Philosophy
So critical thinking has made the big time. There it was on Yahoo News, an AP story about our very own President using strawman arguments.
For those who aren't familiar with the term: a strawman is (1) an intentionally weak argument that someone constructs and falsely claims his opponent to be advocating, in order to refute and then claim to have defeated the opponent, or (2) Alan Colmes. The idea is that it is easier to beat the stuffing out of a scarecrow than a real person, so instead of assessing the actual argument the other side is putting up, you substitute a stupid argument, attribute it to them and then claim victory by undermining the stupid argument instead of the real, more interesting one.
(It strikes me that Hannity and Colmes are to political discourse what the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals are to basketball. Rumor has it that George Bush wanted to place the coach of the Washington Generals among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that as a coach, he'd done a heck of a job. )
This fallacy certainly is not the exclusive property of either side of the political aisle, but it is wihtout a doubt true that talk radio has become the megaphone through which certain strawman arguments can be drilled and drilled and drilled into the heads of those under its spell.
So some questions seem in need of discussing. If the AP could bring up example after example of this fallacy being repeatedly committed over the span of Bush's presidency, why are we only hearing about it from them now, six years and two elections in? How did we allow our political discourse to become so polluted? What effect does this have on democracy? What effect does it have on our own politcal, ethical, factual decision making processes? And, most importantly, what the hell can we do about it?
(My answer: teach logic, critical thinking, and write a book -- more on the last one to come). Other suggestions?
- Corporations As People: Is Jack And Suzy Welch's Wsj Op/ed Malicious Or Ignorant?
Sometimes you really wonder whether an article is satire or serious and just that bad. Jack and Suzy Welch have an op/ed in the Wall Street Journal trying to defend the position that corporations are people that is among the worst published arguments...
- How Do They Get Away With It?
As someone who teaches critical thinking for a living, I am more than aware that fallacious reasoning is often psychologically very powerful. Despite what certain Enlightenment thinkers might say, we are not wired for reason. We often find bad arguments...
- Poisoning The Well With The Enemy's Propaganda
Fascinating quotation from one of the President's speeches from last week: "You do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism. If that ever becomes the mind-set of the policymakers in Washington, it means we'll go back to the old days of waiting...
- New Fallacy: Pulling A Falstaff Or Attacking A Blogger
There is a standard rhetorical trick called "Attacking a Strawman" in which an opposing view is claimed to be refuted by ignoring the actual counter-argument, and instead creating a weaker, more easily attacked version of their position which is then...
- Ramesh Ponnuru Is An Asshole (in The Technical Sense Of The Word--personally, He's Most Likely A Nice Fellow, Never Met Him So I Can't Really Say)
Jon Stewart's interview last night with Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review editor and author of Party of Death, was magnificent. One of the points he so wonderfully put forward is that anyone using hyperbolic rhetoric and claiming that difficult moral...
Philosophy
The Falcon and The Strawman
So critical thinking has made the big time. There it was on Yahoo News, an AP story about our very own President using strawman arguments.
For those who aren't familiar with the term: a strawman is (1) an intentionally weak argument that someone constructs and falsely claims his opponent to be advocating, in order to refute and then claim to have defeated the opponent, or (2) Alan Colmes. The idea is that it is easier to beat the stuffing out of a scarecrow than a real person, so instead of assessing the actual argument the other side is putting up, you substitute a stupid argument, attribute it to them and then claim victory by undermining the stupid argument instead of the real, more interesting one.
(It strikes me that Hannity and Colmes are to political discourse what the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals are to basketball. Rumor has it that George Bush wanted to place the coach of the Washington Generals among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that as a coach, he'd done a heck of a job. )
This fallacy certainly is not the exclusive property of either side of the political aisle, but it is wihtout a doubt true that talk radio has become the megaphone through which certain strawman arguments can be drilled and drilled and drilled into the heads of those under its spell.
So some questions seem in need of discussing. If the AP could bring up example after example of this fallacy being repeatedly committed over the span of Bush's presidency, why are we only hearing about it from them now, six years and two elections in? How did we allow our political discourse to become so polluted? What effect does this have on democracy? What effect does it have on our own politcal, ethical, factual decision making processes? And, most importantly, what the hell can we do about it?
(My answer: teach logic, critical thinking, and write a book -- more on the last one to come). Other suggestions?
- Corporations As People: Is Jack And Suzy Welch's Wsj Op/ed Malicious Or Ignorant?
Sometimes you really wonder whether an article is satire or serious and just that bad. Jack and Suzy Welch have an op/ed in the Wall Street Journal trying to defend the position that corporations are people that is among the worst published arguments...
- How Do They Get Away With It?
As someone who teaches critical thinking for a living, I am more than aware that fallacious reasoning is often psychologically very powerful. Despite what certain Enlightenment thinkers might say, we are not wired for reason. We often find bad arguments...
- Poisoning The Well With The Enemy's Propaganda
Fascinating quotation from one of the President's speeches from last week: "You do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism. If that ever becomes the mind-set of the policymakers in Washington, it means we'll go back to the old days of waiting...
- New Fallacy: Pulling A Falstaff Or Attacking A Blogger
There is a standard rhetorical trick called "Attacking a Strawman" in which an opposing view is claimed to be refuted by ignoring the actual counter-argument, and instead creating a weaker, more easily attacked version of their position which is then...
- Ramesh Ponnuru Is An Asshole (in The Technical Sense Of The Word--personally, He's Most Likely A Nice Fellow, Never Met Him So I Can't Really Say)
Jon Stewart's interview last night with Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review editor and author of Party of Death, was magnificent. One of the points he so wonderfully put forward is that anyone using hyperbolic rhetoric and claiming that difficult moral...