Arguing in Quicksand
Doing Philosophy in Broad Daylight
When I was a child I decided I wanted to be a professor. I’m not sure what I wanted to study as a professor, and I’m not even sure I knew what professors do. All I knew—and all that mattered—was that professors are people who think really hard about stuff and know a lot about that stuff as a result. I valued and enjoyed those two things—thinking hard and knowing a lot—so much that I wanted to grow up to be the sort of person who gets to do those things as much as possible.
Of course, not everyone wants to think hard and not everyone wants to know a lot about stuff. Most people I’ve known, in fact, just want to get through the day: they just want to think enough to get to some unambiguous answer to a question, and they just want to know enough to complete a task. Some people don’t even want to think that hard or know that much. They’d rather not bother with it at all. The attitude is completely understandable: my passions are not everyone passions.
Sometimes, however, I’ll have a conversation with a person who is eager to discuss something controversial—race, politics, art, science, or the like. At some point, they’ll determine that our discussion has crossed the line, and they’ll argue: “you think too much,” or “you just have to be right about everything,” or “you’re so argumentative.” Sometimes people say these things in earnest (as if they’re identifying some problem in me), others say them in anger (as if they’re getting back at me for some damage I’ve done), and some people even say them just to get under my skin (to “win the argument” perhaps). Either way, once a person tells me I think too hard, or I try to know too much, or think I already know everything, I know the conversation is over. The game is over, and there are no other moves I can make. After all, how could I respond? If I respond with a counter-argument, it only demonstrates how argumentative I am and how much I overthink things. That is: “You’re so argumentative,” is what I call a quicksand argument. The more I try to escape it, the more I sink into a deeper pit. It is the argument that ends all arguments that follow it.
At best, such arguments are strange: they imply it’s wrong to make arguments past some point. I’m not sure what point that is, or why it’s wrong to make arguments after we’ve crossed it. I get the impression that people just tire of the conversation past some point. If a person no longer feels like having a conversation, why not just say so politely and stop?
At worst, such arguments are an incendiary. They imply there’s something wrong with thinking the way I (and like-minded people) do, and that I should stop—or at least stop thinking this way as much as I do. The problem is: why should I feel ashamed about thinking as hard as I want to? Why should anyone feel ashamed to make arguments? Why should philosophers (would-be and otherwise) be afraid to do philosophy in broad daylight if we value it so much? Who does it hurt?
I am not sure how to move forward. As I write this, I see the arguments I could make about how much I enjoy thinking the way I do, how intellectual pursuits are rewarding and enriching in simple ways (contrary to popular belief), and how much of my pain comes from not being able to think as I would like to. But that would only make matters worse: I would end up doing the same thing I get condemned for doing. It’s no fun being in the quicksand.
Perhaps the best course of action is to avoid those kinds of conversations with those sorts of people: even if they seem genuine when they say they want to talk, even if they’re people you love and want to share your passion with, and even if there are important parts of civic life that depend on us having long conversations about difficult topics. Maybe it’s better to just “save the schoolwork for school”—as I’ve been told over and over again.
…but who the hell wants to do that?
