Reader says that Roberts is sane and that I’m demented

James M., who had defended Paul Craig Roberts in this lively discussion thread and had been met with a lot of disagreement, wrote to me:

After WWI, most red-blooded, patriotic Americans that lived on farms and in small towns all over this country knew that their sons were sacrificed in a war that they were lied into. That is why the history books say that Americans were “isolationist” after WWI—which is a canard—they weren’t isolationists, they were realists. They knew that Wilson (Bush’s grandfather in the faith) was a globalist, and that he would sacrifice American sovereignty, blood and treasure on the altar of the League of Nations. Go back and read what Americans such as Henry Cabot Lodge were saying about the League of Nations at the time—it’s right out of today’s news. We’re fighting the same battles today as Americans were fighting then. I know that you know this history. If Paul Craig Roberts is a maniac today, then 98 percent of Americans in the 1920s were also maniacs, because they believed that American involvement in WWI was purposely CAUSED, it didn’t just happen, which means they believed, on some level, in “conspiracy theories.”

I wrote back to him that his sentence, “If Paul Craig Roberts is a maniac today, then 98% of Americans in the 1920’s were also maniacs,” was “fruitcake stuff.” He replied:

You’re the one who says it’s demented to believe that governments sponsor terror, or world wars, or the destruction of innocent life for political ends—that is the true dementia. I expect you to be glorifying the attack on Iran when it happens, just like the rest of the neocons.

At this point, I told James M. he ought to hang out with his natural ally, Keith Ellison, who has compared the 9/11 attack to the Reichstag fire.

What gets me about people like James M. is that they take arguably true statements about the world and leverage them into insane conspiracy theories. Thus in James’s mind, the fact that many Americans in the 1920s were suspicious of foreign involvements makes them the same as Paul Craig Roberts who accuses the president of the United States of planning to launch terrorist attacks against America in order to justify a war against Iran. In James’s mind, being against foreign wars, and believing the president is a monster and traitor who would stop at no crime in order to get America into a war (a war that is being waged for no rational reason but only to destroy the United States), are the same thing!

The little component of rationality in their world view persuades the Robertses and the James M.’s that their conspiracy theories are also rational. It convinces them that people are rejecting them, not for their insane conspiracy theories, but for their rational views. Which leads them to conclude that it’s really the other people who are crazy.

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Dimitri K. writes:

You wrote: “The little component of rationality in their world view persuades the Robertses and the James M.’s that their conspiracy theories are also rational. It convinces them that people are rejecting them, not for their insane conspiracy theories, but for their rational views.”

It is a very good point. The same holds for example for how Russians criticize America. They take one real American error, like the war on Serbia, and then they start to criticize America for capitalism. They don’t understand that it was leftist Clinton, their ideological brother, who started the war. Same with Europeans who are criticising Russia: they take as an example some real Russian fault. However, their opinions originate mostly from the 19th century, when Russian Emperor made his goal to oppose leftist revolutions in Europe. Thus, each side points to the other’s mistakes, which make them look rational. But really they hate each other for what the other side did right.

LA replies:

That’s a fascinating point by Dimitri.

Another example of this behavior would be people who mix some legitimate criticism of Israel with the total demonization of Israel, the denial of its right to exist, and tacit or explicit support for the Muslims who are seeking to destroy her.

When such people are called anti-Semitic (and even when they have not been called them anti-Semitic), they invariably complain in a wounded, victimological tone (as though it were a permanent tape loop in their brain): “If you just criticize Israel, you’re called an anti-Semite.” Or, “If you don’t genuflect to the Israelis, you’re called an anti-Semite.”

Of course they are not being called anti-Semites for criticzing Israel or for not genuflecting to the Israelis. They are being called anti-Semities for demonizing Israel, denying its right to exist, and tacitly or explicitly supporting the Muslims who are seeking to destroy her.

But, in their own minds, they subsume their demonization of Israel under their one particle of rational criticism of Israel, and imagine that they are being called anti-Semites merely for making rational criticism of Israel.

Which, of course, only confirms their anti-Semitic world view.

We need a short-hand term for this fallacy, or family of fallacies.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 19, 2007 11:02 AM | Send