Beyond Feelings

150 PART TWO The Pitfalls
Attacking the critic Attempting to discredit an idea
or argument by disparaging
the person who expressed it. To
avoid attacking the critic, focus
your critical thinking on ideas
rather than on the people who
express them.
Sample Combinations of Errors
Now let’s examine several combinations of errors and determine the specific
ways they affect the thinking of the people involved.
EXAMPLE 1
Claude is an active worker for his political party. Because he feels a strong
personal identification with the party and is therefore convinced that its
platform and its candidates represent the salvation of the country, he is
unusually zealous in his efforts. One day he is having lunch with Nell, a
business acquaintance. The discussion predictably turns to politics. Claude
delivers a few pronouncements on his candidate and on the opposition. His
candidate, he asserts, is a brilliant theorist and practitioner. Her opponent, in
Claude’s view, is a complete fool. Claude volunteers harsh judgments of the
opponent’s political record and of his family and associates and rattles on
about how the country will be ruined if he is elected.
After listening for a while, Nell challenges Claude. She quietly presents
facts that disprove many of Claude’s ideas and points up the extravagance
of Claude’s assertions. Although there is nothing personal in Nell’s challenge
and it is presented in a calm, objective way, Claude becomes angry. He
accuses Nell of distorting his words, denies having said certain things that
he did say, and stubbornly clings to other things he said despite the facts
Nell has presented.
Let’s reconstruct what happened in terms of the errors we have been
studying. Claude’s initial problem was his “mine-is-better” attitude,
which blinded him to the possibility that his candidate and platform were
not perfect and that the opposition had some merit. In other words, it
made him overvalue the things he identified with and undervalue those
he did not. Accordingly, when he spoke about the candidates and the platforms,
he was inclined to oversimplify. Then, when Nell called his errors
to his attention (as someone sooner or later was bound to do), Claude was
driven to relieve his embarrassment through face-saving devices. Because
the more deeply one is committed to an idea, the less likely one is to admit
error. Claude undoubtedly learned little from the incident.
EXAMPLE 2
When Sam was thirteen years old, he didn’t really want to smoke, but his
friends goaded him into doing so. He took to it well, though, feeling more