Mikey likes it, and other Debbie proofs, Part 1

Everyone of a certain generation knows the Life cereal television commercial, in which Mikey, who hates everything, seems to relish Life cereal, so that must mean it's good.

I wonder whether the Mikey Likes It commercial was an early form of the Debbie Proof?  And what is the Debbie Proof, you ask?



A retired professor friend of mine recently remarked upon a curious feature of articles by journalist and amateur sociologist James Fallows, published in the The Atlantic's Politics & Policies Daily, which the magazine describes as "a roundup of ideas and events in American politics."

The Fallows on how America is already becoming great again

Fallows is in  the habit of invoking the name of his wife Deb when punctuating his own political opinions.  Just as with Mikey in the Life cereal commercial, if Deb agrees or nods approvingly or is in any sympathetic or supportive, Fallows must be right!

In the case of Fallows' recent contribution to The Atlantic, "The Reinvention of America", Fallows talks about the gap between what Americans feel about the success of local institutions and of their own personal ability to manage their futures (on the one hand), and their disenchantment with the political Gong Show in Washington with its baffling and bewildering cast of characters.  Fallows himself feels optimistic about the future of his country, apparently believing the three ring D.C. Circus of investigations relating to (1) Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election (the Mueller inquiry), (2) what President Trump himself calls the "Stormy Daniels deal" (the now infamous non-disclosure agreement), and (3) the polarization of the American public to be mere distractions, diverting our attention from real progress in national prosperity and in the United States' position in the world.  When Fallows makes this suggestion, he uses the royal We, happy to have his wife and traveling companion agreeing with his pronouncement.  According to the Fallowses, America is already becoming great again.

My professor friend takes exception not only to Fallows' opinion, but also to what she considers to be Fallow's annoying technique of bringing in Deb to support his reasoning.

Arisotle's Rhetoric

Before being confronted with Deb, my professor friend, who learned Aristotle's Rhetoric by heart as a student, had believed that Aristotle's analysis of the three mechanisms for persuading audiences (via their characters, via their opinions, or through their reason) and three types of persuasive public speaking (deliberative, judicial, and ceremonial) was quite complete.  After all, Aristotle had accounted for the forms of persuasion used in political assemblies, to weigh and balance options and make political based on calculations of the anticipated advantages or disadvantages of different courses of action (factoring unintended consequences of old policies); in courts of law (to measure the facts of a case against the requirements of law), determine right and wrong, and mete out justice accordingly; and in other public fora (to praise as honourable or blame as reprehensible the words and deeds of soldiers and statesmen, poets and politicians, or anybody else whose behaviour affects or influences the public).

New rules for new times--the Debbie proof

But with Fallows and Deb, my professor friend was confronted with a new species of discourse, the appraisal of political opinion by everyday commentators.  Had Aristotle missed something in his classification?  Upon reflection, my professor friend mused whether she had "made an important discovery in the social sciences".  As she put it herself, she "thought for a while that [Aristotle's Rhetoric] covered pretty much the field of political discourse and uses of persuasive arguments, until
[she] discovered he [Aristotle] missed the Deb proof."

My professor friend then started reflecting upon her exchanges with "two (argumentative) scholars who happen not only to be married to a DEB but use them their name the same way. They send me long rambling essays on their views of the world with the magic words in virtually all paragraphs :  Deb and I we went to, or Deb and I we read, or Deb agrees with me."  She mused out loud whether her "dear Aristotle missed something", but consoled herself with Stoicism: perhaps, she postulated, she "worried for nothing.  [After all] the Debs have been with us all the time. They just had other names and sometimes different genders. Socrates [himself] ... was surrounded by juveniles who followed him everywhere, repeating: you are so right O Socrates.  [Similarly,] Trump, himself, phone every night the FOX news Debs and can go to sleep, comforted he is not only right but a genius."  One thinks of Hannity, for example, or FOX & Friends.

Of course, Aristotle, like Plato and Socrates before him, had been very critical of sophists like Gorgias and Isocrates, who tended to use rhetoric and poetry to manipulate their interlocutors and the public, because they had a bad habit of neglecting the facts, and, instead appealing directly to emotion.  Manipulation was for Aristotle (and for his teacher Plato, and for his teacher Socrates) antithetical to both rhetoric and philosophy, which started from the facts, and moved, step by step, towards clarity and enlightenment.

Here is Isocrates in a manuscript in the Vatican Library.

And here is Isocrates in print.

Here, finally, is Gorgias in a manuscript dated  1475.

To be continued tomorrow, 16 May 2018