[History] Debate by Clausewitz

[scottishranger]

Author: Undeadinator
Original Thread: Debate by Clausewitz

Debate by Clausewitz

Carl von Clausewitz, for those of you who do not know, is considered one of the most pre-eminent military theorists of all time. His 1832 classic, On War, still stands as one of the definitive guides both to and of war; an exposition on military motive and technique studied across the world as a handbook for conflict. It would not be remiss to call him one of the most influential figures in military history.

Clausewitz himself, however, is not our subject for this thread. Rather, we're taking a look at the military concepts he put forth--disarmament of the enemy, the utmost use of force, reciprocal actions and the look--and applying them to a whole new arena, in this case debate. The analogy is far from contrived: war and argument have long been connected, cousins in the State that have consistently fed into each other.

The ideas I'm covering rank as among the most basic (if significant) of Clausewitz's. They shouldn't be too hard to decipher, but just in case I've taken the liberty of organizing them under exclusive headlined sections. With respects to the fact that this probably sounds boring as **** right now, I'll try to punch up the discussion with the usual invective and mysterious asterisk clusters.

Fans of the Carlmeister may note that I've taken some minor liberties with the meaning of his work. These can probably be attributed to poor reading on my part, as my experience with everybody's favorite Prussian is somewhat limited. Alternatively, it might just be the effects of adapting his ideas to argument. Think carefully before you jump on my back about such things, eh?


Anyways, let's hop to it before I lose interest.


The Argument as Personal; or, Man vs. Man, not Idea vs. Idea.

The first order of business is perhaps defining debate. I would attribute it thusly: the mechanism by which two parties assault each other with ideas. Sticklers and idealists may note that I'm taking a rather cynical view here. If so, I invite them to look into their history and philosophy books. Debate has always been, and ideally always will be, about convincing another about an idea. A case in point would be Nietzsche Contra Wagner. The essence of the debate is portrayed as man versus man, not idea versus idea. The nature of the idea is immaterial; it has no significant impact upon the inherent nature of debate, and so can be dismissed as an object of it.



The object of debate, then, is to change the man. To put it another way, debate a mechanism used to change or correct another's behavior. The idea is used as a tool to do this. This can be done, traditionally, in one of two ways: either by showing the superiority of an alternate, or contrary, idea, by aggrandizing it and attributing to it characteristics of a positive nature; or, by showing the idea in question to be inferior, attributing to it qualities that are undesirable or repulsive. ("This idea cures diabetes" as opposed to "This idea murders puppies.") Again, I shall stress the irrelevance of the idea itself: it is a mechanism, nothing more and nothing less.



The more astute of you shall be noticing the assumption I make on the object of debate. I'll rationalize this to head off your whining at the pass. I shall start by noting an inherent foible of human nature: the desire to have control over one's environment, and to shape it towards your will. This is, I think, a fairly inarguable concept. The sum of our culture and being dictates to us the proper way of things: we, in turn, seek to dictate this way to the rest of the world. We act upon the world to bend it to our will. This is, I believe, universal in man. Sexual submissives and the like represent no exception. They are acting upon the world to fulfill their personal desires...even if those personal desires consist, as it were, of being acted upon. Debate is no different. We strive to impose our will on another with debate; we seek to "correct" another's behavior through showing him the error of his ways or the virtue of ours. The submissive offers money and pleasure in exchange for a certain behavior. Debaters in turn attempt to offer humiliation or recognition, essentially pain or pleasure. Debate is the art of stick and carrot.

Clausewitz fleshes this out a different way: he proposes that the motivations for war, and here debate, are twofold. The first, which he refers to as instinctual hostility, amounts to simple hatred or dislike of the opposition. This should not be necessarily construed as personal dislike; it could simply consist of opposition to a certain opinion. The second he refers to as hostile intention. The wording is again perhaps somewhat harsh here, but the original idea remains the same: the cause for debate represents not a repulsion to one's opponent or his opinions, but rather an affirmative desire to change that opinion for one's own rational benefit. These benefits can range anywhere from personal satisfaction to the imposition of one's will upon the sweeping issues of the day. In its absolute, this particular casus belli is completely free of emotion. (By a different interpretation that can be applied here, it can also represent the pure search for an idea. This interpretation is perhaps just as valid, if not more valid, than the other. But considering its comparative rarity, and I believe complete absence, we shall operate on the original assumption.)

As Clausewitz acknowledges, these two definitions are by no means exclusive, and one indeed feeds into the other. This feed-cycle, however, is inverted from Clausewitz's. In debate, our "hostile intent", our exertion for rational benefit, must necessarily spring from a distaste of opposite ideals; such actions in war, however, essentially spring from a positive desire for benefit. On the other side of the fence, the purest argumentative venom can spring, completely formed, from simple spite of an opposite opinion. This emotion-rooted debate, our version of the "instinctive hatred", can often act separate from--and often in complete contradiction to--our hostile intention, or desire for benefit. In an arena as consequence-free as the internet, this absolute is feasible even to a reasonable mind. (Tostig touches upon this, as well as a number of other concepts, in his excellent argument thread. Several of his points connect directly to my arguments here, so I naturally believe it's well worth a read.) Almost anyone who has spent an extended period of time on the internet can vouch for an occasion where he saw somebody act completely against his own interests out of sheer hatred. Hell, several of us (though hopefully not on this forum) have probably done the same, simply from spite.

Therefore, we can narrow down Clausewitz's two motivations to an effective base one: repulsion towards another's behaviors or opinions. In the absence of a pure intellect, this reduces all arguments to a clash of personality rather than ideal. Flaming, by extension, is innately the same as more logical debate: the only difference is the relative savagery or cultivation of the parties in question, as Clausewitz also discusses.

Our emotions, thus, are never far from the core of an argument. Indeed, they are often as a necessity the core of the argument. When we levy debate, we are assaulting each other's behaviors, and thus each other...we are simply using more cultivated (and indirect) tools.

Victory in Argument; or, An Extension of the Means and Tools of Debate.
We have covered the motivations and basic tools of the argument. We have discussed the essential principles upon which verbal conflict is built. Like all things, however, this conflict goes far beyond its essential principles. This brings us to our next Clausewitzian concept: ultimate victory over the opponent, and the philosophy thereof.

Clausewitz is perhaps best known, in pop culture at least, for one of his quotes: "War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means." (This has also been rendered by "War is politics continued by other means." Either way it's the Prussian, dig?) This sounds quite nice, and fits neatly into post-Vietnam military cynicism. Unfortunately, it's also a dramatic over-simplification of Clausewitz's position. Although highly conscious of the impact politics has on war, much of his writing is predicated on the opposite assumption: war as an act in and of itself, or absolute war. Absolute war, as Clausewitz laid it out, was war liberated. Absolute war is a war waged without consideration of morality, politics, any outside force; it is the act of combat, and the exertion of forces to effect the quickest, most favorable end of combat. War (and thus debate) as a product of politics I shall not discuss here, although I may elaborate on it in a further post. Instead, we are for the remainder of this section going to be concerning ourselves with "absolute debate", debate unlimited by etiquette or concerns for reputation and the like. By virtue of rhetorical example, this will probably be difficult to stick to absolutely. That said, conceptually I think we can aim for a sole examination of this "pure argument".

So, we've established the immediate, internal ends of debate as the changing of another's opinion, or simply to re-affirm one's own opinion. Now note the difference of that goal--a goal directed by, in its way, politics--and the goal of absolute debate, which is almost a complete opposite. The goal of absolute debate is not to change the mind of one's opponent or affirm one's own opinion: it is to be victorious in the debate, to claim victory over the proverbial foeman and see him driven before you. Sounds simple, no? Fun, too. I've always wanted to drive somebody before me. Unfortunately, this victory also requires its own definition and (perhaps) qualifications. What is victory in absolute debate? By what means is it to be achieved, and when can it be recognized?

As the first question requires a knowledge of the second, that is where we shall start. Unfortunately, it is also a difficult and nebulous question; unlike war, where one nation's defeat and another's superiority can be easily recognized, debate is a conflict entirely of perception and concept. Thus, assigning a concrete definition will be insufficient at the best and vague generality at the worst. The argument could be won when one party alters his position; it could be won when one party is simply unable or unwilling to continue his resistance; it could be, most popularly, when he has been acclaimed the winner by a majority of the interested parties. But these criteria are far from exclusive, and unfortunately like most things in this discussion tie directly into each other. Giving up on an argument out of frustration could be construed popularly as acknowledging defeat. On the other hand, winning the majority of public support could be dismissed as failing to convince the opposition outright. As absolute debate has deprived us the luxury of declaring victory by virtue of capitulation, since victory in ultimate goal is not equivalent to victory in argument, we must--as the Romans say--be bold. We must carpe us the **** out of some diem. In light of the complications and contradictions of our subject, therefore, I shall operate under the assumpion of a highly arguable criteria:

Victory in absolute debate is rendering your opponent unable to resist you, either by personal demoralization or by the defusement of his arguments.

Though this is perhaps treading on soft ground for our subject, it does permit me to connect it directly to one of Clausewitz's ideals: namely, that the goal in absolute war (and indeed in all types of war, in various forms) is disarming your opponent, and making him unable to resist you further. To carry this further, or perhaps to lay out a different idea entirely: we are able to declare victory when the option of oppression, or in this case acknowledgement of deviancy in opinion, is a preferable option to the continued persecution of the war or debate.

We are winners when our opposition prefers surrender to resistance.

By this definition (or by these mutual definitions) we are able to connect the ultimate goal of debate with its pure concerns. An opponent whose arguments have been rudely crushed must acknowledge the inferiority of his own position and the superiority of his opponent's. There is literally no other choice. It is illogical to cling to a behavior when that behavior has been shown deviant or incorrect.

Unfortunately, perception and human nature again foil us here. We come right back around to the problems of our war comparison: in war, a defeated nation is forced by the victor to fulfill its will. There is no such compulsion in debate, though that is most commonly the ultimate goal. Our definition begs the question: what if the opposition chooses to continue resistance, even if he has been unquestionably defeated in the field? What if his persistence, even in its incompetence, eventually drives me from the fight in disgust? Is he rightly considered the winner by sheer determination? A depressing conundrum.

Under my own time constraints, and probably yours at this point, I shall save discussion of this principle for a later date and post. It is a tricky problem, and one indeed that I have no real answer for. The comparison to Clausewitzian theory has here an unplugged hole. Perhaps something will strike me, or even you. In either case, I leave it now for another time.

The means of victory in absolute debate are relatively simple, and can in fact be defined by a single word: force. Force does not here refer to the bombast of one's hyperbole, or the sheer venom of one's hyperbole; it does not refer to the cunning of an argument or the expertise with which it is delivered. It can be all of things, or it can be none of them. Force is here used a broad compass term for (though I hesitate to connect it with our great uncertain) any kind of pressure that reduces opposition's inclination or ability to resist. Ideally, by which I mean in a context of absolute debate, this force is unlimited by any outside factor: with a complete freedom from forum rules or resistance from the enemy, it is absolute and irresistable.

Unfortunately, now time really does force me to abscond; while I do hate to leave a thread mid-argument, if I withhold it now I will likely never consider it again. Thus, in a rather hurried fashion, I'm opening up the floor to (ha-ha) debate. Tell me what you think, or where you see holes in my arguments. Anything that comes to mind, really.