The Force of the Better Argument-April 06

The force of the better argument that Habbermas provides us seems like kind of a downer philosophy. Stated, it provides for any alternative; limited, however, to the alternatives brought up by the participants. So we can pick from anything we want, as long as someone has already thought of it. It’s almost like a cop-out excuse for why something did or did not happen. I especially feel that way during election time. At one point, I was asking how we have Obama, Hillary, and McCain to choose from out of three hundred million Americans. How in the world did we limit ourselves so drastically? Are these three our only alternatives? We have a man who alienates everyone he meets in J Mack; a woman in H-Dawg who is either willing to turn a blind eye to adultery or who is too obtuse to realize its existence in her own house; and a community organizer/Ivory Tower resident turned CEO in Chief who uses money which is not his to buy toxic investments that he does not plan on capitalizing. (On a side note: does that make him all that different from the irresponsible lenders who handed out fixed-rate mortgages like bobble-heads at the ballpark? Did they, and he, ever think that they were actually going to be able to recover the loans?)
Of course I do not wish to come across as negative or with a defeatist attitude. Moreover, I realize that I do not fully understand or comprehend the burden and responsibility of the Presidency; or even a candidacy for the Presidency. Therefore, in judging these actors’ decisions, my judgment cannot be completely clear. But this circles back around to Habbermas’ point. When a group of people assemble to explore alternatives in a decision-making process, they are forced to submit to the force of the better argument. And for the sake of review: they yield to what is rational to create the ideal speech situation. However, politics really does not lend itself to rational choices: If rationality is based on incentives (a la: which decision will best help us meet our goals), and if politics has subjective incentives whose variation from person to person or group to group is so high, then politics cannot have a very strong rationality. Or at least, when brought to the public sphere, the validity claims run rampant to the point of trampling the Benefit of the Doubt. (Funny how the Benefit of the Doubt will benefit the Doubtful, yet Benefit itself is doubted.) This stampede occurs before Empathy sets in. But Empathy is the wild card when it comes to decision-making and contesting multiple alternatives. We cannot count on it actually making an appearance, especially when it is threatened by hard-nosed talking heads that do not have much incentive to offer it a seat at the discussion table. National politics, therefore, often are reduced down to a decision of the lesser of two evils.
Yet, what more is there than these two ‘evils’? What can we choose from? Who else can provide an idea? Maybe America is simply too complicated and diverse too be able to benefit from any one person or ideology. Maybe there is no such thing as the better argument; much less its force. Well, not maybe. Actually, such an absence can be clearly observed. Even among those participants who are able to stay level-headed, soften their nose a bit, offer benefit to the doubters and skeptics; these folk still come up with some very convincing arguments going both ways. Even if there is a force to the better argument, we cannot award the Better Argument ribbon because we honestly cannot tell which is better or more rational. Even if B.O., H-Dawg and J-Mack were the most brilliant, capable, and liked individuals in the country; we still wouldn’t be able to agree on one because the choices are all relative to the other choices. When all the alternatives are present, and we may choose only from those, then there is no standard by which we may judge. Like marriage: if you include it to mean anything, then it means nothing. So really, I have no qualms about Obama being president. If all I had to choose from really was those three, and I really like or really do not like them all the same, then it does not make a difference which one is elected. (My defeatism creeps back in now and we see that I basically gave up on presidential politics. Which, honestly, I have.)
But our choices MUST be limited, right? So even in exploring alternative explanations to the fact that we are limited to alternative explanations, we see a limitation to the alternative explanations: a kind of meta-alternative?