Sometimes I wonder if our entire political system is based on argumentative fallacy. This is a very sad prospect to someone who prizes logic. Is it a hasty generalization (irony intended)? Perhaps, however, this election cycle, I too often found myself referencing the ideas of Ad Hominem, Ad Populum, straw man, and moral equivalence arguments. These are not fact-checkable, but they are easily as damaging as the proliferation of patently false information.
In fact, argumentative fallacy can be significantly more damaging to a society than misinformation. It makes the facts irrelevant and the truth impossible to determine. In the absence of logic, our decision making abilities vanish. I have many problems with the media and the production and distribution of information in America. Upon further reflection, however, I believe that societal rejection of logical argument is a broader problem than Fox News or MSNBC.
Think about the 2008 Presidential election and read this collection of common logical argumentative fallacies. How many of them do you recognize from the election cycle? I can think of concrete evidence of each and every example discussed therein. The sources of these fallacies include mainstream media, pundits, the campaigns and their candidates, and the average Joe on the street. It is pandemic throughout our system, and it is tacitly, perhaps unknowingly, accepted by society.
FactCheck, and other sites like it, can be very helpful when sifting through the information of a campaign. Factual accuracy, however, is only half the game. You get one vote in an election. Theoretically, people use facts in an election to help draw a single logical conclusion. If they do not process these facts logically, the conclusion will be flawed.
It is bad enough that practicality, in our two-party system, necessitates an “either/or” conclusion. We should at least mitigate that problem by logically arriving at our decisions.
Feel free to share ideas or examples of logical fallacy from the election in the comments section below.
November 12, 2008...1:09 pm
American Politics and Argumentative Fallacy
Sometimes I wonder if our entire political system is based on argumentative fallacy. This is a very sad prospect to someone who prizes logic. Is it a hasty generalization (irony intended)? Perhaps, however, this election cycle, I too often found myself referencing the ideas of Ad Hominem, Ad Populum, straw man, and moral equivalence arguments. These are not fact-checkable, but they are easily as damaging as the proliferation of patently false information.
In fact, argumentative fallacy can be significantly more damaging to a society than misinformation. It makes the facts irrelevant and the truth impossible to determine. In the absence of logic, our decision making abilities vanish. I have many problems with the media and the production and distribution of information in America. Upon further reflection, however, I believe that societal rejection of logical argument is a broader problem than Fox News or MSNBC.
Think about the 2008 Presidential election and read this collection of common logical argumentative fallacies. How many of them do you recognize from the election cycle? I can think of concrete evidence of each and every example discussed therein. The sources of these fallacies include mainstream media, pundits, the campaigns and their candidates, and the average Joe on the street. It is pandemic throughout our system, and it is tacitly, perhaps unknowingly, accepted by society.
FactCheck, and other sites like it, can be very helpful when sifting through the information of a campaign. Factual accuracy, however, is only half the game. You get one vote in an election. Theoretically, people use facts in an election to help draw a single logical conclusion. If they do not process these facts logically, the conclusion will be flawed.
It is bad enough that practicality, in our two-party system, necessitates an “either/or” conclusion. We should at least mitigate that problem by logically arriving at our decisions.
Feel free to share ideas or examples of logical fallacy from the election in the comments section below.
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