to justice, but be content with those we have—and that for the great majority of mankind is of all things the most difficult.

The psychosis of empire carries with it a recognizable symptom of invincibility: For some of us appear to me to be over zealously bent on war, as though having heard, not from haphazard counsellors, but from the gods, that we are destined to succeed in all our campaigns and to prevail easily over our foes. Similar sentiments were expressed recently about the inevitability of success in Iraq and Afghanistan for example, showing us that although we are far removed from the Athenians in time, human nature has not changed that much.

Isocrates claims that (1) security, (2) material well-being, (3) harmony and unity within the nation, and (4) esteem and respect abroad would be conditions in which Athens would be most happy. Now it is the war which has robbed us of all the good things which I have mentioned; for it has made us poorer; it has compelled many of us to endure perils; it has given us a bad name among the Hellenes; and it has in every way overwhelmed us with misfortune. On the other hand, if Athens were to keep their peace treaties and covenants, Isocrates claims that they would be secure, trade would increase, Athenians would be united in a common project of improvement, and we shall have all mankind as our allies—allies who will not have been forced, but rather persuaded, to join with us, who will not welcome our friendship because of our power when we are secure only to abandon us when we are in peril, but who will be disposed towards us as those should be who are in very truth allies and friends.

In order to secure this lasting peace, one thing has to happen: Athens has to stop trying to dominate everybody: For I, for my part, consider that we shall manage our city to better advantage and be ourselves better men and go forward in all our undertakings if we stop setting our hearts on the empire of the sea. For it is this which plunged us into our present state of disorder, which overthrew that democratic government1 under which our ancestors lived and were the happiest of the Hellenes, and which is the cause, one might almost say, of all the ills which we both suffer ourselves and inflict upon the rest of the Hellenes.

What is this empire? Why have all nations sought after it? And why is it so destructive to whoever holds it? Isocrates says that "all the world lusts after this power" and they have "waged wars to obtain" it.

The empire is based on force, and therefore goes contrary to the principles of the Hellenes, since we recognized the principle that it is not just for the stronger to rule over the weaker. Athenians were raised with a hate of despots and a love of democracy and equality. Yet, as we often do, they failed to translate the principles of their domestic policy into their foreign policy. Isocrates sees this inconsistency of principle, and he seizes on it. He begins by denouncing the conditions of the tyrant: Is it not true that when men obtain unlimited power they find themselves at once in the coil of so many troubles that they are compelled to make war upon all their citizens, to hate those from whom they have suffered no wrong whatsoever, to suspect their own friends and daily companions, to entrust the safety of their persons to hirelings whom they have never even seen, to fear no less those who guard their lives than those who plot against them, and to be so suspicious towards all men as not to feel secure even in the company of their nearest kin? Isocrates is here stating a common sentiment among the Athenians. It was the terrors of tyranny which made them turn to democracy in the first place, and the bloodbath caused by the brief reign of The Thirthy reiterated those lessons to his own generation. Then he makes the connection: while you consider the power of a despot to be harsh and harmful not only to others but to those who hold it, you look upon the empire of the sea as the greatest good in the world, when in fact it differs neither in what it does nor in what it suffers from one-man-rule. 

So what is the lure of empire? Why have Athenians and others been willing to ignore their own principles in order to obtain it? The answer is, because it can satisfy the most basic desires for quick wealth and power: it turns the heads of those who are enamored by it, and that it is in its nature like courtesans, who lure their victims to love but destroy those who indulge this passion. But when did Athens cease to lead and begin to dominate? They were given the hegemony or leadership over the Hellenes because of their valor and wisdom in the war against the Persians. It is not leadership which causes evil, Isocrates points out, but rather unbridled dominion. The Athenians of that generation were chosen to rule, but those who came after them desired, not to rule but to dominate—words which are thought to have the same meaning, although between them there is the utmost difference. For it is the duty of those who rule to make their welfare, whereas it is a habit of those who dominate to provide pleasures for themselves through the labors and hardships of others. 

This is a state which is contrary to virtue and nature, which is why Isocrates prefaces the next part of his argument with a grave warning: But it is in the nature of things that those who attempt a despot's course must encounter the disasters which befall despotic power and be afflicted by the very things which they inflict upon others. And it is just this which has happened in the case of Athens

An empire is a deception. It is not what it seems: what we call empire, though in reality it is misfortune, is of a nature to deprave all who have to do with it. The empire is a licence and arrogance based on physical strength which tempt all men to abuse the power they have been given: anyone can see that those who have been in the strongest position to do whatever they pleased have been involved in the greatest disasters. Athens itself reached a point where before they knew it, they had filled the public burial-grounds with the bodies of their fellow citizens.

Isocrates uses the history of Sparta to illustrate this principle:

"And we ought not to emulate those who hold despotic power nor those who have gained a dominion which is greater than is just but rather those who, while worthy of the highest honors, are yet content with the honors which are tendered them by a free people.

We have a most convincing proof of this. For imperialism worked the ruin not only of Athens but of the city of the Lacedaemonians (Sparta) also.

For in place of the ways of life established among them it filled the citizens with injustice, indolence, lawlessness and avarice and the commonwealth with contempt for its allies, covetousness of the possessions of other states, and indifference to its oaths and covenants. In fact they went so far beyond our ancestors in their crimes against the Hellenes that in addition to the evils which already afflicted the several states they stirred up in them slaughter and strife, in consequence of which their citizens will cherish for each other a hatred unquenchable.

They first became subject to the dominion of their present ills at the moment when they attempted to seize the dominion of the sea, since they were seeking to acquire a power which was in no wise like that which they had before possessed.

Because of the arrogance which was bred in them by that power they speedily lost the supremacy both on land and sea. For they no longer kept the laws which they had inherited from their ancestors nor remained faithful to the ways which they had followed in times past.

For they did not know that this licence which all the world aspires to attain is a difficult thing to manage, that it turns the heads of those who are enamored by it, and that it is in its nature like courtesans, who lure their victims to love but destroy those who indulge this passion.

anyone can see that those who have been in the strongest position to do whatever they pleased have been involved in the greatest disasters, ourselves and the Lacedaemonians first of all. For when these states, which in time past had governed themselves with the utmost sobriety and enjoyed the highest esteem, attained to this license and seized the empire, they differed in no respect from each other, but, as is natural in the case of those who have been depraved by the same passions and the same malady, they attempted the same deeds and indulged in similar crimes and, finally, fell into like disasters.

Isocrates summarizes the moral of the story with this brief sentiment: If you will go over these and similar questions in your minds, you will discover that arrogance and insolence have been the cause of our misfortunes while sobriety and self control have been the source of our blessings. It is urgent that Athenians realize this truth for a man who is godless and depraved may die before paying the penalty for his sins, but states, since they are deathless, soon or late must submit to punishment at the hands both of men and of the gods. And time is running out for Athens. A mighty enemy, Philip of Macedon, is amassing a great army in the north. His greedy eyes are looking south towards the scattered, divided, and leaderless Greek city states that he is planning to subdue into his empire. When his armies came, Athens led the fight against them. But because of their arrogance and intrigues, they had as many Greeks fighting against them as were fighting with them. Thus ended the independence of the Greek city states, and with it, the brief light of democracy.

What can we learn from the mistakes of Athens? The evils of empire have shaped our world increasingly since the 1700s. The atrocities of the colonial powers still haunt us and manifest themselves in a world divided between victims and conquerors. The colonial war was a major contributor to World War I and the revived imperial ambitions of Germany, Italy, and Japan helped trigger another one. Following that, the US and USSR each formed empires of influence and force, leading even the US to commit crimes and outrages which they had formerly decried and stayed away from in international politics. The US currently has a crumbling empire. More despised and feared than loved in large parts of the world, and not always undeservedly so either. Deep trails of blood in South America and the Middle East have followed American foreign policy. In deed the US have often acted outwardly as a dictator, while struggling to maintain a democracy internally.

Is it possible for the US to lead rather than dominate? These concluding words of Isocrates may still be applied in our days. The first advice he gives is to choose good leaders and representatives who do not hunger for war and easy money.

The second way is to be willing to treat our allies just as we would our friends and not to grant them independence in words (only) . . . and not to exercise our leadership as masters but as helpers, since we have learned the lesson that while we are stronger than any single state we are weaker than all.

And the third way is to consider that nothing is more important . . . than to have a good name among the Hellenes. For upon those who are so regarded they willingly confer both sovereign power and leadership.

For no other of the states will dare to oppress them; on the contrary, they will hold back and studiously avoid aggression when they see the power of Athens on the alert and ready to go to the aid of the oppressed.

If the foremost states resolve to abstain from acts of oppression, we shall have the credit for this blessing; but if, on the other hand, they attempt to oppress others, then all who fear them and suffer evil at their hands will come to us for refuge, with many prayers and supplications, offering us not only the hegemony but their own support.

it is a noble enterprise for us, in the midst of the injustice and madness of the rest of the world, to be the first to adopt a sane policy and stand forth as the champions of the freedom of the Hellenes, to be acclaimed as their saviors, not their destroyers, and to become illustrious for our virtues and regain the good repute which our ancestors possessed.

For if we really wish to clear away the prejudice in which we are held at the present time, we must cease from the wars which are waged to no purpose and so gain for our city the hegemony for all time; we must abhor all despotic rule and imperial power, reflecting upon the disasters which have sprung from them; 

This, then, is the kind of leadership which is worth striving for.