Illogical Arguments

Recently, I stayed at my friend's place for a few days. One morning, me and my friend were bored. We played Chess often but we got bored of playing against the same opposition. So my friend asked his father if he was willing to play chess. He said that he didn’t want to play chess. So we asked him if would instead play a game of cards. He said he would. So we set out playing cards in the morning, at 9 am. Now, at this point, for the benefit of those readers who are not familiar with Indian cultural thought (or at least the cultural thought of a significant fraction of it), it is useful to point out that playing cards is considered synonymous with gambling and not generally appreciated. Although this is a huge generalisation because there are many sections of people who would not attach the same kind of stigma to playing cards. At any rate, there is a certain vice-like nature attributed to playing cards, even if it is played in the confines of the home, with family members, and without any bets.

Continuing with my story,

me, my friend and his father began playing cards in the morning, when my friend's mother spotted us at it. She instantly scolded us for gambling in the morning, although technically, we weren’t gambling. At one point during the scolding, she said this “I wouldn’t have said anything if you were playing in the evening. But why are you playing in the morning itself?” I do not understand why it is more of a sin to gamble in the morning than in the evening. I guess that if one persists in reaching the root of the basis for this kind of a belief, one would ultimately arrive at the ascription of light/bright (in this case, daytime) with good and darkness (in this case, night-time) with evil. Although how even this rudimentary association has come about I do not know.

Coming back to the story again, after my friend's mom scolded us, we stopped playing and my friend packed way the cards, rather grumpily. So his mom blamed his dad for always encouraging kids in doing whatever things they like, even if they are not acceptable (or never reprimanding them for doing such things) and making her look bad while she tries to stop these objectionable things/behaviour. In this case the dad played cards along with us while mom had to be the kill-joy and stop us from playing cards in the morning.

And so this story brings us the topic of this blog post – my friend's mother’s peculiar (and flawed) argument. She argues that she has to bear the burden of being viewed as a kill-joy in our eyes since she is the only adult who actually cares to stop objectionable behaviour and has taken it upon herself to stop us from playing cards in the morning. She also argues that the father, complicit in the act of playing cards with us, only makes her seem more of a kill-joy, because he never reprimanded us for playing cards in the morning. Now, this is a very flawed argument. What the father does, or for that matter what the mother does, is based on what he/she believes. If the father does not believe it to be a wrong thing to play cards in the morning, he will act thus. On the contrary, if the mother believes it to be a wrong thing to play cards in the morning, her actions will be based upon that belief. The mother shouldn’t accuse the dad of having ulterior motives of making her seem like a kill-joy. It would certainly not be a logical argument.

But the point of writing this blog post, is not to highlight the familial squabbles in which I am sure every reader has had a fair share of unpleasant participation and which I am sure no reader is interested in. The point of writing this blog is that most of us would have come across such arguments, especially if women were involved, (am I being a male chauvinist or a misogynist?) and we would be better equipped to defend ourselves by understanding such illogical arguments, which at first seem valid and then leave you confounded and finally stumped. What must be recognised in such arguments is that while a person may have his own set of beliefs/principles, which guide his actions, the same set of beliefs/principles cannot be used a metric to judge the actions of the other person. Simply put, if you believe playing cards is wrong, you cannot have this belief as a basis to question another person’s act of playing cards (i.e. if you want to argue rationally).

While this clarity of thought might seem simple enough, and maybe trivial too, many arguments can be brushed aside as illogical just by referring to this stance, again, only if the other party is kind enough to argue within the confines of rationality.

But this kind of reasoning leads us to a curious topic for interrogation. Not using a person’s beliefs/principles as the standard for judging or questioning the actions of another person, is all well and good until the actions of that other person are not grave to the extent of being morally questionable. Playing cards is one thing but what about thievery? Can one say “Desisting from stealing even when you are hungry may be your principle but it is not my principle and so you cannot question my act of theft”? And what about the act of murder or cannibalism? I hope to take up this topic in my subsequent blog posts.