Talking the Talk vs Walking the Walk: on the origin of blind adherence to an ideology and a solution

An ideological dialect is a set of phrases and terms that fit together in association with an ideological framework.  The dialect is used as shorthand for the ideology, in order to facilitate more efficient communication.  The semantic framework of an ideology is distinct from the ideology itself.  Because of the nature of human speech, it is entirely possible for one to speak in an ideological dialect without actually ever understanding the ideology itself.

For instance, a person may grow up in a family of Christians and believe himself to be a Christian, until he actually starts analyzing his supposed understanding of Christianity.  He later decides that he dislikes Christianity and therefore moves either to call himself an atheist or turn to some other religion.  The issue is that he learned how to talk like the other Christians around him, but he did not actually learn anything about Christianity.  His understanding of Christianity was a straw-man of the ideology: the ideological dialect of Christianity.  The reason this occurred was due to the fact that the other supposed Christians around him tested his belief in Christianity not on whether or not he understood Christianity, but whether or not he could use their phraseology.  He would say, "yes I believe Christ is my personal Lord and Savior," and his family would believe him, because he used the words in a semantically correct manner.  He passed the test, but he didn't understand why the words are meaningful; he identifies himself as a Christian, though he knows only the words.  He merely found out that the words are meaningful and how to arrange them in a meaningful way in order to fit in with his family.  Thus, his conversion away from Christianity was in fact a conversion away from the ideological dialect and not from any particular ideology.

There is a bias inherent to low-level tests of ideological status.  That test consists of reciting, rote, the phrases that are meaningful to those that know the phraseology of that ideology.  Since the ideological dialect depends on a fluency in an actual language, English in our case, it is trivial for someone to use the words in a grammatically correct manner; the only trick is to use the ideological phrases and terms in a semantically correct manner.  Thus, an ideological dialect is far simpler to learn than a language.

To put it very plainly, it is very easy to talk the talk, but what matters is that one can walk the walk.   Talking the talk is speaking the ideological dialect; walking the walk is understanding the ideology.

It must be stressed that using an ideological dialect but not understanding the ideology can be either (1) an innocent lack of understanding, a sort of naivete, or (2) the lack of understanding can be on purpose.  It is my guess that the innocent lack of understanding is more common outside of politics, whereas deliberate failure to try to comprehend an ideology is more common in politics.  Regardless, it is the understanding of the ideology and declaration of belief in the ideology that must be the test of adherence to the ideology.  Mere understanding is not adherence, but mere declaration of belief is mere linguistic gymnastics.

I am saying that one should not take someone else at their word.  If they are seriously interested in proving their ideological status, then they should prove it by demonstrating their understanding and declaring their adherence to said ideology.  Unfortunately, demonstrating understanding is as complicated as the thing to be understood; many ideologies have an intricate framework that many do not have the time to comprehend.

I am betting that everything I've said is intuitive once demonstrated, thus it may seem like a no-brainer to even mention these things.  However, I see it all too often where someone will say they believe in a particular ideology, but reject it without at any time ever understanding anything other than the dialect of that ideology.  Thus, the rejection is not a rejection of the ideology itself, but a rejection of the dialect of the ideology.  It is possible that this could lead to a more wholesome understanding of some other ideology, but it is also possible that the individual may seek another dialect to speak for the sake of identity.

The common names for ideological dialect are rhetoric, dogma, and doctrine, though they lack clear definition.  With the distinction between dialect of and understanding of an ideology, we can determine whether or not someone is being dogmatic/rhetorical/doctrinal or if they actually care about understanding the ideology in question.  It unfortunately goes without saying that to argue for or against an ideology requires a proper understanding of that ideology, else one commits the straw-man fallacy.  Despite this, many people will argue for or against an ideology and appear dogmatic when someone proposes a counter-argument.

Thus, a Facebook thread will be quickly filled with catch-phrases from both atheists and Christians about a particular controversial topic; both sides talk the talk, but neither side is walking the walk.  That is, neither side is concerned with understanding, they merely want to bash each other for the ideology with which they claim to identify; the Christians claim the atheists are evil (e.g. "atheists are going to Hell") or stupid (e.g. "Evolution is only a theory"), and the atheists claim that the Christian are stupid (e.g. "you don't know what a theory is") or evil (e.g. "you just want to force your morality onto everyone else").  With each example in parentheses, each side is either straw-manning the position of the other side.  Each side is merely attacking the ideological dialect of the other side, with the assumption being that that is the essence of the other side's argument.  Further, it is entirely possible that both sides know only their respective ideological dialects, thus what could have been an argument over a controversial issue is turned into a dramatic, glorified cursing-match, the likes of which is all too common.

There two solutions that I see to the problem of someone seemingly only able to straw-man an ideology (against an ideology) or only able to talk the talk of an ideology (in favor of an ideology):

1. Have that person demonstrate their understanding of the ideology being discussed.  If they succeed in demonstrating a sufficient level of understanding of the ideology, then the debate can continue.
• This affords you the opportunity to strike at the roots of the other person's position.  If they can only talk the talk, then you can dismiss them as using the straw-man fallacy in favor of their own position. (Such a revelation will do wonders for you in formal and informal debate.)  If the person can walk the walk, then you have free reign strike at the roots of the ideology, most importantly the soundness of its assumptions and the validity of its conclusions.
2. If the person fails to demonstrate anything more than the ability to use an ideological dialect, then walk the person through each part of the underpinnings of the ideology.  It is not relevant whether or not the ideology is correct; explanation and understanding are the goal.  Once the person understands the ideology, then you have opened up their mind for them to either reject the ideology or argue for it more intelligently.  Such spurning or grasping of an ideology is not dogmatic, rhetoric, or doctrinal; it would be the result of understanding.  The next thing to do is to explain the opposing ideology, such that the person has a more complete understanding of what other people are saying about the issues associate with the ideology.

If someone appears to be a blind believer or appears to be dogmatic and implacable in their stance, then first ascertain whether or not he/she actually understands the ideology.  For lack of a better name, I am calling this the Walking Method of Debate (Ha, WMD), in which one walks through all the steps to arrive at the conclusion for which one's opponent is arguing.  With their ideology exposed and lain out on the table, one then proceeds to examine each part of the argument for any flaws.  The most important things to look for are any assumptions that are not sound and any conclusions that are not valid.  If your opponents argument lacks either soundness or validity, then the conclusions are necessarily false.

Thus, WMD has two parts to it: (1) walking through every bit of the opponents argument and describing it as clearly and accurately as possible, and (2) critically examining each part of that argument for soundness and validity.

WMD is most obviously applicable to attempting to refute someone else's position; person A will attempt to convince B to reject position X by walking through the logic of position X and demonstrating its flaws.  That is its most common usage.  However, it is more often used to argue in favor of a position; person A will attempt to convince person B to accept position Z by walking through the logic of Z and demonstrating its merits.  Obviously, one must be careful to get an accurate and complete view of the position, because it is remarkably easy to straw-man a position, even one's own claimed position.

I recognise that WMD is not new; I have not created some anything that people have not already been using.  As far as I know, I am merely giving it a name.