On any given subject, a person’s reasonability is judged by her
or his first premise. Wow. What a first sentence. Is this a local
newspaper or an academic journal? Because Americans are evenly
balanced in terms of politics and the coming year will be
tumultuous, rationality demands a tiny lesson from philosophy
101.
The first premise – basic idea, original presupposition, ground
assumption, foundational idea – is the only worthy consideration
when arguments are enjoined. If your name is Ptolemy and your basic
assumption is that the sun circles the Earth, excellent mathematics
of the day might appear persuasive, but the system is wrong from
the start.
If your name is Copernicus and it is assumed that our solar
system is the sum of the cosmos, you are foundationally wrong,
though the realization that planets revolve around the sun was
quite a contribution.
If your name is Augustine and you base your theology on an
upsy-downsy God, you might be a wonderful writer and a tender soul,
but your system will be erroneous because the world is not
flat.
First premises are cardinal assumptions controlling thinking on
all issues, be they political or even scientific. A historic
example was our involvement in Vietnam. The justification was that
communists must be stopped lest there be a falling domino effect
throughout lower Asia. A different premise was that the struggle
was purely nationalistic and Ho Chi Minh wanted to unite his
country. We lost more than 59,000 soldiers based on the domino
theory.
Other examples are necessary.
The White House bases its economic policies on a supply side
theory, which means everything is done to help capital, i.e.,
corporations and wealthy individuals. This is the second major
experiment with this idea; Reagan’s being the first. Deficit
spending is considered OK as long as capital is recharged to
initiate, eventually, a new growth spurt. I think supply side
economics needs to be balanced with other financial considerations.
No matter. The White House is one-dimensional on the
subject.
We invaded Iraq based on three premises: Iraq possessed weapons
of mass destruction, were cooperating with Al Qaeda, and posed an
imminent threat to the United States. As to the latter, vice
president Dick Cheney said just last week: “Some claim we should
not have acted because the threat from Saddam Hussein was not
‘imminent’. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their
intentions, politely putting us on notice before they
strike?”
Respectfully, I want to point out that Cheney’s second sentence
is irrelevant to the issue of “imminent threat.” The doctrine of
pre-emption assumes that another country can immediately attack and
that our intelligence for such an attack is sound. I do not find
Cheney’s speech addressing any substantive issues; rather it was
spin.
Presently, the basic idea of the Bush administration is that
Iraq can be transformed into a democracy, which will domino
throughout the Mideast.
We are basing hundreds of billions of dollars on that premise,
as well as lives of our soldiers and postponement of investment in
our own society.
The administration’s idea comes from Paul Wolfowitz. George
Soros, who has sponsored democracies in emerging countries, says
Iraq is the last place he’d choose for a democracy experiment.
Soros knows Wolfowitz personally and disagrees with him at the
level of first premise.
History judges our premises. Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Augustine
were wonderful men, but their mountains of thought are now mole
hills. We can still admire them for their contributions to the
history of ideas.
Whether supply side economics is valuable or will destroy our
economy will also be judged by history. Because we have so much
riding on Iraq, let us hope that a democracy will emerge. If not,
Wolfowitz will eventually be scorned rather than praised.
In our time, it is rather difficult to focus on foundational
ideas given the furious fusillade of partisan spinning. It is quite
easy to join the passion of political gossip and become hot. For
instance, right wing conservatives are great on hate, but poor on
presuppositions.
Philosophically speaking, it is unacceptable to have one of the
following as a first premise: “Democrats are all wrong,”
“Republicans are all right,” “George W. Bush is never wrong,” etc.
To pursue one of those or similar ideas is simply to spit out
partisan nonsense.
A far wiser course, but one promising solid conversational
progress, is to address that first clean idea about economics,
domestic policy or foreign policy. Pursuit of just how and why a
person arrived at that basic assumption provides good
information.
Frank Morris is a free-lance columnist for the News-Press.