Arguing With Yourself

While it may sound a bit schizophrenic and odd, when it comes to philosophy I think it is very useful for people to spend a good amount of time arguing with themselves, instead of just arguing with others. What I mean by that is, intentionally seek out any contradictions that may exist inside your own head, and sort them out on your own. When it’s just you with your own thoughts, you don’t have to feel pressured or rushed, you won’t look stupid if you admit that you were wrong about something, and you don’t have to care whether or not you win the argument—you only have to care whether your position is morally and logically sound.

Pretty much everyone—including me still, no doubt—has contradictions and misconceptions inside his own head, or at the very least gray areas where things aren’t very clear yet. Get used to this. Unless you’re a deity, it will be that way for all of your life. You will never be finished learning and thinking (unless you just decide to surrender and embrace ignorance), but the more muddled mental crap you can sort out in your lifetime, the better.

At this point, allow me to just hurl this assertion in here: if you advocate civil “government,” in any form, you still have massive contradictions in your view of reality and your thought processes. There are countless examples I could use from all the true believers in the cult of statism, but I suppose the nicest thing to do would be to use my own former statist self as the example. So I will. Back when I was a right-leaning statist, my arguments—if not worded exactly like this—amounted to exactly this:

“I own the fruits of my labor, and for you political leftists to try to use government to forcibly steal what I produce to give to the poor, or the elderly, or anyone else, is immoral and unjustified! Saying it’s okay because it serves the common good, or because it's necessary, is no excuse! You are advocating armed robbery under the guise of taxation, and legalized theft is still wrong!”

So far, so good. I was right about all of that. However, that wasn’t the end of it. Old statist me continued:

“On the other hand, because you benefit from police protection and national defense just by living here, it's perfectly legitimate and justified for you to be taxed to fund those things. And of course, if you don’t pay your taxes, that’s a crime, and there have to be consequences.”

In other words, I tried to manufacture a rationale that would end with the conclusion, “It’s bad for the state to extort me for what you want, but good for it to extort you for what I want.” Not exactly a shining beacon of consistent moral principles, I know. Well, NOW I know that, which was mostly the result of me arguing with myself.

When I became an anarchist in 1996, when I fully gave up the belief in political “authority” and “government,” I knew few if any other people who were anarchists. Yeah, I had read some Lysander Spooner, Albert Jay Nock, etc., but being dead, they were a tad difficult to debate. To be fair, my accidental escaping from authoritarianism was partly a result of my wife, Tessa, and I simultaneously—and inadvertently—arguing each other off the political spectrum entirely.

(Somewhat ironically, an aunt and uncle of Tessa’s were also instrumental in the process, even though they were still minarchists, and were trying to keep us in the minarchist camp. However, in the process they demonstrated that there really can be no logical or moral justification for any flavor of statism, including minarchism, so they accidentally helped to argue us into being anarchists.)

Now if it sounds like I’m so arrogant that I’m saying, “Sort out your own self-contradictory crap, and then you’ll agree with me!” … well … actually … I am. I am saying exactly that, regarding “political” thought anyway. Because statism—the belief in the legitimacy and necessity of “government,” whether left or right, big or small—is an inherently contradictory belief system. But since the point of this article is to suggest that you argue with YOURSELF, not that you argue with me, I will end here with a few ideas and concepts for you to test yourself on, to see if you can articulate a coherent, rational and principled response to each:

1 - “Here is why it is good for me to vote for people who will force my neighbors to pay for what I want, but bad for my neighbors to vote for people who will force me to pay for what they want: …” (essay answer, please)

2 - “Here is why people should be imprisoned by the state for engaging in victimless activities that I find unseemly, but why I should not be imprisoned by the state for engaging in victimless activities that others find unseemly: …” (essay answer, please)

3 - “If I agree with 51% of the population on something, and by way of voting we force our values on the other 49%, that is good—that is the will of the people, that is democracy in action. But if 51% of the population disagrees with me, and uses government to force its values on the 49% (including me) that is unjust and unfair! Here is why: …” (essay answer, please)

4 - “There could be laws that are so wrong and unfair that I would feel justified disobeying them! But it’s not okay for OTHER people to decide which laws they have to follow, because: …” (essay answer, please)

5 - “As long as I’m not threatening, defrauding or harming anyone else, what I do is nobody else’s business! However, it’s okay for me to beg government to meddle into other people’s lives, even when they’re not threatening, defrauding or harming anyone, because …” (essay answer, please)

There, that should keep statists busy for a while. On the bright side, when you argue with yourself, you get to decide who won the debate! Yay!