concerning brilliance in arguments

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." - Professor Sample

Constructing an argument is a lesson in anatomy. Each premise has to connect to each other in order to reach the nerves tucked in the conclusion. Inductive arguments are tiny things enmeshed with cartilage and bone - construct them carefully, generalize from the evidence with conservatively, always being mindful of the treacherous uniformity principle. Deductive arguments combine the conclusions of those inductive arguments in various combinations. Deductive reasoning cover a lot more ground than inductive reasoning.

Brilliant ideas jut out from the rest, and therefore by their very nature are difficult to fit back within the rest of the joints of the argument. Therefore, unless your brilliant idea is the heart of your argument - it's the core idea that makes sense of everything else - it will only impede the flow of the argument like cholesterol in a major artery.

Brilliance dazzles the listener. Brilliance also blinds the reader, begging him to decide your case just based on this one fascinating, sexy idea instead of the totality of your reasons.

Shine responsibly.

Scenes of Moses: Baby in an Ark

Late night musing on the I-80 highway.

But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it...  When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

If one scene really symbolizes Moses' life, it's this one. His family reaches the end of their ropes in protecting him. They place him outside their protection. They could not find a real water craft, so they place him in a flimsy basket, coated in tar to help its buoyancy. He is placed into muddy water, surrounded by tall stalks of weeds and reeds. (Don't try this at home.) He is essentially exiled for his own safety. But to what end?
The basket goes nowhere. Looks like a failed experiment. But then Pharaoh's daughter, off on one of her royal frolics and in the mood for a mud bath, finds the basket among the same reeds, and draws him out of the water. Not a failed experiment but a baptism. He is called Moses, which means draw out. 

Fast-forward forty years.

When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. ... They told their father, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

Moses is a fugitive. Pharaoh wants him dead. Moses runs into the desert. He is exiled again, casts himself into the endless oceans of sand. (Where are you going, Moses? Where will you find refuge?) But look! He finds an oasis. And the man drawn out from the water is now drawing water for others. An exile finds a family among exiles. The Hebrew who looks Egyptian is saving people. Coincidence?

Fast-forward forty years.

Moses said to the Israelites, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today... The Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

Moses goes back, gets his extended family to follow him through the deep blue sea. First they were a little nervous but he's all like nah, trust me I got this I've done this before, so they went for it, and then bammm, the man drawn from the water now draws a nation out of the sea.  From a human perspective, it just looks like a life being pushed along by turbulent circumstances. No direction. No foresight. There's so much fear in the story, so much killing, so much hurt. It's just a basket stuck in the mud. It's just a guy marooned out in the desert. But look again, and you see that his name matters. As he was drawn, so he draws.

And the little details is what I hang my hopes on these days.

May the reader understand.