veritas and assumptions

I'm in the process of reading a really great book:


Granted, I'm not reading it as fast as most things I read because I'm getting ready for my doctoral exams. But I try to read a few chapters of this every few days.

It's about a girl from a Christian family in the midwest going to school at Harvard and facing the hostility toward Christian and conservative view points that I can definitely say is typical of large universities and probably a lot of small colleges as well. There's a lot more to the story; it's got a lot of spiritual warfare elements, angels and demons fighting each other and such, but it's the portrayal of classroom experiences that I'm enjoying the most because it's so on-target.

The main character Claire is given some advice by a Christian graduate student in the section I read yesterday. She is getting ready for another session of her philosophy class, where she knows she disagrees with a lot of what is said but can't seem to come up with a way to join into the discussion. The grad student outlines a method for her that makes a lot of sense.

The most important part of his method is to find the assumptions that underly a statement and try to expose them. This is really good advice, and something I do some of the time, but really enjoyed having pointed out specifically as a method for argument. (My typical response technique is to simply ask for evidence, usually a successful one.)

And lo and behold, this morning at school I have an excellent example of assumptions and their function in a lot of the arguments that take place on college campuses today.

Nearly every elevator in the building I work in has fliers posted around it for protests against the war in Iraq, several different ones. But what I noticed today is the wording. None of them refer to it as "the war in Iraq," but instead "the war on Iraq" (emphasis mine in both cases).

Now, that one little word really goes far in demonstrating the difference between their assumptions about the war in Iraq and my own. Their assumption is that the war is against Iraq itself. If this is your assumption, of course the war seems wrong and unjust, and of course it makes sense to take part in some movement against it.

I realize that a lot of people, including many for whom I have the utmost respect, do indeed look at the war in Iraq in this way, based on this assumption, but as familiar as I am with the reasoning behind the decision to go to war in the first place, I have to respectfully disagree. I look at the war as a war against or on the terrorists that happens to be taking place in Iraq because Sadam Hussein, in his blatant disregard for complying with UN sanctions, gave us a good excuse for taking the war there. Some assume that there is a blatant disregard for the life and health of Iraqi civilians over there, but I instead feel as though the efforts on the part of our military to avoid civilian casualties are part of the reason that this war is lasting as long as it is.

Similarly, people who blame spending on the war in Iraq for the government's supposedly poor response to the Katrina disaster, and/or the failure of the levees, are basing these arguments on the assumption that the war in Iraq is useless/pointless/wrong.

Don't really want to get on my soapbox about the war or the Katrina blame game. Just felt like reflecting on this little tidbit from a book I'm reading and how it's quite relevant and useful.