I think that one of the most egregious informal fallacies we Americans are bombarded with is prescriptions camouflaged as descriptions. Prescriptions are things established or decreed by fate or nature; a prescription is just what is and cannot be anything else.
The value of education lay in its monetary value, GDP is an accurate measure of a nation’s accomplishment, the environment is not an issue in the Corporate bottom line, well-being is the Corporate bottom line, the Corporation is responsible only to their share holders, health care in America is the best, CEO pay is meritocracy in action, etc. These are all understood as descriptions of reality rather than being the prescriptions of those who profit by such things.
I am claiming that we are led to accept as truism that it is natural for education to be valued in dollars, a GDP growth of 4% is a measure of the nation’s well-being, Corporations are not responsible for the environment, CEOs get the big bucks because they are what make the institution successful, etc.
That which is ‘natural’ is accepted without question. In such a milieu we easily accept the hurricane as a description of why the poor have lost everything in New Orleans. An examination will, I think, disclose that the poor were doomed to such a happening by the ordination of the powerful over past decades.
Describing the status quo as natural and universal is an effective means for maintaining the status quo. I am claiming that the status quo is described as natural and universal, when in fact the status quo is ordained by the “Wizardâ€. “Follow the money†is a useful tactic for discovering those who are the elements of the “Wizardâ€.
Can you think of other such ordinations disguised as descriptions? Can you guess the nature of the ‘Wizard’?
“Can you think of other such ordinations disguised as descriptions?”
Thank you. This is something that has been irking me of late.
Management justifications that it is okay to close down and move plant to a cheaper demographic (e.g. Mexico), because a business is by definition about ‘making money’. If a business was about making money then to use Michael Moore’s (the CLS scholar, NOT bowling for column guy) example, corporations should sell crack cocaine.
That a man who has one night stands with many girls is an asshole because ‘the women get hurt’. This is an archaic conception that proliferates through the most ‘liberal’ of media. You name a TV show, gray’s anatomy, nip/tuck, even seinfeld. It is based on a prescription that EVEN IF women always get hurt, that that is relevant.
Working ideologically through culture is this conception that it is somehow ALWAYS wrong to ‘hurt someone’. It is not considered even debatable whether or not sometimes people deserve to get hurt because they are acting unreasonably.
The technique that you explain is excellent for its psychological control. People rarely imagine that they’ll unite and change the course and actions of an ocean, and if they’re trained to think the same way about their society, then change will never happen.
And within the “catagorial imperative”, the morality is put through the exact same format of universalization, in order to make it appear to be such a vast “meant to be” sort of force, that it somehow becomes unquestionable or undenyable, then sold off as some sort of “necessity”.
Right, that’s how Kantian concepts can create isolation from reality. People that oppose the imperatives might end up looking insane in the process because they are believed to be out of touch with reality.