Don’t Buy the Slippery-Slope Argument on Guns
By Cass Sunstein - Apr 29, 2013, Bloomberg
In 1991, the economist Albert Hirschman published a biting, funny and subversive book, “The Rhetoric of Reaction,” whose principal goal was to provide a kind of reader’s guide to conservative objections to social reform. Hirschman wanted to demonstrate that such objections are pervasive, mechanical, routinized and often unconvincing.
Hirschman used the words “perversity” and “futility” to describe his best examples of reactionary rhetoric. Conservatives often object that reforms will turn out to be perverse, because they will have the opposite of their intended effect. For example, those who oppose increases in the minimum wage contend that such increases will worsen unemployment and thus hurt the very people they are intended to help -- a clear example of perversity.
Alternatively, conservatives argue that reforms will do nothing to solve the problem that they purport to address. For example, those who oppose gun-control legislation contend that such laws will fail to decrease gun-related deaths -- a clear example of futility.
Hirschman agreed that such arguments are sometimes right, and he emphasized that progressives have routine rhetorical moves of their own. But his primary goal was to try to inoculate people against arguments that, while seemingly forceful, come out of a kind of reactionary’s playbook, and that shouldn’t be accepted until we have scrutinized them.
(More here.)
In 1991, the economist Albert Hirschman published a biting, funny and subversive book, “The Rhetoric of Reaction,” whose principal goal was to provide a kind of reader’s guide to conservative objections to social reform. Hirschman wanted to demonstrate that such objections are pervasive, mechanical, routinized and often unconvincing.
Hirschman used the words “perversity” and “futility” to describe his best examples of reactionary rhetoric. Conservatives often object that reforms will turn out to be perverse, because they will have the opposite of their intended effect. For example, those who oppose increases in the minimum wage contend that such increases will worsen unemployment and thus hurt the very people they are intended to help -- a clear example of perversity.
Alternatively, conservatives argue that reforms will do nothing to solve the problem that they purport to address. For example, those who oppose gun-control legislation contend that such laws will fail to decrease gun-related deaths -- a clear example of futility.
Hirschman agreed that such arguments are sometimes right, and he emphasized that progressives have routine rhetorical moves of their own. But his primary goal was to try to inoculate people against arguments that, while seemingly forceful, come out of a kind of reactionary’s playbook, and that shouldn’t be accepted until we have scrutinized them.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
don't buy the hubris proffered by a lying 'economist' whose flowering blackboard 'nudging' theories at Harvard and UofC failed the real-world test.
That Sunstein has any credibility on anything is a wonder. he wants to put bloggers in jail that cannot prove their writings (no doubt Sunstein himself will be the arbiter of such 'proof'), and allow the government to infiltrate 'anti-government' groups (no doubt, and again, Sunstein himself will deem what comprises an anti-government group) And we're to believe him about guns? Yeah, right.
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