When our ideas fail on every front, there’s still one avenue that’s more appealing than surrendering to reason. I call it the “You’re Just as Wrong as I Am” argument, and it takes many hideous forms. Here are some examples of this argument off the top of my head:

• Who’s to say who’s right?
• How do we know anything about anything?
• Isn’t it at least possible that I’m right?
• What does it mean for anything to be true?
• Let’s agree to disagree (depending on the context; there are legitimately justifiable contexts for using this one).

These statements make all discussion impossible, yet they are invariably presented by people who have, not more than one breath prior, stated a position on something. It’s the intellectual equivalent of “I know you are but what am I”, but rather than snickers, it invokes head nods from at least some onlookers. I’m fascinated by this phenomenon. On the one hand it’s clearly flawed, but on the other it’s clearly appealing. And to some it seems convincing.

Most fascinating to me are how its flaws are the reason for its appeal! I’ll explain. I’ve said in previous posts that if your evidence could support any and all possible claims, then you have no evidence, and while it’s hard to call these arguments evidence, they’re still premises that could be used in favor of a position; virtually any position in fact. More precisely and more commonly, they are used to counter any evidence against one’s position.

When was the last time you were in a discussion where all of the evidence was on your side, you articulated your reasoning well, and then you said, “but then again all of reality may be an illusion”? I’m guessing somewhere in the vicinity of never.

While there truly is no definitive argument against the possibility that reality is an illusion, we rarely give any thought to it. As long as we have evidence and reason on our side, we don’t concern ourselves with the nature of reality because it goes unspoken that we rely on agreed-upon basic axioms and the perception of shared experience for all of our honest discussions. This is true for all of our most practical discussions, like those about business strategy, traveling directions, and how to go about making lunch, as well as most deep philosophical discussions. We assume some degree of understanding about reality and/or some shared experience of it, but when our position on a topic becomes exposed as inconsistent with that shared reality, it’s tempting to throw the game and its pieces against the wall and call off the whole exercise rather than concede defeat.

And it’s in that childish quality where both the flaws and the appeal of these statements reside. “You’re just as wrong as I am” both defends and destroys your argument simultaneously, along with any argument in its path. It’s the last cry of a failed position. It’s the nuclear option for any discussion.

Keep an eye out for it and you’ll see it used frequently. And if you join me by calling it out with a label like “the philosophical nuclear option” or “the you’re just as wrong as I am argument”, I’m betting that together we could shame these statements right off the planet someday.