The shell game (also known as Thimblerig, Three shells and a pea, the old army game) is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is a confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud. In confidence trick slang, this swindle is referred to as a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off.Another variation on the swindle is Three-card Monte. Jay Smooth:
As you probably know, every Three-card Monte setup has a Ringer. The Ringer's job is to pretend they're an objective, outside observer commenting on the game, when they're actually a part of the hustle who's there to help bamboozle the public into thinking this game is legitimate. So naturally if we stand next to the game and start telling everyone that the game is rigged, the Ringer is going to flip on us and start doing everything they can to make sure nobody listens to us. They're going to tell everyone that we're a bunch of losers who are just hatin' because we don't know how to play the game. We're a bunch of cardgame-hating socialists. They're going to try everything they can to discredit us so they can protect that game that they're so invested in.You've heard of banks that are too big to fail. Well, here's the swindle that's too big to bust. It's a real swindle of money -- stealing pensions from elderly ladies and old gents -- not just an intellectual shell game. But the intellectual shell game plays a crucial role. Here is how it works. Pay close attention.
1. Person M supports Policy X.
2. Person M believes B. (unsubstantiated allegation)
3. Person M supports Policy X because of belief B.
4. Belief B is false. (red herring)
5. Therefore policy X is false. (ignoratio elenchi)
6. Therefore policy Y is true. (either/or fallacy)
The above sequence involves not one but two logical fallacies and an evidence defect. The proposition in step 4 is moot. Whether B is true or false has no bearing on the truth of the allegation in step 2 or the logical fallacies in steps 5 and 6. It is the "red herring" that characterizes the most common form of the ignoratio elenchi fallacy. When challenged, the ringer will doggedly maneuver the debate back to step 4 and ask, pointedly, "what makes you think B is true?"
Actually, whether person M believes in B or not is also irrelevant to the fallacious conclusions of step 5 and 6. Even if B is false and even if M believes B, it doesn't follow that X is false or that Y is true. The fact that the ringer relies on a red herring is not itself proof that X is true or that Y is false.
You might be interested in skipping to my mini-paper on Behavioural Political Economy. It's in the big work-in-progress I e-mailed you.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nick. I did have a look at it. I'm afraid you and I are on very different wavelengths with regard to how we perceive our audience and how to communicate with our respective audiences. I am seeking to address a very specific question -- a "bottleneck" to social justice, so to speak. You appear to be interested in conceptualizing a comprehensive political program -- an aspiration that in my view takes too much for granted.
ReplyDeleteI don't readily see how your fragment on behavioural political economy relates to what I've written here -- nor, for that matter, can I see a way to address the questions you are concerned with, short of abandoning my own research project and following yours. I'm not about to do that because I take almost as my foundation the endemic failure of political party structures in the face of social and economic crises.
Perhaps, but I guess I was anticipating a Net-izen who might pop in and refer to the crude concepts of False Consciousness, Ideology, or Behavioural Finance/Economics, when addressing the two logical fallacies you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI'm also not suggesting at all that you sidetrack your own project. Again, the first words that came to my mind when reading this blog were "rational self-interest," so I quick-referenced myself to various precedents and new suggestions.
My position is that operationally rational self-interest and economically (or politically) rational self-interest do not always coincide. Habit is both rational and sub-rational. That's where learning comes in. I think you're right that crude concepts of false consciousness are quite widespread. But is that in itself a manifestation of false consciousness (on the part of the self-appointed critics of f.c.) or is it operationally rational? Probably the latter because "talk is cheap" but a more nuanced analysis requires a substantial investment and very uncertain payoff.
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get those terms, operationally rational, economically rational, and politically rational?
ReplyDeleteRe. your last sentence, check out this new article on ignorance, cognitive dissonance, and psychology generally: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111121142446.htm
I'm sure that, whatever the mass organizational vehicle for class emancipation is agreed upon (party, union, social movement, etc.), the start of this vehicle must ride and shift the waves of behavioural political economy.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteYou are letting five dollar words and labels do too much of the explaining for you.
^^^ I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean is you appear to be using global terms -- like false consciousness, behavioural political economy or mass organizational vehicle -- to stand for what you want to say instead of trying to actually articulate it, point-by-point. It's a kind of shorthand. You may know what you mean and a select group of specialists may think they know what you mean but to most people it comes across as jargon. I know about the jargon problem because I have to grapple with it all the time myself.
ReplyDeleteDamn, that's another comradely criticism of me using jargon in my posting style, as opposed to my political writing "indirect" approach of definition preceding each jargon used.
ReplyDeleteSo, what do you think about the psychology article?
The Science article looks like dog bites man to me. Who knew that people avoid knowing things they don't want to know??!! My research question is HOW, without knowing it, do they manage to identify the information they don't want to know in order to exclude it? That's what my master's thesis was about ("A Narrative Critique of Practical Texts in Education," Faculty of Education, SFU, 1987).
ReplyDeleteThe short answer is with "screening narratives" that exclude non-conforming information on formal, procedural grounds rather than having to deal with substantive content. People can tell the information "doesn't fit" their preconceived narrative without knowing what it actually says.