There has been enough chatter recently about the Obama campaign’s recent “One Chance” advertisement praising President Obama’s decision to set SEAL Team Six on its way while casting doubt that Mitt Romney would have made the same decision that readers can easily find their own links to both the video and commentary on the matter.
The reason behind Arianna Huffington’s refreshing condemnation of the ad as “despicable”, also widely available, brings us to the real point of the post, what we might call the Future Subjunctive Fallacy, that is, that one simply cannot argue logically in the present on the basis of subjunctive suppositions of what might – or might not – happen at some yet non-existent future time, particularly in a realm as far removed from our so-far comfortably predictable world of empirical natural expectations as politics and human interactions.
And yet, in the last decade or so, maybe even longer, the Future Subjunctive Fallacy has become the dominant sloppy pretense to logical argument du jour: liberals yadda-yadda-yadda, because “you know conservatives would…” [no, we actually do not yet know any such thing]; conservative Christians yadda-yadda-yadda, because “you know proponents of [X] would…” [no, we actually do not yet know any such thing]; Kermit the Frog yadda-yadda-yadda, because “you know Miss Piggy would…” [no, we actually do not yet know any such thing].
The Future Subjunctive Fallacy: if you use it, it will only make you look stupid, not convincing.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
Re: future perfect subjunctive–without in any way responding to the substance of your post, I cannot restrain myself from giving you the only example I have ever heard in real life of the future pluperfect subjunctive. I once phoned a client of mine, to impart some crucial legal information, and instead of the client, her sister picked up the phone. When I asked for the client, the sister told me, “My sister just went out, but if you call back in 20 minutes, she WILL BE DONE WENT across the street and you can talk to her when she come back.” I was struck literally speechless for several moments, but ultimately did succeed in talking to the client.
My good Sisters Wired,
If my designation “future subjunctive” as I am intending it requires some additional perfection to become more completely accurate, by all means put the red pencil to it.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
I believe the future subjunctive was applied to Obama and has turned out to be false. He seems much more comfortable with war then either side expected. Indeed, as I remember, Obama’s supporters in 2008 were strongly hoping that there would be a change in our country’s warring.
Expecting logical argumenat from politicians, and Obama and his crowd in particular, is a more than lofty expectation. People are moved more by emotion than logic, thus a large part of the reason we’re in the dire straits we find ourselves in now.
Dont know about others, but I expected he would complete the draw down in Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan. As to the main topic, we can only go by Romney’s own words that he did not think pursuing Osama was a priority. Who knows what he would have done when the time came to make a decision, but he would have been less likely to be there, if he did not flip flop, which is a big if I know.
Steve
1) Of course your general point is fair, H. M., but is any conversation about fitness to lead possible without some speculation about future activities? Of course, we cannot be certain but these are the sorts of hypotheses we develop about people every day (e.g. “If I ask him to do this task, it will [probably] not be completed. I am basing my hypothesis on witnessing years of unfinished tasks….”
2) Given that Romney expressed opposition/reservation re: entering Pakistan/hunting Bin Laden, I don’t think that applying such hypotheses with re: to his potential policies is ‘stupid.’
My good Barak,
Whatever one believes, if one attempts to deploy future subjunctive claims to logic these days, one will never lack for company.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria