I may be preaching to the choir here, but consider this a solicitation for further thoughts.
I was going to post this to the “10 approaches” thread, but it morphed into a topic of its own. My suggested approach was that you identify some government policy that your interlocutor disagrees with (since hardly anyone agrees 100% with the government), and from there argue that, by their own standards, the government is illegitimate. But I realized that using this argument is not nearly as easy as it sounds.
If you’re already an anarchist, it’s easy to think, “How could anyone possibly disagree with that?” After all, the argument isn’t trying to convince anyone that government per se is bad – all we’re trying to do is get them to make their own beliefs consistent. They might ultimately bite the bullet and decide to support policy X, but there’s no way they can continue to say that the police, courts, etc. are legitimate while still opposing policy X.
However, if ever this inconsistency is pointed out, it is covered up with a sneaky bit of conceptual trickery. “The government” is made into something that exists “over and above” the individuals that comprise it, so that we can direct all our dissent towards this “thing” while at the same time rendering our dissent toothless in actual practice. It’s an ingenious scheme: people can vent their frustration into the Platonic Realm while being completely harmless here on earth.
A prime example of this is the platitude that I hear regarding the war in Iraq: “I support the troops, not the war” (maybe you know someone who says this). The anarchist part of me screams “THE WAR ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE OF THE TROOPS!” And yet, so repulsed are they by the idea that soldiers are “murderers” that they carry out this impressive intellectual contortion to avoid saying this. If they find their beliefs tending in this direction, then they comfort themselves by repeating the mantra “I support the troops, not the war!” and stop thinking about it. Insofar as they still “oppose the war,” their opposition has been reduced to something that is entirely impotent and ineffective.
Oftentimes I hear right-wing newspaper columnists, political hopefuls, etc. rant about how taxes are too high, government is too big, and so on, but then turn around and praise “our heroic law enforcement officers” and “our brave men and women in uniform,” as if this is not exactly the opposite of what they just said. If you really think that taxes are too high, then you must accept that the police who enforce those taxes are thieves. You can’t hate the clouds and love the fog. You can’t have it both ways.
The thought process is reminiscent of that of a “religious progressive,” exemplified in this painfully awkward interview between Richard Dawkins and Rowan Williams. At some point you have to say “Look, I know you feel socially pressured to say that [you support the troops / believe in miracles], but there’s no way you can actually believe that.”
Even if you disagree, you have to at least credit the totalitarian or the religious fundamentalist for being willing to follow through on their beliefs to their logical, radical conclusions. But many people, it seems, are quite content to leave a gaping chasm across their minds.
It's true, moderation in terms of logic is stinky -worse than stinky it is contradictory and it goes against the essence of man as a rational animal.
The worst part about middle-of-the-road-ism is the insistence that extremism is bad and that logic is bad because "the world isn't logical". Or the whole, "that works only in theory" schtick that annoyed me since I've been like 13 -no one seemed brave enough to take their ideas to their logical conclusion.
Mises wrote well on this -if you speak contradictions then you're a balanced thinker but when you are willing to be consistent then you are a "monetary crank" or something.
Man is not always a rational animal, and politics is not just logic.
>> Man is not always a rational animal
.... not this again .......
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
Imperfect rationality and lack of information is why you NEED the market... division of labor overcomes man's limited faculties...
It's true, moderation in terms of logic is stinky -worse than stinky it is contradictory and it goes against the essence of man as a rational animal. The worst part about middle-of-the-road-ism is the insistence that extremism is bad and that logic is bad because "the world isn't logical". Or the whole, "that works only in theory" schtick that annoyed me since I've been like 13 -no one seemed brave enough to take their ideas to their logical conclusion. Mises wrote well on this -if you speak contradictions then you're a balanced thinker but when you are willing to be consistent then you are a "monetary crank" or something.
I'm re-reading parts of human action again (nice and slow, trying to absorb it all) and I came across this part yesterday:
It is vain to object that life and reality are not logical. Life and reality are neither logical nor illogical; they are simply given. But logic is the only tool available to man for the comprehension of both. It is vain to object that life and history are inscrutable and ineffable and that human reason can never penetrate to their inner core. The critics contradict themselves in uttering words about the ineffable and about the unfathomable. There are many things beyond the reach of the human mind. But as far as man is able to attain any knowledge, however limited, he can use only one avenue of approach, that opened by reason.