The Fallacy of Reason

Last night I had an argument with a friend about a thing. Since this was online I will probably be having this argument with them tomorrow too. Over the course of this argument I brought up something from my personal life. Her response was (paraphrased) "I want to talk about arguments, not personal feelings."

On the surface this seems reasonable. We are always told that anecdotes have no place in evidence. If a study shows that punching chickens does not cure cancer and I tell about how aunt Martha punched a chicken and cured her leukemia, I'm being a terrible debater. I think this has been taken too far, though. Anecdotes have been entirely shut out in favor of "reason". But are these enriched by the lack of experience? I'd say no. It's the opposite.

As much as we hate to admit it, reason is a subjective thing. We find evidence to suit beliefs, not the other way around. We put too much power on our invisible assumptions, and too little on what we profess we believe. Let me take an obvious example:

"The presidency requires being always available and able to give your all. Women can have children and need maternity leave. So women should not be president."

Sounds silly, right? Replace 'president' with leader and you get something from Rousseau. He was a hell of a lot smarter than I was and way better at using his reason. So why does he say something so stupid? He's operating under the prevailing assumption of the time that men > women. His argument perfectly fits in with his beliefs so he does not try at all to examine it for flaws.

Are we any better? Our 'reason' is built on axioms, and those axioms didn't come from the brain wizards. It's shaped by your world. Where you grew up. The people you talk to. What you want to believe. It's why every 14 year old can so obviously see how everything works and you just don't get it. His world is so limited that nothing challenges his core beliefs. He may use great reason, but that's like building your house out of the best cardboard around. It's still made of cardboard. Everybody's been there. I have. So have you.

It's only we grow a little older and actually get some experience in the world that we stop thinking we know all of the answers. The experience is what should shake our core beliefs. Think communism will make everything just peachy? You see how people backstab each other if we can get away from it. Or maybe Objectivism is the One True Path! Oh wait, the poor people are poor because they're in terrible nightmares, not because they're lazy bums. Religious people are deluded sheeple! If you can get through this university and still believe that, then I applaud your willful ignorance.

That's why I bring up personal experience. I can't make you live my life. I can't force you to grow up in a very religious community, or struggle with mental illness, or have to learn humor like a new language. But by god I can let you know what it's like. It's a tiny glimpse into a different world, and maybe, just maybe, you'll see that your core beliefs aren't the unshakable tenets of reality. Just as mine aren't. No one's is. But if we think that trying to understand each other's personal experiences is an affront to some nebulous 'reason', we're not going to get anywhere. We'll just logic ourselves in our tiny bubbles and pretend that if people don't agree with us they're not being 'intellectual'. That's as far from reason as you can possibly get.