Gager and Logic

Sir-We do not expect your writers to have much knowledge of human nature or the complexities of social and political relationships, but we do expect them to be aware of the criteria for what is called rational thought.

In his third successive appearance in Salient Owen Gager makes much music about the paranoia of the right wing and their obsession with property, etc., etc. He explains New Zealand's support of American policy thus:

"It merely reflects the fact that any right wing government will be anti-Communist. Any anti-Communist government will support the most powerful anti-Communist state. This is not subservience to the United States. It is typical right-wing paranoia."

If we substitute "communist" for "right-wing" and "capitalist" for "communist" in the quoted passage (also substituting either "China" or "Russia" for "the United States") we have two logically equivalent propositions—both, by the way, absurd.

Terms like "paranoia" and "obsession", when predicated of huge and abstract collective nouns, are meaningless, and best never used. When used they signify an untidy mind in their user-sometimes one to which the terms are themselves applicable.

Yours faithfully, John Medley.

[Owen Gager replies: I would agree with Mr. Medley if he is saying (is he?) that obsessive anti-capitalism is anti-Communism; indeed, if he might have noticed I was attacking both right and left for their attachment to conspiracy theories of history. My use of the word 'paranoid' may lack clinical exactitude, but if his definition of 'paranoia' is 'loose use of psychological terms' my use of the term is both more conventional and less all-embracing than is his.]