Empower yourself--learn the common fallacies and join the Army of Logic

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/

The first site contains the 42 informal logical fallacies.

The second site goes into a little more detail. These are just the first two sites I've googled. I'm just getting started myself.

What the neocons have done, they have done through language and perversions of logic. Most of us are familiar with the Straw Man technique favored by this administration. "There are some who say we should sit down with the terrorists and have tea and crumpets. Well I disagree".

The thing is, this isn't all going to go away when * leaves the White House. These people are going to be around all our lives. There are new robots being trained in thinktanks, College clubs, and in our media. There are always going to be people who want to claim outrageous things like gay marraige hurts traditional marriages, and anything that Clinton did is okay for future presidents to do. They aren't going away.

So let's learn these rules backwards and forwards, so we know how to use them in the course of discussion. Let's learn them so well, that we can point them out simply, in laymen's terms for those without the time to learn them, so they become household words. This is the antidote to what's killing our country. If you don't think neocons spend time learning how to assemble these perverted arguments, you are mistaken.

They are doing the equivalent of wrestling with the language, and it's up to us to learn all the right counter moves. THIS is how we empower ourselves.

They are widely used across the political spectrum.

I have seen many occasions where I have felt the need to link these websites in arguments with people here.

I will say that the use of logical fallacy seems to be growing as an element of national discourse. It is, in my view, a serious reason why our country is in such a precipitous decline.

Understanding how the usual rules of discourse interpretation work also help. I've seen examples of non sequiturs that, strictly speaking, based just on the words used, were indeed non sequiturs. But when the context is taken into account, just turned out to be reasonable discourse: the 'non sequitur' was addressing an adversary's intent, but not the words that were actually used.

Knowing how rhetoric works, and when swaying the listeners is more important than making a cleanly rational argument, helps.

And not assuming that one side is non-human and always evil, while the other is all good and perfection, helps greatly. It increases the skepticism quotient for your own side so that stupid mistakes aren't committed, and permits rational inquiry into what the other side actually said and meant (as opposed to what we want the other side to say and mean) so that we're not arguing against a straw man.

Discourse, logic, rhetoric: different functions, different rules, and making them all work together (as speaker or as listener) is a fine art.

various logical fallacies is a very powerful tool. Even when you know something is wrong, you may not know how to explain what's wrong with it unless you can identify how the logic is faulty or twisted.

:thumbsup:

Once you know what it is, you start seeing it used everywhere. That tactic alone must make up half of the crazy arguments the right tries to pull over.

It also helps to know these things have names. It saves a lot of time that someone has already articulated these tactics so you don't have to start from scratch. To use the Strawman example, it's so much easier to cite the fallacy by name than to say "You just exaggerated my stance to make it easier to argue against"

They already know the moves, we've got to learn how to counter them.

THIS is what we need to fight back. The Repubs use their perverted logic in situations where Democrats don't have time to untangle it. We live in a soundbite culture, and rarely does a Democrat have enough airtime to unravel the bad logic, at least without getting flustered.

These fallacies are great shorthand, where people have already done all the legwork, and reduced the twisted logic to a single term. Without these weapons, we are going to keep getting pushed around, helpless to fight back in the time we are alloted.

I can understand if people don't like the way I'm presenting this, but it's so important, I can't believe no one's paying attention. I firmly believe this is the antidote, and it's a great way to empower ourselves that doesn't require money, power, or even risk. At least learn a few of these so we can stop being ruled by fallacy.

That's a sweeping generalization, but if you try to counter their arguments with logic, you will usually get a blank look or more obfuscatory bullshit.

I agree with you -- this is where we have to begin. But, oh, my God, it's so frustrating.

I taught freshman composition for a while. It was amazing how many students didn't understand -- or believe it when I explained it -- that statements have to be backed up logically. They were much more familiar with the tropes of advertising than of logic. For example, if you "feel" I'm right, I must be right! This kind of thinking made absolute sense to my students.

A few short years later, and I see that this has spread *everywhere*.

I think that what "igil" pointed out here:

"Discourse, logic, rhetoric: different functions, different rules, and making them all work together (as speaker or as listener) is a fine art."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1377099&mesg_id=1377279

all about mastering the use of logical fallacies.

is the ability to spot fatal typos. Take this as an example, from http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/middle-ground.html

"A month ago, a tree in Bill's yard was damaged in a storm. His neighbor, Joe, asked him to have the tree cut down so it would not fall on Joes new shed. Bill refused to do this. Two days ago another storm blew the tree onto Joe's new shed. Joe demanded that Joe pay the cost of repairs, which was $250. Bill said that he wasn't going to pay a cent. Obviously, the best solution is to reach a compromise between the two extremes, so Bill should pay Joe $125 dollars."

There's a rather horrendous typo in there that totally destroys the meaning of the paragraph. Can you see it?? (People shouldn't make such critical mistakes! But that's beside the point.) For some reason, the human mind has an uncanny ability to filter out these mistakes.

"Joe demanded that Joe pay..."

:rofl:

That seemed to be a major theme of that RFK article about Ohio. By making something look like a clerical error, it seems plausible that the perpetrator had no ill intentions.

That typo reminds me of the little brain teaser where you're supposed to find the mistake in the following sentence:

A fool in the
the family.

Most people don't get it. That fits in with the theme. The human mind is very faulty, and takes a lot of shortcuts. Don't think there aren't people studying how to exploit these faults.