Cliches that are almost always misused – begging the question and a slippery slope

I recently blogged about my love of Bryan Garner’s books on usage.  Although the books are stuffed with great writing and ever greater insights, some stand out.  My favorite Garner entry can be found in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, and the entry is titled “begging the question”:

• “Begging the question” does mean evading the issue or inviting the obvious questions, as some mistakenly believe.  (In my opinion, virtually all believe this.)  The proper meaning of begging the question is basing a conclusion on an assumption that is as much in need of proof or demonstration as the conclusion itself.

While on the subject of clichés that are almost always misused, my mind drifted to “slippery slope.”  I had previously read an explanation of the cliché that was devastating, and I was disappointed to see that Garner wasn’t the author.  Garner’s description of the cliché is not particularly insightful – “a once-clever metaphor – a way of saying that if we take the first step there will be no stopping.”  Then I remembered that I previously blogged about slippery slopes.  The essence of that posting was that the concept of a slippery slope was sometimes categorized as an informal fallacy because it was often not true.  However, my posting did quote extensively from Eugene Volokh, who provided an example of a situation where the possibility of stopping at a middle ground was indeed highly unlikely.

The problem with usage books is that they are so interesting that you get distracted from what you were intending to do.

Aphorism of the Week #12 – Don’t count your chickens until they are hatched.

The conventional wisdom has been that the Republican Party is in big electoral trouble because of its opposition to illegal immigrants at a time when the population of Hispanics is exploding in America.  The rational of the conventional wisdom is that Hispanic voters will be turned off by a political party that is perceived as unsympathetic to illegal Hispanic immigrants. 

That rationale makes some sense, but I have always argued that, after the issue of illegal immigration is resolved, Hispanic voters will gravitate ultimately toward the political party that embraces conservative, traditional values.  An article in today’s San Antonio Express-News, however, destroys a fundamental premise that the conventional wisdom is based on – i.e., the exploding Hispanic population will result in dramatically increased Hispanic voters.    According to the article (and US Census numbers), the number of Hispanic registered voters in America decreased dramatically from 2008 to 2010 – from 11.6 million to 10.9 million.  Experts are speculating about reasons for the decrease, but they have been unable to develop a compelling answer.  Ironically, the state with the biggest increase in Hispanic registered voters is Arizona, even though Arizona is being boycotted by some groups because of its alleged hostility toward illegal immigrants. 

Liberal democrats are fond of saying that demographics are electoral destiny.  I say, “Don’t count your chickens until they’ve hatched.”

Aphorism of the Week #11 – The best way to get over someone is….

Earlier this week I was texting with a friend who is going through a painful breakup with her boyfriend.  While we were discussing various strategies for getting through heartbreak as quickly and as painlessly as possible, she jokingly texted, “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

Although she was joking, the statement sounded shockingly insightful.  Could it be that simple? 

I decided to do some research on the internet and found that my friend’s statement is a commonly-used aphorism in the context of painful breakups.  Ironically, on relationship forums, sometimes it is the question and other times it is the answer.

For example, on the AskMeHelpDesk website, the aphorism is the question: 

Q:  The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else?

Asked by sadnlostedddd On Dec 15, 2009

Share this question: Is this true, maybe not some random person, but maybe someone that there may be chemistry with, maybe starting out as just sex, or hanging out together or something, and then if things progress into something else it’ll help you get over your ex and be in a new relationship. Anyone agree or disagree with my analysis?

Virtually everyone who responded to sadnlostedddd suggested that hooking up with someone else was not the answer.

The Lounge forum contains an example of the aphorism being used as an answer.  The question was:

How do you get over someone?  I wouldn’t usually post a topic like this, but I’m stuck.  I don’t want to be too specific, but how do you get over someone you feel is your soul mate, and it’s not that they don’t love and want to be with you (this has not been made explicitly clear, but sometimes you just know), but for whatever reason (i.e. age, power or distance discrepancy) you can’t be together.  Sometimes I don’t want to get over this person because I know they’re my soulmate and it has prevented me from entering into relationships with other people. I don’t want to feel this dependency anymore, it hurts too much, yet I’m madly in love. It’s not that we’re not friends; I just need to move on (though I don’t want to).  Anyone ever go through this or have any advice?

Again, virtually all of the responses provided the heartbroken person with positive advice about being strong.  Two examples are the following: 

• here’s some advice : stop telling yourself that this person is your soulmate, that you’re madly in love with them, how miserable you are without them, how wrong/sad/unfair it is that you can’t be together, how you’ll never get over them,… etc.  by obsessing on those phrases and others like them, you’re defining yourself by the situation, locking yourself into this seemingly inescapable whirlpool of feelings. until you break this cycle & see that you can love them without being tortured by those feelings, you will continue to be miserable. while your feelings don’t have to change (they may or may not change over time), you need to evolve in how you are dealing with them and stop letting them control you. take a new perspective in your self-talk and your attitude towards the situation. focus on being thankful that you know this person. appreciate their positive attributes. be honest about their shortcomings (it can be easy to regard them as absolutely perfect, which no one is), be content in your situation and be genuinely happy for them in their situation even though you are not at the center of their universe. focus on making and keeping them as a valued, trusted, beloved friend if that is in the cards and don’t focus on how you are “madly in love with them and cannot get over it” because that sort of self-talk is self-fulfilling. so long as you keep telling yourself you won’t get over it, you will be trapped. recognize that changing your perspective DOES NOT mean you don’t still love them deeply, it means you’re adopting a healthy attitude towards the reality of the situation and taking a livable, sustainable approach to enable you to function free of this constant obsession. allow yourself to do this. redefine yourself as something other than this “woe-is-me-i-can’t-be-with-the-one-i-love” woman. this is a “grown-up” approach that may seem (1) stupid, (2) impossible, (3) ineffective, or (4) all of the above; but it does work to help you see a light out of that dark whirlpool of emotions.

• That relationship that you can’t have is “safe” in that you can indulge in total, hopeless, love, without fear of unpredictability.  You get all your what-ifs and you never get let down.  It’s easier to be head-over-heels in love with someone you can’t have than it is to love someone who leaves his shoes in the middle of the kitchen every day.  yeah. every day. I notice. They’re still there. I’m not picking them up anymore. Um, yeah. but beyond that. The hopeless relationship is a low-risk one for you, which at an unconscious level is part of why it’s so attractive. I sound totally unemotional about this- I’m not.  I did the same thing. It was a 100-mile relationship and after we “broke up” we carried on much the same, even still said “I love you” and wished each other well and talked on the phone… eventually I ended up changing my phone number, never calling, blocking his email, and getting a dog.  in that order.  Cause every time I talked to him, I loved him more.  And that wasn’t helping me get on with my life.  And I’m still scared to talk to him, even though we technically are still friends and few people will ever know me as well as he did.  Which sucks.  But it was easier for me, eventually, to just sever the connection.  Although, now that I think about it, it took two years.  All 730 days of which sucked immensely.                       So my actual advice? Get a dog.

The one exceptional response was provided by fauxtograph – “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”  Compared to the other responses, the one from fauxtograph came across as cynical and jaded.

So, ultimately, my friend’s statement may not qualify as an aphorism – i.e., a pithy observation that contains a general truth.  If you google the statement, the second listed site is called “CoolQuotesCollection.”  Or as my friend said, it’s poetic.  Let’s leave it at that.

Aphorism of the Week #10 – Teach a man to fish

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  Because of its reference to fish, I thought this aphorism came from the greatest Fisherman.  But I was wrong; it is actually a Chinese proverb.

Nevertheless, it is one of the most useful aphorisms that I have in my quiver.  As a lazy parent, I have always been attracted to Option A – give him a fish.  And my kids in their youth certainly preferred that option, too.  But there can be no doubt that Option B – teach him to fish – is by far the most effective and efficient in the long run.  Fortunately, my kids repeated requests provided me with reminders and positive reinforcement for doing the right thing.

Once the principle of this aphorism was engrained into my head, it was a small step to extend it to government.  Giving something to someone may alleviate a temporary hardship, but it often does little to prevent the hardship from recurring.  Welfare in America (especially on Indian reservations) and foreign aid to Africa are prime examples of money that provides temporary relief, but doesn’t fix the underlying problem that is causing the hardship.  Worse than failing to teach, it creates dependency.  Whether parenting or governing, we need to encourage self-reliance, not dependency.

While researching the aphorism about fish, I learned that a similar aphorism is often falsely attributed to the Bible – “God helps those who help themselves.”  This wise saying actually came from one of the original wise men – Benjamin Franklin.

Part of my rationale for associating these concepts with the Bible is that they seem to correspond with the Protestant Work Ethic.  A variety of websites suggest that both aphorisms are not only not biblically based, but are actually contrary to biblical teachings.  That makes me wonder if the Protestant Work Ethic is biblically based.  I will look into that as time permits.

 

Aphorism of the Week #9 – “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.”

Last Sunday, the NY Times published an excellent op-ed piece by Daniel Menaker that described the pros and cons of characterizing disease and various other health problems as enemy combatants who need to be defeated.

To summarize Menaker, the pro is that the enemy characterization might motivate an individual to work harder toward recovery, and doctors believe the increased motivation is effective.  The con is that people who succumb to disease are treated like losers.  Menaker ultimately adopts both positions.

And that brings me to this week’s aphorism – “Do not go gentle into that good night” – the title to a poem written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in 1945.  The poem was prompted by Thomas’ dying father and has been interpreted to mean that, although death in inevitable, an individual should resist it to the end.  Most of us associate the title of the poem with a climactic presidential speech by Bill Pullman in the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day.

For me, the title of the poem reminds me of my dad’s confrontation of death.  In his final years, he was afflicted with emphysema, which slowly suffocated him, but he never gave up or wanted out.  He wanted to last as long as he could even though, by all objective standards, his quality of life was abysmal.

My friend Gaylord (Bucky) Mathers died about a year ago from congestive heart failure and emphysema.  (I think he was 67 years old.)  He hung on for almost a decade after his initial heart attack even though his prognosis was bleak.  I visited Bucky a few days before he died, when everyone knew the end was near, and he said proudly that he had fought it as long as he could.  He gave that fight his best shot.

I’ve always said that I don’t want to linger, but I’ve never been there and I’m going to withhold judgment.

Aphorism of the Week #8 – “Blood is thicker than water.”

According to Wikipedia, “Blood is thicker than water” is a German proverb, although it is also common in English speaking countries. It generally means that the bonds of family and common ancestry are stronger than those bonds between unrelated people (such as friendship).

When reviewing the book, Sex, Murder and the Meaning of Life, I noted that evolutionary psychologist Douglas Kenrick had developed an evolutionary rationale for the Blood is Thicker than Water behavior:

• Although economists consider humans to be selfish and economically rational, there is a confusing fact that parents, even later in life, spend their limited resources on their children and not on themselves.  Kenrick explains this on the basis that the ultimate objective of any person is to spread his genes, and resources spent on their children are more likely to result in the children and grandchildren to be attractive and carry on their genes.  Thus, spending on the kids and grandkids is perfectly rational.
• Because nieces and nephews share your genes, you will often feel an urge to help them more than you would to help a friend or neighbor.

I found Kenrick’s conclusion to be fascinating and wondered whether it could be extended to adopted or step-children.  Because the book didn’t discuss this question, I sent an email to the author, and he responded within hours, saying he hadn’t researched the issue, but he provided me with the names of two scientists who had – Martin Daly and Margo Wilson.  Due to the wonder of the internet, I was reading their papers a few minutes later.

The research of Daly and Wilson focuses on step-children, and it reveals that step-children are subject to much more abuse than biological children (the so-called Cinderella effect):

• In species in which parents care for their young, natural selection necessarily favors those who allocate their limited resources in such a way as to promote their own fitness.  It follows that the psychology of parental solicitude evolves to be discriminative, and one obvious aspect of such discrimination is preferential treatment of one’s own young. More than 20 years ago, these ideas inspired us to undertake research on child abuse in stepfamilies. What we and others have discovered is that the presence of a stepparent is a powerful  epidemiological risk marker for child abuse and murder, that excess risk to stepchildren is cross-culturally ubiquitous and perhaps universal, and that it cannot be explained away by any combination of correlated factors yet proposed.
• But this is clearly not the whole story.  Human beings do not routinely dispose of their predecessors’ young as lions and some monkeys do, and severe child abuse is rare, even in stepfamilies. More commonly, the negotiated reciprocities of remarriage are such that stepchildren
  are tolerated, cared for, and sometimes even loved.
• Stepchildren “are not simply unrelated parasites; they are a special kind of relative-by-marriage.” What an evolutionary perspective suggests is that the evolved psychology of parental love, the most nearly selfless love that we know, will not normally be fully activated in stepparents, whose investments will remain restrained in comparison with those of genetic parents.

Daly and Wilson have not extended their theory to adopted children:

• In the human case, adoption by unrelated persons is a recent cultural invention rather than a recurrent aspect of ancestral environments, and it was probably not a significant feature of the human EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptiveness).  However, step-parenting is cross-culturally ubiquitous and almost certainly ancient. It is furthermore not peculiar to human beings, and its distribution in the animal kingdom suggests a reason for its existence: helping raise a new mate’s young of prior unions is a component of “mating effort” in species in which suitable mates are scarce and couples often stay together for more than a single breeding attempt.

I have several friends who have adopted and biological children.  I plan to discuss with them whether their feelings differ depending on a blood connection.

Aphorism of the Week #7 – “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a giant in Washington D.C. when I was growing up.  He served in four consecutive presidential administrations, beginning with Kennedy and ending with Ford, and then was elected by New Yorkers to four terms in the U.S. Senate before retiring in 2000.  Although Moynihan was a traditional northeastern liberal who was on the leading edge of affirmative action, he later expressed concern about the effect of the burgeoning welfare state on American culture.

Moynihan, well known for his intellect and eloquence, coined this aphorism in 1994 for use against a political opponent, and the expression has been put to good use by liberals in recent months as a classic put-down of Tea Party politicians, who often don’t accept the conventional wisdom and like to “think outside the box.”  (That’s another aphorism for another day.)

Liberals from the Northeast like to imply that politicians from fly-over states are uneducated rubes and hicks – Palin, Perry, Bachmann, Bush-43, and Reagan.  In fact, Bush-41 practiced this tactic in 1980 by characterizing Reagan’s supply-side economics as “voodoo economics.”

As a moderate and a skeptic, I am receptive to Moynihan’s admonition.  Don’t expect me to buy into dubious assertions based on faith in a person.  Don’t tell me that the way to increase revenue is to reduce taxes.  Don’t tell me that more drilling is the answer to America’s energy problem.  And finally, don’t tell me that science is wrong.

Aphorism of the Week #6 – “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”

They say that Google has enabled us to locate any information that we desire.  But my Google research skills must be lacking because I have been unable find three of my favorite aphorisms.  Therefore, I will have to paraphrase them:

1. Some famous Texas historian (Dobie? Webb? Bedichek?) said about a cowboy, “He who has struggled on the trail to preserve his water is unlikely at the end of the trail to waste it away.”
2. President Lyndon Johnson conducted a large meeting in his western White House and later
   complained about participants on the fringe of the meeting who didn’t dare speak up, but were not hesitant later to second-guess.  (Sort of a Texas version of Roosevelt’s “In the Arena.”)
3. President Bush-41 told about being a small kid coming home from school and having his mother ask him if he had imposed on his teacher’s time, to the detriment of other kids.

I find the Bush-41 story especially fascinating because it reminds me of this week’s aphorism – “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  I am fascinated by that aphorism because it has multiple levels.

On the simplest level, it is the admonition to quit whining and acting like a spoiled kid.  That is what I was told as a kid.  But the Bush-41 story takes it to another, more altruistic level.  His mother was teaching him to be empathetic and consider how his demands affect others.

I think, however, there is even a third level to the aphorism.  Last year, I read a book by Malcolm Gladwell titled, Outliers, and in my blog review of the book, I noted the following:

• In my opinion, Chapter Four is the most significant.  It describes practical intelligence, as distinguished from IQ.  “Practical intelligence includes things like ‘knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.’  It is procedural….  It’s practical in nature: that is, it’s not knowledge for its own sake.”  Where does practical intelligence come from – unlike analytical intelligence, which comes at least in part from your genes, practical intelligence seems to come from your families.  “When we talk of the advantages of class,” we are not talking only of money and schooling, “but also because – and perhaps this is even more critical, the sense of entitlement that he has been taught is an attitude perfectly suiting to succeeding in the modern world.”  The term that I have used in the past, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  In contrast, individuals from lower classes offer little resistance to 2nd-class treatment and are typically easily discouraged.

With my background in the corporate world, I commonly observed this third level of entitlement.  Employees of mediocre ability, but aristocratic background, often acted like they were entitled to advance, and too often their expectations were met.  Of course, many of the supervisors were like them – i.e., mediocre aristocrats.

It’s too bad that management courses don’t describe this tendency.  If managers were aware of it, perhaps they would be able minimize it.

Aphorism of the Week #5 – Lies, damned lies, and statistics

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is of uncertain origin, but was popularized by Mark Twain.  The phrase came to mind earlier this week when I read conservative chain letter by an old geezer claiming to being shortchanged by Social Security.

The geezer argued that a person who paid into the system for 49-years, like he had done, would receive only a fraction of what he was entitled to.  Specifically, he said:

• “Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only 30K over your working life, that’s close to $220,500. If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working (me) you’d have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years, and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month. The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever had.”

Although those numbers may sound reasonable to a person unschooled in statistics, a closer analysis would suggest that average people didn’t make $30,000 in 1962.  The average job in 1962 probably paid about $5,000, not $30,000.  In fact, the maximum income that was taxed by Social Security in 1962 was $4,800, and the SS rate at that time was 3% combined for employee and employer, not the current 15.3%.  Thus, the geezer’s example should begin the compounding process with only $144 in 1962, not $4,500.  Obviously, the results will not be in the same ball park.  I think most people accept that Social Security has been actuarially too generous for many years and that the generosity will have to end soon.

Because statistics are so easy to misuse, I am especially careful accepting any statistics that from someone without established credibility.  Although I have traditionally treated the mainstream media as credible, that is beginning to change.  Too often, journalists use statistics inaccurately to advance their story.

For example, last night Rachel Maddow’s substitute host, Melissa Harris-Perry, reported on a lady in Los Angeles who lost her job at UCLA and is now facing financial devastation because her replacement job pay $40,000 less and her house has lost $200,000 in value.

My skepticism concerns the value of the house.  The number we are given is the value of the house at the height of the real estate bubble.  What is the relevance of that number?  A more relevant number would be the cost of the house when the UCLA person bought it.  For all we know, the house is worth more than what the person paid for it.  But such information would detract from the plight of the UCLA person.

I remember thinking the same thing when I read about the Enron collapse and its effect on past and present employees whose 401k consisted almost entirely of Enron stock.  In all the stories that showed employees and retirees lamenting the loss of 90% of their 401k value, the comparison was always based on the value of their stock at the height of the Enron bubble.  Never once did a journalist ask what the employee had paid for the pre-bubble stock, which is obviously the more relevant number.  Once again, the journalists were using misleading numbers to advance the drama in their story.

The moral of this story – caveat emptor, or buyer beware, is the best policy.

Aphorism of the Week #4 – You teach your kids how to treat you

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting with my oldest son Bobby about his newborn twins.  Bobby was excited about all his plans for the kids.  When I suggested that he needs to let the kids develop in their own unique ways, Bobby surprised me by saying that I had lived my life through my kids for the past 30 years, and now it was his turn to do the same, and he couldn’t wait.

I was surprised by Bobby’s comment because I thought I was exceedingly lax in letting the kids go in whatever direction they were moved (or blown), and in no sense placed expectations on them, other than expecting them to go to college.  College was important because I subscribe (generally) to the philosophy that the unexamined life is not worth living, and college helps orient you toward living the examined life.

After thinking about what Bobby said, my response was to tell him that his newborn kids were blank slates – i.e., tabula rasa – and that he needs to put a lot of thought in what he teaches them.  That reminded me of a saying that I heard for the first time only a few years ago from my secretary.  Trish Matye was listening to a co-worker rail about a disrespectful kid, and Trish coolly told her, “You teach your kids how to treat you.”

The impact of that statement was powerful.  It goes one step further than the blank-slate philosophy; it reveals the person’s patently false claim for victimhood and suggests that the person did a poor job of parenting.  You’d be surprised how quickly the person calmed down and changed the subject.