Provocative Guesses
Somewhere along the long trail of education we’re taught to make straightforward assertions as a rhetorical strategy, as a way to make an argument. This is not only useful for making an argument, it can be helpful as a means of deciding what things are true or real: State a passing thought or observation as if it were a rule and then ask if it has validity.
In the realm of ideas, statements can be true or false as logical proposition—or as casual language, ambivalent. In formal logic, the options are binary. The playground of formal logic recognizes assertions as true or false only. But truths are boring and monotonous in the confusion that is everyday life. Real color and diversity exist in the realm of things that aren’t true by the rules of logic. Statements that are false may contain a lot of elements that are true.
This blog endeavors to toss simple ideas out that arise with some color of falsity when taken as universal propositions. They don’t hold everywhere and under all circumstances. But they may apply instead in circumstances that need to be identified. Or they may be false everywhere under all circumstances.
False statements can be useful in themselves. Their opposite may turn out to be true instead, making them helpful for orientation, in case you’re the sort of person who has a better understanding of the landscape after first embarking in the wrong direction. Truths are true in a single, simple way. Falsehoods are as diverse as anything the mind can dream up, full of a variety and color that exist nowhere other than the human imagination.
At any rate, the remarks in this blog are to be taken as hypotheses and conjectures asserted as fact—as playful provocations. Their truth content varies, and is entirely coincidental.
Good afternoon. Today the mothership reported on the Ohio special election yesterday. Here is what I posted over there this morning:
Kudos to TMD for insightful reporting on Ohio Issue 1, which I watched unfold up close as an Ohio voter (and right-to-life supporter).
Apart from abortion (and other proxy issues), it was clear it was too easy for well-funded groups to push for amendments to the state constitution, so long as they could frame the issue in the most deceptive way possible or in otherwise appealing ways in TV ads. That’s how we got an amendment legalizing casino gambling — in 4 locations designated by detailed property descriptions as you would see in a property deed. That’s how we got an amendment for a state livestock care board, a measure that should have been a law, not in the constitution.
Junk like that was the real justification for Issue 1. But the idiots in the state GOP pushed it to head off the abortion battle in November. I only hope and pray their foolishness didn’t doom the opposition to that broad, sweeping abortion rights measure that goes well beyond the Roe regime. We’ll see.
Good morning.
It’s 74 degrees and rainy here. It could be raining for a while, which is nice. Unless I have to go outside.