On a Sunday, it has become a custom here in the UK for TV stations to show 2 or 3 hours of news and political ‘debate’. What I have become aware of his the sheer lack of reasoned logical arguments that exist in the political media today. Now I am going to make the assumption that these reasoned arguments do exist and that politicians are able to use logic to sustain an argument (one hopes anyway).
So the lack of reasoned arguments present in the media covering politics must lie in lay in the editing and the types of questions that are being elected to ask; usually with the purpose of trying to instigate an emotional response, or to catch out the interviewee. This means however, that politicians aren’t able to express their reasoning behind the ideas/arguments they are making.
This then leads to sound bites of half established ideas, which is then quoted and responded to, with rash half baked response that are reacting to the initial idea rather than the full established argument.
My grievance with this is that when teaching philosophy, I am always stressing that arguments need to be based in logic, mush follow step by step, and that the reasons behind the conclusion are as important as the conclusions themselves.
This is a hard line to tow at times when one of the arenas of topical debate that effect all those I teach and myself, is not demonstrating (or being allowed to demonstrate) the ability to use these skills – and yes using logic and making reasoned arguments are a skill, and a useful one at that if given a chance.
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