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| The Rhetoric of Belief MARCH 2005 - One of several fundamental changes that FASB will work on during the coming year will be the movement of the GAAP hierarchy and of the authority for GAAP to FASB’s own standards. Currently, the GAAP hierarchy is in auditing standards and the GAAP authority resides in voluntary associations’ codes of conduct. The board will likely specify two levels of GAAP—authoritative and all other—and make it clear that following GAAP is the responsibility of the preparer, not just of the auditor or the member of a voluntary association. The other fundamental change will be a reconsideration of the FASB conceptual framework, which would become part of authoritative GAAP.Choosing Words Carefully One of my deepest concerns about these two projects entails the pervasive practice by FASB’s constituencies of expressing their comments in terms of “beliefs.” It’s virtually impossible to read a comment letter to the board, or to any other accounting authority, without reading: “We believe that …” Likewise, it’s common to hear such assertions as, “I believe we did that yesterday,” when the speaker means simply, “I recall we did that yesterday.” Because language choice so often both reflects and influences what we mean substantively, there are inherent pitfalls in characterizing assertions, whether about opinions, values, logical inferences, or knowledge, in terms of beliefs. Especially in this post-modern world, where one person’s beliefs are no better than another’s—just different—presenting important dialectics in terms of “beliefs” inevitably invites solutions unrelated to discipline-specific rational discourse. Consider, for example, the creation of accounting principles by people relatively unfamiliar with accounting—because, after all, they’re just a matter of belief. Often, people mistakenly resort to expressing their lack of certainty about something by saying, “I believe ....” Sometimes such expressions reflect an unsophisticated knowledge of language, but they can also occur while speaking, when body language, expressions, and intonation can clarify that “belief” refers to an uncertainty rather than to a belief. This hierarchy of uncertainty is often expressed in descending order from “I know” to “I believe” to “I think” to “I feel.” On the other hand, the cues inherent in oral expression do not exist in written discourse, where much more care must be given to word choice. A problem arises when “know,” “believe,” “think,” and “feel” are consistently used relationally: any sense of the substantive differences between knowledge, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings is lost. Likewise, when logical inferences, expressions of ideals, or recollections of past events are expressed in terms of beliefs, others will inevitably begin treating all as beliefs, frequently resulting in action predicated on the most fervently held belief even when wrong. Generally, to say “I believe …” indicates that the empirical (external) or logical (internal) evidence for an assertion is incomplete, but your circumstances require immediate action. That action may simply be agreeing or disagreeing with an outlandish proposition, or it could concern something more serious. Whatever the circumstances, the essence of belief is accepting either unconditionally or provisionally an assertion supported by inconclusive evidence. Sometimes, people finesse such situations by appealing to authority. They embrace a belief because a trusted authority supports it: “I have no firsthand knowledge of someone’s action, but I am willing to accept that you saw it, and I will take action based on your testimony.” People will often embrace religious beliefs or moral positions on the credible testimony of an authority. While I am willing to accept assertions of belief in both written and oral communication when used rhetorically as an exhortation, such usages rest less easy with me when used in rational discourse. In such cases, the author is usually trying to inspire us to some idea. On the other hand, how do you interpret an assertion such as, “We believe that accounting for (you name it) should be done (you specify it)”? Is the writer a narcissistic egomaniac trying to assert his will like an absolute monarch? Is the writer simply uncertain about his assertion? Does the writer possess some evidence to support the assertion, but not enough to draw either an empirical or a logical conclusion? Is the writer simply confused? Choosing Intelligent Discourse The rhetoric of belief
does not usually result in satisfying or long-term solutions to problems,
because the resulting polarization leads everyone to look for immediate
compromises in their own self-interest. We’ve all been in the situation
where someone says, “I believe X,” and you say, “That’s
nice; I believe Y.” It’s hard to have discourse about beliefs.
You either accept or reject them. It’s also hard to achieve consensus,
because some parties will be in the position of denying their beliefs. The last time we went through this process it was immensely contentious, riddled with numerous unsatisfying negotiated compromises, and replete with assertions whose purpose was to provide future justification for existing positions, partially because of the rhetoric of belief. This time, let’s make every attempt to leave the rhetoric of belief behind and to engage in intelligent discourse on this very important topic.
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