How to Identify a Useless Argument in Two Steps
Sept. 17, 2011
Don't waste time on useless arguments.
An argument may be useful to others, but if you do not understand it, it's useless to you.
To test it for its usefulness to you, stop reading the article or book. Imagine that you have been asked by someone if you have read whatever it is that you have been reading. You say yes. The person then asks you to summarize the piece, and then discuss its implications. If you cannot do this, it's a useless article with a useless argument. This is step one.
Who is at fault: the author or you?
That may take a lot of research time to find out. Would this investment be worth it? You can test this. See what the author says the implications of his argument are. If they seem peripheral, don't pursue the matter. If the implications seem important in your life, consider pursuing the matter. But if the implications are not important in your life, drop the whole thing. It is not worth your time and effort to find out if the argument is valid. Your personal cost to pursue the matter is high. The payoff is low. This is step two.
OK, run the tests on what you have read so far. (1) What is my argument? (2) What are its implications?
Let me provide an example that will help you remember the two steps.
From time to time, I receive an email. The sender tells me that he has just read something attacking something I had written. He asks what my response is.
Here is my response. I send an email to him that asks two questions.
Without re-reading the critic's piece, what are its main arguments?In what ways will any of this make a difference in your life if he is correct?
I have yet to have any inquirer send back an email telling me what the critic's main arguments are, let alone how they will make a difference in the sender's life.
The reader gets the point. It really does not matter to him what the critic wrote. That ends the exchange. It saves me time and trouble in answering the critic.
I am never one to shirk the responsibility of responding to a critic if (1) the critic has raised important points, or (2) the critic is intellectually influential, or (3) the critic has a large audience that is in some way important in my work.
Let me offer this example. In 1990, the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary (east), wrote a book titled, Theonomy: A Reformed Critique. This was only the fourth time in the seminary's 60-year history that the faculty had written a symposium. It was the first time that they had targeted a specific movement to respond to.
The book mentioned me a few times, but it mentioned Greg Bahnsen repeatedly. My Institute for Christian Economics had published one of his books, By This Standard. So, I decided to respond. But, because Bahnsen and I had attended that seminary, I decided to do a very thorough response. I had publishing money available. So, within 12 months, the ICE had published three book-long responses. I have posted them all on this site.
Theonomy: An Informed Response, Gary North (ed.)
No Other Standard, by Greg Bahnsen
Westminster's Confession, by Gary North
My strategy was to stuff their mouths with footnotes.
Gary DeMar, who wrote a chapter for the first book, described it (appropriately in 1991) as the Norman Schwartzkoff approach: saturation bombing.
The seminary's book had little influence. Sales were minimal. The publisher let it go out of print. You can buy used copies, listed as new -- unread -- if you want to pay anywhere from $94 to $200 for a long-forgotten paperback book. In contrast, the three response books are still available online for free.
Had I remained silent, the critics could have said that I had failed to respond. In the circles I travel in, that would have been a liability.
That was 20 years ago. I have seen no academic references to the Westminster Seminary book in those years. If there are any, none of my readers has bothered to inform me. If anyone ever does, I shall send him a link to this article.
It was worth responding to the critics. I have written a book on other occasions to silence critics. I have published a few that I did not write. But the critic has to be worth refuting, either because of the power of his arguments (extremely rare) or his influence. Most critics are not worth refuting. So, most articles sent by momentarily concerned readers are not worth refuting.
Choose your fights carefully. You do not have unlimited time.