The Making of Arguments

by J. H. Gardiner

Finally, there are the arguments of policy which deal with matters of taste and aesthetic preference. The difficulty with these arguments is that they do deal with questions of taste, and so fall under the ancient and incontrovertible maxim, de gustibus non est disputandum. Artists of all varieties and some critics are given to talking as if preferences in color, in shape, in styles of music, were absolutely right and wrong, and as if they partook in some way of the nature of moral questions; but any one who has observed for even twenty years knows that what the architects of twenty years ago declared the only true style of art is now scoffed at by them and their successors as hopelessly false. The cavelike forms of the Byzantine or Romanesque which superseded the

wooden Gothic have in turn given way to Renaissance classic in its various forms, which now in turn seem on the point of slipping into the rococo classical of the École des Beaux Arts. In painting, the violent and spotty impressionism of twenty years ago is paling into the study of the cool and quiet lights of the Dutchmen of the great period.[³][!--Note--] And at each stage there are strenuous arguments that the ideas of that particular live years are the only hope for the preservation of the art concerned.

The essential difficulty with all such arguments is that the aesthetic interests to which they appeal are personal, and depend on personal preferences. Most of us in such matters, having no special knowledge, and liking some variety of differing styles, modestly give way to the authority of any one who makes a profession of the art. In the laying out of a park a landscape architect may prefer single trees and open spaces, where the neighbors and abutters prefer a grove. In the long run his taste is no better than theirs, though he may argue as if they were ignorant and uncultivated because they disagree with him. In all such cases, unless there is some consideration of practical expediency, such as letting the southwest wind blow through in summer, arguments can do little except to make and keep everybody angry. Their chief value is to make us see things which perhaps we had not thought of.

In practice these three kinds of arguments, which turn on moral, practical, and aesthetic considerations, tend to be much mingled. The human mind is very complex, and our various interests and preferences are inseparably tangled. The treacheries of self-analysis are proverbial, and are only less dangerous than trying to make out the motives of other people. Accordingly we must expect to find that it is sometimes hard to distinguish between moral and aesthetic motives and practical, for the morality and the taste of a given people always in part grow out of the slow crystallizing of practical expediencies, and notions of morality change with the advance of civilization.

Furthermore, one must never forget that an argument of policy which does not involve and rest on subsidiary questions of fact is rare; and the questions of fact must be settled before we can go on with the argument of policy. Before this country can intelligently make up its mind about the protective tariff, and whether a certain rate of duty should be imposed on a given article, a very complex body of facts dealing with the cost of production both here and abroad must be settled, and this can be done only by men highly trained in the principles of business and political economy. Before one could vote intelligently on the introduction of a commission form of government into the town he lives in he must know the facts about the places in which it has already been tried. It is not too much to say that there is no disputed question of policy into which there does not enter the necessity of looking up and settling pertinent facts.

On the other hand, there are some cases of questions of fact in which our practical interests deeply affect the view which we take of the facts. In all the discussions of the last few years about federal supervision and control of the railroads it has been hard to get at the facts because of the conflicting statements about them by equally honest and well-informed men. Where there is an honest difference of interest, as in every case of a bargain, the opposite sides cannot see the facts in the same way: what is critically significant to the railroad manager seems of no great consequence to the shipper; and the railroad manager does not see the fixed laws of trade which make it impossible for the shipper to pay higher freight rates and add them to the price of his goods. It is not in human nature to see the whole cogency of facts that make for the other side. In all arguments, therefore, it must be remembered that we are; constantly swinging backward and forward from matters of fact to matters of policy. In practice no hard-and-fast line separates the various classes and types; in the arguments of real life we mingle them naturally and unconsciously.

Yet the distinction between the two main classes is a real one, and if one has never thought it out, one may go at an argument with a blurred notion of what he is attempting to do. Since argument after school and college is an eminently practical matter, vagueness of aim is risky. It is the man who sees exactly what he is trying to do, and knows exactly what he can accomplish, who is likely to make his point. The chief value of writing arguments for practice is in cultivating a keen eye for the essential. To write a good argument means, as we shall see, that the student shall first conscientiously take the question, apart so as to know exactly the issues involved and the unavoidable points of difference, and then after searching the sources for information, he shall scrutinize the facts and the reasoning both on his own side and on the other. If he does this work without shirking the hard thinking he will get an illuminating perception of the obscurities and ambiguities which lurk in words, and will come to see that clear reasoning is almost wholly a matter of sharper discrimination for unobserved distinctions.

EXERCISES

1. Find an example which might be thought of either as an argument or an exposition, and explain why you think it one or the other.

2. Find examples in current magazines or newspapers of an argument in which conviction is the chief element, and one in which persuasion counts most.