Recently, while working on a paper, I came across a problem: argument is a difficult task to do well and do thoroughly. I believe I am good at argument. I have been creating what I believe to be effective arguments for quite some time. However, if one resists the urge to create a polemic, and one endeavors to do the question at hand justice, argument becomes arduous. Ups become downs, lefts become rights, and at the end of your paper even though you are saying the same things you are saying them differently. You may have convinced yourself of the opposite polemic, you may have found something else that catches your eye in the argument, you may not know where the hell you are.
So how does one combat this? Its hard to out-think yourself. Even harder is it to contend with your own cleverness. A good argument is like shadow boxing in a mirror except that the person in the mirror is real. If you construct your argument well enough you will win, but chances are if the argument is that one sided that victory is the goal, then you are only defeating yourself.
This may sound strange, I know, but I have come to the conception that one needs an argument that ends in illumination instead of definitive conclusion. A definitive conclusion is binary, has an opposite, and that opposite can be argued with anything, refuted with anything, including ignorance. If you say, definitively, that x=y you automatically leave out the possibilities that x could equal anything else at all. No matter how good your argument is, no matter how all encompassing your argument is, you leave out possibilities.
Science is a place where argument has absolutes. Earth has gravity, things fall down, the end. But could there be a case where this is not true? Perhaps not, but perhaps yes. People thought that, without a doubt, large boulders in certain areas of the planet where left by the great flood. You know, the one with Noah. Well wouldn't you know it people eventually found out that Ice Ages were the cause? Large flowing rivers of ice, glaciers, came and carried things, grated against mountains, and left deposits.Things changed. Science changes. That's what the word theory means. Theory is a well tested hypothesis that seems irrefutable. They use the word theory because it is mostly proven, but there could always be another possibility. It is becoming increasingly hard to tell if this years science fiction will be next years science fact.
So where do we go from here? Where do I go really? I am somewhat talking to myself. I hope you are listening. Well, we go to a place where our conclusions seem strong, but allow themselves to be illuminating rather than finite. This is hard to do when constructing a good argument but it should be where good argument leads. Those arguments that I have found most revealing and most explosive are the ones where the explication speaks for itself, and the author takes no definite path down a "side" to create a polemic. Instead those great authors let what they say speak for itself. They hand you the magnifying glass and say "see, look! it's right there" instead of painting you a picture. Reading articles like that always leaves me electrified, like I had discovered something incredible on my own instead of being led there by a bridal.
If all I have said about argument is true, one thing is also true: I have a longer way to go down this path than I originally thought. Going back and re-reading the argument I am currently creating I see so many more possibilities, so many avenues, and so many more voices that would help add to my own and, in turn, refute my own. Its going to be hard to go out on this limb, but the prize seems worth the risk.
Good arguing Loafers....
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