While disputing a matter, position or belief, they do not intend an argument or dialogue between two people who hold different ideas or wish to persuade each other. They act to controvert, shame, disgrace and thus negate any rights or freedoms to anybody or anything they oppose, even though that person or institution has not done anything wrong or worthy of reproach. This week we have also witnessed a clear example of this in an ill-reasoned article replete with factual inaccuracies from Soner Çağaptay in Newsweek. The errors in the article have been dealt with elsewhere so here I shall look at the principles lying behind the issue.Although different forms of dialectical reason have existed throughout history and various lands, it has a simple prerequisite that the participants, though they do not agree, share at least some meanings and principles of inference. So their aim or intention is to resolve the disagreement through rational discussion, and ultimately the search for truth, not to foment hatred, disorder and conflict. Since Socratic times, one way to proceed is to exercise the discretion to withdraw your hypothesis as a candidate for truth, if the hypothesis is seen to lead to a contradiction. You may not be able to prove your thesis, and you may not accept the antithesis, but you are at least willing to concede a third thesis or synthesis (combination of the opposing assertions). Since ancient times, this form of reasoning has been based on the exchange of arguments and counter-arguments. That exchange of relevant points of views leads to a dialogue, a synthesis and a qualitative transformation in the direction of positive thinking and positive action. It improves the minds, hearts and souls of interlocutors by freeing them from undetected, unperceived errors and by being persuasive --convincing through dialogue.
It is clear as day, however, that some groups and their spokespersons do not reason, argue or examine their interlocutor's claims and premises in order to draw out a contradiction or inconsistency among them or to improve them. Recent developments in and about Turkey manifest this aspect of our public life: the blind opposition in the Parliament to a new constitution and to the EU accession process, an unconstitutional court ruling ordering President Abdullah Gül to stand trial, militant secularist opposition to and sabotage of the president's and government's efforts to resolve the gangrenous Kurdish issue, the eccentric arguments from the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist organization about defending the regime and acknowledging ties with the Democratic Society Party (DTP) while the DTP closure case is hot, together with misinformation provided by Turkish “bloggers,” as well as “research” commissioned with the aim of preventing Turkey from becoming an open and civic society.
We have seen that these groups, the alienating “white Turks,” the elitist-statist protectionists, the militant secularist bureaucracy and the exclusivist coup lovers, supporters and makers, have no intention of resolving the tension between a thesis and its antithesis by means of a synthesis. They do not attempt to “overcome the negative,” that is, at least preserving the useful portion of an idea, thing or society, while moving beyond its limitations. Their antithesis, if they offer one other than killing journalists, scholars and even Christian missionaries to foment chaos and prepare the necessary conditions for their consecutive putsch schemes, staging military coups and staying in power for at least 25 years without any elections, is always selected to suit their own subjective purpose. So their arguments are not defensible against a multitude of other possible syntheses, but rhetorical, contradictory and not logical. This type of thinking, of course, leads to systemic blockages, dysfunctions, alienation and crises rather than progress, unification and realization of the rational, constitutional state of free and equal citizens.
Polemical journalism and its effects on dialectical thinking in Turkey, as everywhere, is dogmatic, and, if it persists in this way, it may have many serious consequences: it only provides advantages to its cronies; it provides justification for rejecting alternative initiatives, projects and policies; it obfuscates the integral relationship between opposite perspectives that can be normally held and accommodated within Turkey; it ignores the fact that the understanding of differences and multiplicity requires understanding their relationship with the whole of Turkish culture, civilization and contemporary democratic systems. It therefore does not make any marked contribution to our intellectual, spiritual and democratic culture. It stifles liberal thinking and the development of liberal democracy. Its identification and utilization of might rather than right encourages totalitarian modes of thought and action. It only justifies irrationalism and facilitates fascist ambition. It lowers the universally acknowledged standards of intellectual responsibility and honesty. In the end, the damage done inevitably has an impact on the environment and the lives and well-being of the perpetrators, too. Newsweek's editors may feel that controversy may help sales of their new Turkish edition. But they and Çağaptay should remember that they also exist in society and ponder this week how unwise they may have been.
