The current teacher/Ministry of Education boondoggle should come as no surprise.
It is just a reflection of the modern work environment. All employees expect to have some say in their working conditions and professional employees expect to have some input into how to most effectively do their work.
Life would be so much easier for administrators, managers and ministers of education if they could just dictate what the rank and file can or can’t do or have.
I feel a little bit sorry for Minister of Education George Abbott. I have met the minister and he seems to be a nice man.
I believe he probably feels as uncomfortable as he looks, repeating over and over again the government’s mantra: “It would be unfair to give the teachers anything more than the Net Zero already agreed upon by tens of thousands of other government workers.”
I’m not sure the minister has studied logic but if he had, he would know that the Greeks and Romans, thousands of years ago, had labelled his argument a logical fallacy.
It is called arguing in a circle: We can’t give X employees any more because we didn’t give Y employees any more and we won’t give Y employees any more, because we didn’t give X employees anymore.”
Abbott isn’t arguing on the basis of the case put before him by the teachers for more money (maintain smaller classes, increase resources for special needs students, achieve wage parity with other jurisdictions, etc. etc.). Instead, he keeps repeating the same fallacious argument. That is one reason why the teachers maintain that the government – sorry, the employer – is not arguing in good faith.
Another reason is the second argument used by the ministry: “You should agree with us, stop this strike nonsense and go back to work because we are going to legislate you back to work anyway.”
This argument employs another logical fallacy labelled by the Romans argumentum baculinum or argument based on a threat of force.
Then of course there is the third logical fallacy he employs, the argumentum ad populum or the appeal to the populace.
He demonstrates this one when, instead of arguing way more money should not be spent on reducing class size, resources for students with special needs, etc., etc., he seeks to sway opinion by merely proclaiming over and over that the ministry has the children’s and public’s interests at heart and that the teachers do not because they have withdrawn services.
All of the above is based on the overriding fallacy that this and all government’s use whenever they don’t want to pay for something: it is a material fallacy or a misstatement of fact. “There is no money,” the minister says.
He expects that the electors will hear that, nod their heads and agree that, if there is no money, the government’s argument to not spend any more must be the right one.
There is, of course, lots of money. There is money not only in government coffers but in the coffers of large corporations as well as the pockets of individual taxpayers.
The government does not want to access any of that money. On the contrary, in the case of corporations, it has cut taxes. It feels that its election chances would be diminished if it raised them. As well, it operates on the conservative principles that governments should reduce the tax burden in general, and on corporations in particular, in order to stimulate economic growth.
Voters should be quick to jump on public figures on either side of an issue who use faulty arguments.
The only thing worse than being the victim of an argumentum ad ignorantiam, wherein one’s lack of knowledge leads to the wrong conclusion, is having to listen to a homo pomposiam ad latiniam or a person who tries to use Latin phrases in order to appear smarter than he really is.
– Jim Holtz is WEEKENDER columnist and former reporter for the Grand Forks Gazette
