Michael Moore’s Thoughts on Snipers

Introduction: On January 18th, Michael Moore posted a tweet widely regarded as a comment on Chris Kyle and on the movie Sniper depicting Kyle’s service in the military. Given Moore’s status as a left wing activist and critic of the Iraq War, it should come as no surprise that he would object to a film that seems to portray Kyle as a hero. Moore seems to suggest that Kyle is nothing of the kind, eve going so far as to imply that Kyle is in fact a coward.

Key Facts: It’s worth noting that much of Hollywood’s portrayal of snipers would fit more in line with Moore’s comments in this instance. Snipers usually make their way into a film as a menace to the heroes, or as complex characters with a deeply ambivalent sense of their own role in combat. It is only in more recent depictions that they have begun to occupy the relatively more straight-foreword role of heroes in films such as Blackhawk Down.

Text: Here is a screenshot of the tweet.

 ANALYSIS

Comments: I find this argument amusing. On the one hand, it’s relatively easy to get a handle on the reasoning in this one. On the other, that reasoning has been rather unimportant for purposes of public debate. Simply put, the implication that Chris Kyle is a coward has pretty ensured that subsequent dialogue would focus on affect display. In this discussion, it has been anger all the way down, so to speak.

Statements: The basic claims made in the argument are presented in bold below. Rewritten sections are in square brackets, and one missing conclusion has been added (statement 6).

[1] My uncle killed by sniper in WW2.

[2] We were taught snipers were cowards.

[3] [They w]ill shoot u in the back.

[4] Snipers aren’t heroes.

[5] Invaders [are] worse.

[[6]] [Chris Kyle is not a hero.]

Discussion: This argument presents us with the following issues: Interactional Eclipse, Micro-Reasoning, and Missing Assertions.

Interactional Eclipse: Michael Moore may have good reasons for implying that Chris Kyle is a coward, but doing so has led respondents to focus on personal outrage at the expense of considering his argument. This may or may not have been Moore’s intent, but it was probably a predictable outcome of the tweet. Any effort to clarify the point or drive it home with an elaborate argument would not fit into the 140 character maximum allowed in a single tweet. So, the end result was a message that did more to rouse anger than it did to set the stage for a thoughtful discussion. Again, that may well have been the intent.

Micro-Reasoning: Moore actually got several specific claims into this tiny argument, but he did not spell out his actual conclusion and if there is any nuance to his thoughts about the courage or cowardice of a sniper, it didn’t make it into the text. Ultimately, this argument suffers from the extreme brevity of the format.

Missing Assertions: Moore relies on us to piece together his conclusions. It seems obvious, but he does not state it.

Diagram: Okay, so Moore first uses the argument from personal history to suggest that snipers are not generally heroes (1+2 -> 4). He then adds a specific reason for believing that Sniper’s are not heroes (3->4). This general argument implies that Kyle is not a hero. Statement 5 is then used to add an additional argument to the effect that Kyle (a member of an invading military force) cannot be a hero regardless of his specific role in combat.

 

Evaluation: Let me just focus on the inferences here. I’m not even going to comment on the truth value of the premises.

The inference from 1 and 2 to 3 is deceptive. Moore invokes personal experience to shore up his argument. that personal experience is of course with a family history and folk wisdom about the nature of snipers. Granting that Moore is reading these traditions right, this does not give a clear reason to believe that Snipers in general are not heroes. Those who have actually seen real combat may find it a little too ironic to see that Moore would invoke personal history on the subject. He isn’t claiming more than he could fairly put forward he is asking others to weigh that over the character of people with more personal experience than his. It’s a serious credibility problem. I would suggest that this inference is weak.

The inference from 3 to 4 is a little more interesting. This of course suggests that snipers use tactics enabling them to avoid danger. This may be true, but of course that doesn’t mean they do not face danger anyway, and of course people don’t usually win wars by making it easier for their enemies to kill them. Again, the inference is weak.

The inference from 4 to 6 is Strong to Deductively Valid. If no snipers are heroes then Kyle is by definition not a hero and the inference is D.V. If Moore is just saying that no snipers are heroes by virtue of being sniper, then it is at least possible that Kyle is still a hero, but the premise does take away the central claim for making him one. Hence, the inference would be strong.

It’s tough to measure the inference from 5 to 6. I would say it’s probably the same as that from 4 to 6 for similar reasons. So, the inference is Strong to D.V.

Final Thoughts: Some folks may not believe in heroes. Alternatively, some may regard heroism as a social construction having less to do with people’s actual behavior than with the way others see them and the stories that others tell about them. That is of course NOT Moore’s argument here. He gives us no reason to believe that he doesn’t acknowledge heroism in some contexts, so a general cynicism regarding the prospect of heroism would not help his argument. It might however have provided an interesting argument in its own right.

Some folks might also argue that details of Kyle’s actual behavior, and some of the stories he has told since leaving service are deeply disturbing without suggesting that he is a coward. Simply put, Kyle can be a a lot of bad things and also be courageous too. Which should matter more is an interesting question, but that too is NOT the argument presented in this tweet.

 

Band of Brothers – Where Are We?

Introduction: This is a scene from the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers (2001). It takes place in Part 2, “Day of Days” at about the 13 minute mark. In this scene, two paratroopers (Lieutenant. Winters and Private Hall) have just linked up following a night drop into enemy territory during the invasion of Normandy. The following conversation occurs as they look for other U.S. soldiers and try to get their bearings while attempting to evade German defenses.

Key Facts: Different companies within the drop force were supposed to be dropped into different locations. for a variety of reasons (not the least of them being fire from German anti-aircraft guns), many seem to have missed the mark. Lieutenant Winters is from Easy Company (so he is not in D-Company or Able Company).

Text:

1) Lieutenant. Winters: “Aren’t you D-Company?”

2) Private Hall: “Able Sir.” (pause) “Guess that means one of us in the wrong drop-zone, sir.”

3) Lieutenant Winters: “Yeah, or both of us.”

ANALYSIS

Comments: The actual reasoning here is fairly simple, and this is one case where the conventions of argument analysis may lend themselves to unnecessary complication. So, let’s just get on with it.

Statements: We must add two missing assumptions, and each step of the reasoning will require some degree of rewriting to bring out the reasoning. Leaving out the problematic missing assumption, I would suggest the following propositions (each presented in bold).

1) [Missing Assumption: Lieutenant Winters is in Easy Company.]

2) Statement Two: [Private Hall is in Able Company.]

3) [Missing Assumption: Easy Company and Able Company have different drop zones.]

4) [Either Lieutenant Winters or Private Hall are in the wrong place.]

5) [Either Lieutenant Winters or Private Hall, or both of them, are in the wrong place.]

Discussion: This is a pretty simple exercise in reasoning. It touches upon dialectics, the reconstruction of missing assumptions, and the fallacy of false alternatives.

Dialectics: The argument illustrates dialectics insofar as the men cooperate to arrive at a common understanding of the issue.

Missing Assertions: Lieutenant Winters’ membership in Easy Company remains unspoken as it is obvious to both parties, as is the assumption that each of the companies in question has a different drop zone. It’s tempting to suggest that Private Hall makes a more serious assumption over the course of the discussion. In the second line, he infers from the fact that each was intended to land in a different drop zone that one of them must be out of place. This might be taken to assume that at least one of them must have landed in the right place. Alternatively, Hall makes no such assumption and the problem arises with his inference that one of them is in the wrong place. His account of the situation would then be incomplete, but it wouldn’t be erroneous. In keeping with the principle of charity, I would suggest going with the latter option as Hall’s specific wording does not commit him to the specific mistake in question.

False Alternatives: Whether it arises in an assumption or an inference, Lieutenant Hall’s conclusion fails to address the possibility that both he and Lieutenant Winters had landed in the wrong place.

Diagram(s): It isn’t clear to me that a visual diagram of the reasoning here is all that necessary or helpful, but for the sake of consistency I thought I should attempt it. After toying with a couple options, I am opting to suggest two simple models, one representing the Reasoning of Private Hall and one that of Lieutenant Winters.

Private Hall’s Reasoning

Lieutenant Winter’s Reasoning

Evaluation: Barring significant revelations from historical specialists, I think we can assume that premises 1, 2, and 3 are true, which leaves the inferences for us to evaluate. Assuming a literal interpretation of statement 4, support the inference in Private Hall’s reasoning would be weak at best, leaving an unsound argument. Support for the inference in Lieutenant Winter’s reasoning would seem to be deductively valid, though perhaps one could find a fiddly argument to bring it down to a rating of strong. In either event, Lieutenant Winter’s reasoning appears to be sound.

Final Thoughts: This kind of reasoning is more common in real life than it is in logic textbooks. The two men build on each others’ statements to achieve a common understanding. In the final turn, Lieutenant Winters does not so much tell Private Hall that he has made a mistake as simply suggest a better conclusion. As the narrative unfolds, Hall introduces a potential mistake and Winters simply sets it aside. As a food-for-thought kind of question, one might follow this example by asking students to think about the the varieties of context in which bypassing criticism would be more wise than direct confrontation. Conversely, one might ask if there are contexts in which direct criticism would be more useful.