Thanks for that enlightening overview of the myriad of new fallacies gaining traction today. What always annoys me is what might be called "heads I win, tails you lose" fallacy.
Take election integrity for example. When Democrats lose a close race, the mainstream media is gravely concerned about any possibility of cheating or foreign influence, and people like Hillary Clinton are given a magaphone to question the results. But when Trump loses, the fact that he questions the integrity of a deeply flawed process makes him a dangerous threat to "democracy".
Those of a certain age may remember that 9 out of 10 doctors recommend Camel cigarettes. I refer to it as Consensus Science vs. Scientific Method. We saw plenty of it during the COVID pandemic. But then, if I had blood on my hands like Dr. Fauci, I would work hard to contain the region of acceptable answers.
Yes indeed…. it is time to exercise discernment bathed in wisdom with an adequate dose of pragmatism and suspicion. With postmodern power theories embedded in the collective consciousness over decades it is time to ‘trust but verify’ before accepting ‘expert’ advice.
Anthropologists call the way native peoples think “pre-logical” because they don’t think in terms of what we recognize as logical categories, and they don’t make a subject-object distinction between themselves and nature. In short they’re ruled by their appetites and natural inclinations as they occur.
These elites think in ways that are “post-logical”. They’re also ruled by their belly, by their desires of domination. They’ve passed beyond the hindrances and considerations of the unwashed masses. This “elevation” above the unwashed masses was what gave Ayn Rand the justification to subject her husband to her having an open affair with a student. It’s the same with John Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and what they did with the young girls that Simone would procure (exactly like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell). Michelle Foucault also thought he was above it all, and look at what he did with those children in the graveyard. These people always end up being ruled by their base level appetites, to which their intellect only serves as a functionary to those ends. They’re post logical and don’t care. You need some semblance of logic to care if you are being logical. Just like you can’t explain empathy to people who don’t have it. At least some empathy is needed to care whether you have empathy.
They remind me of the verse “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance”
Logical thought and consistency and rationality don’t matter to these people. Any stick will work to beat their opponents.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.” Theodore Dalrymple
You rightly point out that it’s a power struggle Bill. This is a good list of their fallacies for the rest of us who still do care for truth.
Thank you, Bill, for your excellent start identifying common fallacies and inviting further thought. Avoiding, spotting, and rebutting fallacies can provide a good way for correcting many ills of thinking, reporting, politics, discourse, education, etc. Perhaps it’s of use here to share good books, articles, videos that further your purposes? I’ll start with a classic from my youth. Two links that, IMHO, rightly praise D.H. Fischer’s book and a third of acerbic critique:
Have you ever noticed how many headlines begin with “Experts were surprised that…” whatever event occurred? If they’re experts, shouldn’t they have predicted that the event would occur?
I would add the Outdated Methods Fallacy. As a retired teacher, I got so tired of sitting in training seminars where we were constantly told that we needed to update our approach just because the old ways were old. The line would go something like, “That’s how we did it in the ‘60s and we can’t do that anymore.” I would always think, “My car had 4 wheels in the ‘60s, should I change that, too?” It was not lost on me that the more we try these new methods the lower test scores sink.
Closely related is the Evidence Based Fallacy. The new buzzword in education is “Evidence Based Approach.” Set aside the fact that evidence is easily manipulated to suit one’s agenda, it never occurs to these experts that what works for one student in one community might not work for another.
Thanks for this, Dan. For a counterexample to "new is better than old," watch this painful clip of doing addition now versus back when. I haven't confirmed its veracity, but it is consistent with what I hear from two grade school teachers that I know:
I’ve actually seen worse examples than that. Getting the correct answer isn’t even the goal, it’s all about “the process.” Close enough is close enough. (Meanwhile, Boeing airplanes are falling out the sky as raising a generation that believes this isn’t new!)
Nate Bargatze describes common core math pretty well:
In the second paragraph, you mentioned a litany of problems facing the present world. You say these are the issues through which the "Elite Expert Class” justifies both their existence and their efforts to wrestle the reins of our lives out of our hands. It may be worthwhile to give them what they want if they are able to solve these complicated problems. It may be more believable, though, if they were not the instigators of most of them through fictional publishing.
Thanks for this, Ian. You don't give somebody the reins to a dangerous stallion when they haven't mastered a 20-year old mare. In any case, solving our problems is merely a pose by the elite expert class. Control is their aim, and it helps their aim to keep our problems interminable (recall the never ending wars in Orwell's 1984 -- they serve a purpose).
Thanks for that enlightening overview of the myriad of new fallacies gaining traction today. What always annoys me is what might be called "heads I win, tails you lose" fallacy.
Take election integrity for example. When Democrats lose a close race, the mainstream media is gravely concerned about any possibility of cheating or foreign influence, and people like Hillary Clinton are given a magaphone to question the results. But when Trump loses, the fact that he questions the integrity of a deeply flawed process makes him a dangerous threat to "democracy".
Those of a certain age may remember that 9 out of 10 doctors recommend Camel cigarettes. I refer to it as Consensus Science vs. Scientific Method. We saw plenty of it during the COVID pandemic. But then, if I had blood on my hands like Dr. Fauci, I would work hard to contain the region of acceptable answers.
Much needed encouragement and challenge to be engaged in shaping culture in our pursuit of truth.
As usual, Bill, your views mesh with mine like Swiss watch gears!
Yes indeed…. it is time to exercise discernment bathed in wisdom with an adequate dose of pragmatism and suspicion. With postmodern power theories embedded in the collective consciousness over decades it is time to ‘trust but verify’ before accepting ‘expert’ advice.
Anthropologists call the way native peoples think “pre-logical” because they don’t think in terms of what we recognize as logical categories, and they don’t make a subject-object distinction between themselves and nature. In short they’re ruled by their appetites and natural inclinations as they occur.
These elites think in ways that are “post-logical”. They’re also ruled by their belly, by their desires of domination. They’ve passed beyond the hindrances and considerations of the unwashed masses. This “elevation” above the unwashed masses was what gave Ayn Rand the justification to subject her husband to her having an open affair with a student. It’s the same with John Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and what they did with the young girls that Simone would procure (exactly like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell). Michelle Foucault also thought he was above it all, and look at what he did with those children in the graveyard. These people always end up being ruled by their base level appetites, to which their intellect only serves as a functionary to those ends. They’re post logical and don’t care. You need some semblance of logic to care if you are being logical. Just like you can’t explain empathy to people who don’t have it. At least some empathy is needed to care whether you have empathy.
They remind me of the verse “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance”
Logical thought and consistency and rationality don’t matter to these people. Any stick will work to beat their opponents.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.” Theodore Dalrymple
You rightly point out that it’s a power struggle Bill. This is a good list of their fallacies for the rest of us who still do care for truth.
Thank you, Bill, for your excellent start identifying common fallacies and inviting further thought. Avoiding, spotting, and rebutting fallacies can provide a good way for correcting many ills of thinking, reporting, politics, discourse, education, etc. Perhaps it’s of use here to share good books, articles, videos that further your purposes? I’ll start with a classic from my youth. Two links that, IMHO, rightly praise D.H. Fischer’s book and a third of acerbic critique:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9037.Historians_Fallacies
https://spotterup.com/book-review-historians-fallacies-toward-logic-historical-thought/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004839317600600108
Good call. There are lots of good books on fallacies.
That’s funny that you mention the book on historical fallacies, I just got my copy a few days ago. David Hackett Fischer is great.
Have you ever noticed how many headlines begin with “Experts were surprised that…” whatever event occurred? If they’re experts, shouldn’t they have predicted that the event would occur?
I would add the Outdated Methods Fallacy. As a retired teacher, I got so tired of sitting in training seminars where we were constantly told that we needed to update our approach just because the old ways were old. The line would go something like, “That’s how we did it in the ‘60s and we can’t do that anymore.” I would always think, “My car had 4 wheels in the ‘60s, should I change that, too?” It was not lost on me that the more we try these new methods the lower test scores sink.
Closely related is the Evidence Based Fallacy. The new buzzword in education is “Evidence Based Approach.” Set aside the fact that evidence is easily manipulated to suit one’s agenda, it never occurs to these experts that what works for one student in one community might not work for another.
Thanks for this, Dan. For a counterexample to "new is better than old," watch this painful clip of doing addition now versus back when. I haven't confirmed its veracity, but it is consistent with what I hear from two grade school teachers that I know:
https://x.com/i/status/1837128652313575925
I’ve actually seen worse examples than that. Getting the correct answer isn’t even the goal, it’s all about “the process.” Close enough is close enough. (Meanwhile, Boeing airplanes are falling out the sky as raising a generation that believes this isn’t new!)
Nate Bargatze describes common core math pretty well:
https://youtu.be/-tg3C4bhhz4?si=UONGJUqVLlxi5Bkl
Thanks Dan & Bill for good, funny takes re arithmetic.
In the second paragraph, you mentioned a litany of problems facing the present world. You say these are the issues through which the "Elite Expert Class” justifies both their existence and their efforts to wrestle the reins of our lives out of our hands. It may be worthwhile to give them what they want if they are able to solve these complicated problems. It may be more believable, though, if they were not the instigators of most of them through fictional publishing.
Thanks for this, Ian. You don't give somebody the reins to a dangerous stallion when they haven't mastered a 20-year old mare. In any case, solving our problems is merely a pose by the elite expert class. Control is their aim, and it helps their aim to keep our problems interminable (recall the never ending wars in Orwell's 1984 -- they serve a purpose).
I am reminded of some of the content ideas of Saul Alinsky in Rules For Radicals. Do anything that upsets the status quo.