YOU CAN MAKE AN ARGUMENT FOR ANYTHING

Everything can be defended in some way or other. The defenses aren’t necessarily good.
But you can always come up with a series of words, something sounding like an
argument, to “justify” nearly anything you’d care to do, no matter how heinous. Because
there’s always an argument available, one that may sound strong even if it’s actually
atrociously weak, it can be extremely difficult for the truth to compete. In theory, when
the person who is right and the person who is wrong enter into a discussion, the person
who is right will triumph in the “marketplace of ideas.” In reality, the marketplace of
ideas is very similar to an actual marketplace, where flimsy products can look
superficially similar to quality ones, and people have trouble knowing whether they’ve
bought a “lemon” until they get it home.
When I say there are justifications for everything, I truly mean everything. You can make
an argument against democracy or against empathy. (“People don’t know what’s in their
best interests,” and “Excess compassion impedes rational decision-making,”
respectively.) If I want to seize the land of native peoples, destroy their property and
force them into exile, I might say: Land should be put to its most efficient and productive
use, and while we respect the ancestral rights of all people to their homes, all benefit
alike from the development of resources toward their optimal functions. In fact, even
today there are those who defend colonialism, saying something like “colonialism
improved living standards in the aggregate and was therefore more beneficial than
detrimental.” Even slaveowners had arguments: In addition to their crackpot racial
theories, they said that dominance of man over man was the natural way of things, and
that slaveowners treated their slaves better than industrialists treated factory workers. (If
your defense of your actions is “I’m not as bad as the capitalists,” your actions are
probably indefensible.)
I could come up with a utilitarian justification for blowing up the universe and
exterminating all of humanity (it alleviates suffering), an argument for cheating on your
taxes, or an argument for racial profiling (stereotypes are rational). There have been
arguments for invading Iraq, arguments for bombing Hiroshima, arguments for
massacring unarmed Palestinian protesters, arguments for eliminating free speech,
arguments for scrapping fundamental constitutional rights, arguments for purges and
guillotines and show trials. Ayn Rand made the case for The Virtue of Selfishness. Hitler
and Stalin each made arguments. Terrorism, assassination, torture: Each have their
defenders. Osama bin Laden made an argument for 9/11, the United States justified
atrocities in Vietnam as serving the national interest.
Look at what public relations people do. Their job is to come up with justifications for
whatever their clients engage in, and they always can. Rarely does any company say: We
did this because we sociopathically pursue our own gain at the expense of others.
Instead, they appeal to values that people share: mutually beneficial transactions,
sustainability, necessity, etc.
In fact, there’s a libertarian philosopher who wrote an entire book called Defending the
Indefensible about how various despised members of society (e.g., slumlords, price
gougers, pimps, employers of child labor, corrupt officials, litterers, scabs) are Actually
Good. I haven’t read the book, but I’m pretty sure I can guess how it goes: Slumlords
provide housing that otherwise would not be available, price gougers provide necessary
supplies at fair market prices, corrupt officials make government more responsive,
employers of child labor make families less poor, pimps facilitate transactions, scabs
provide needed labor, etc. The only one I have trouble guessing is “litterers,” but I’d
imagine it has something to do with efficiency or personal freedom. I am certainly not
surprised that one can come up with a case for littering since, as I say, you can make an
argument for anything.

Most people who do evil things do not actually think of themselves as evil. They think of
themselves as the good guys. Even murderers often think they are doing the right thing:
carrying out an act of justice, giving someone what’s “coming to them.” CIA torturers
think they are protecting their country, soldiers either think they are murdering for a good
cause or that they are just faithfully carrying out a job that someone has to do.
This fact is rather chilling, because it means we always need to be on guard against the
possibility that we are the ones rationalizing bad things. When anything can be justified,
it’s very easy to convince yourself that what you’re doing is okay. One thing I try to do is
check whether I’m telling myself a “reassuring story” or actually examining the facts in
the world and being self-critical. When you don’t do this, you just end up coming up with
whatever arguments support the position you already held.

This is partly because most people do not investigate arguments very closely. They are
not lawyers or philosophers. They do not have time or patience to pedantically examine
every point to see if it holds up under exacting scrutiny. They look much more at
packaging: Does this sound persuasive? And if there’s no time to carefully expose why an
argument is bad, a fascistic argument can end up sounding no less well-made than a
humanistic one. for eg in a debate: You get two people side by side on a stage, both will
have arguments, both will be extremely confident, and many people won’t know how to
decide between them. Here’s two minutes from a person who thinks immigrants are
human beings, here’s two minutes from someone who doesn’t. I understand why people
are reluctant to engage in these kinds of debates: They’re stacked against you and very
difficult to do any good with.
There are better and worse arguments, but if you have a superficial public discourse, it
may not always be obvious which is which. And that’s terrifying!
A good thing to remember when you hear slick, voluble, opinionated people spouting off
is: It’s incredibly easy to come up with opinions and defenses for those opinions. Actually
proving that those opinions are justified is very, very different, but people can have entire
careers as public commentators while saying things that are obviously false. It would be
nice if you couldn’t actually make arguments in favor of untenable positions.
Unfortunately, you can, which means we need to know how to shut this stuff down.
Personally, I think that is best done through highly effective, well-disciplined counter-
speech rather than the stifling of free expression. But so long as there are atrocities, there
will also be intellectual rationalizations of those atrocities, and we must never assume
that just because something is indefensible it is impossible for someone to defend it.