Posted on 11/06/2001 5:22:36 PM PST by AndyJackson
Suppose that you purchased a book entitled "Treasure I have Buried on Uncharted Islands in the Carribean," wherein the author promises to provide directions to a trove of gold and jewels on a heretofore uncharted Island in the Lesser Antilles. You read along and discover that the author sets off on a voyage to the Mediterranean, does a triple loop around Sicily braving the straits of Messina and wanders off sailing up the Hellespont on an argosy to the Black Sea. When you next wake up you are being charmed by a description of the lax morals of Polynesian girls and bored by a recipe for potting breadfruit for sea transport back home. After a search for the Northwest Passage, the book concludes in Alaska with a hunt for lion that prove all too elusive, at which point you are told that X marks the spot.
You would rightly conclude that the author is a fraud as are the editor and publisher, despite the entertaining diversion to Tahiti. Your friend who, book in hand, dumps family and friends and procures yacht, pick and shovel and sets off on a voyage of discovery, you would declare a chump.
Something like this happens from time to time here on Free Republic as intellectual frauds traipse around in their transparent garb, providing seductive glimpses of what prove upon closer inspection to be unsightly scenes underneath. There are ways to avoid being swindled by these authors' self-delusion, through a rigorous examination of the logical foundations of these articles, which I would like to discuss in an effort to make us better readers and the political essayists of our world better writers.
There is nothing wrong, per se, with rhetoric. Rhetorical flourish, like the naked Polynesian, amuses the mind and keeps our attention riveted to otherwise boring material. The problem comes when a rhetorical device distracts, first the author, and then ourselves from fundamental errors in the logical construction of an argument. There are many places one can go to learn about standard logical or rhetorical fallacies. My personal favorite and one of the most highly reputed is David H. Fisher's very entertaining Historian's Fallacies. You can also find multiple references online by searching on "rhetorical and logical fallacies" in google or some such.
Many of the kinds of errors that are committed are well known examples here on Free Republic, i.e.
- Name calling or arguing about the morality or other character faults of the poster or author
- Circular reasoning
- Question begging - assuming something to be true and then deducing that it must be true
- Posing a question, not answering it, but assuming the (actually false) conclusion anyway.
- Getting your facts wrong
- Misunderstanding the significance of facts
- Arguing about semantics, i.e. about what term you use for something, and using words imprecisely so that you are constantly shifting the ground of the debate.
The list goes on, some obvious, some subtle, but errors all, nevertheless.
Usually the offenders are liberals writing in our daily press, but a recent example of this kind of intellectual fraud was recently posted on Free Republic, written by a self-described neo-conservative. I am going to use it here as a masterful example of poor writing. The analysis is long. That is because the author's errors are many. You needn't read the whole to get a sense of how bad it is. But he gets nothing right. Not even the use of "a" or "the," and you are left with questioning the meaning of "is." It is full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
The original post was What Separates The U.S. From The Terrorist Nations Of The World? In the below analysis, the bold words are the author's. The stuff in brackets are my comments and analysis. If you have already read through the original thread, my apologies for boring you.
What Separates the U.S. from The Terrorist Nations of the World?
[I am going to begin with how he frames his question, the topic for his essay. He has had plenty of opportunity to rewrite the question as he worked through the essay, and so there is no excuse for error here. However, many errors are already apparent. He asks a question that directs a line of inquiry that is so broad that you could write books on it. Had he narrowed his question, he might have constrained his answers to something he and we could understand in such a short essay. On the other hand what you don't know, right now, but you will learn, is that in writing down his question, his mind is already bound to a track that railroas us and him into the logical hole of the nothingness that he leads us to. Perhaps if he had a more open minded question he would get a better answer, or even admit an answer other than the moral equivalence he is driving to. Even worse is the sloppiness and imprecision. In posing the "What seperates" admits so vague a range that the Pacific Ocean would answer him just fine. "The Terrorist States" is a terribly dangerous phrase. The misused "the" implies that he knows exactly what he is talking about, but we could endlessly debate which are "the" terrorist states and which are not. I note this slipperiness in figuring out what he aiming at because, as you will see, the target that he attempts to hit is moved as the arrow travels towards its final nihilistic end.
This question will be construed by many to be unpatriotic, un-American, and simply uncalled for. [Right off he heads nor' by nor'west when the chart shows south. This is a distraction. It is also an anthropomorphic fallacy A question is a syntactical structure, not a sentient being capable of patriotism and Americanism. Stating that it is uncalled for means that there exists no individual who called for it, a fact disproven by the author calling for it. He hopes to gain our sympathy so that we give him a pass on what he is about to do.] Many will scoff [We scoff at his feeble answer] at the idea that such a question should even be addressed [This is wrong. Fairly asked and answered it is an important and urgent question] , but I believe it is one that we should ponder. [So instead of gassing, please do ponder] Why? [why do I think? Why do I exist? Just get on with it.] Because we are currently attacking another nation for carrying out acts of mass destruction [we are at war with them for the unprovoked bombing of New York city and the Pentagon, as well as preceding unprovoked actions. By putting in argumentative characterizations he opens up a line of litigation that would be closed if he were precise in his terms. It is important to keep this straight because he gives himself a logical inch and we wake up swallowing an indigestible elephant] that pale in comparison to what we ourselves have done. [This is a false analogy. We have not engaged in unprovoked attacks that have killed thousands of foreign civilians, a point he cannot keep straight. He draws a comparison calculated to our disadvantage even though the terms are so vague as to leave us wondering how he pulled it off. Less is more and with rhetorical flourish we are guilty. Even so, had he written this down as a principle thesis and argued for it, he might have salvaged something, but he doesn't]
Before I'm tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail, [Now he tacks around to another point of the compass, still off course, and appeals to our sympathy, again, except I have none at this point and am ready to get on with the tar and feathering for his fraud] let me just say [now he turns 360 and doesn't say anything relevant] that I support the idea of [not the action, just the idea of the action] a legitimate, just, and, yes, even moral [semantic hair splitting - what is the difference? But he uses this to cloak himself in intellectual sophistry without demonstrating that he knows what in hell he is talking about] war [this is a rhetorical swindle. He has staked out the moral high-ground for himself and banished us to the swamps, without so much as an argument. Just war theory is very complex. He has abrogated for himself the right to decide what is a just war, but does not argue the point. Further, he sneaks in a snear that we don't see - the great and moral patriot, looks down his nose at the present war and wrinkles it in disgust ] . I believe such a war can and should be declared when the security of the citizens of the United States is directly at risk [directly is argumentative. We should not fight a war when citizens are only indirectly at risk - whatever that means] . After all [giggling like a liberal - heh heh, this is so evident I shouldn't even have to tell you] , the primary job [Not "a," but "the"] of the federal government [it isn't the voters who decide, or the constitution, but this self-righteous author who will decide] , contrary to the modern teachings of liberal and neo-conservative collectivists [First, he is putting words in the mouths of others and then he beats them over the head and calls them names for it, like a cheap lawyer. Those of us who might disagree with him about primary jobs or anything else are bad kinds of people -collectivists, both liberal and neo] , is to provide for the common defense of the nation [what about life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, just to name a few] . If the security, liberty, and lives of its citizens are threatened, the government has a sworn duty to eliminate that threat. [He thunders ominously apparently accusing all collectivists of defaulting on their patriotic obligations, he the stalwart warrior in valiant defense of his country while the rest of us are off on foreign adventures]
[How do you make any sense out of this paragraph above. It is shameless pandering and irrelevancy].
Unfortunately, most of the conflicts [this most sets us up for a false generalization which he then uses to his advantage] we have seen in the last century were the result of the federal government ignoring its obligation [I think you fight a war through intent, not through negligence] to the immediate defense of our own nation [This is another swindle. The high minded call above was to declare war when the security of the citizens of the United States is directly at risk, and now we are reduced to immediate defense of our own nation] in order to pursue more global concerns [He has leaped to the conclusion that our wars are unjust and fought for global aggrandizement, while neglecting the security interest of the U.S. Many leftists before him have argued this thesis and have failed to carry the argument, so he needs to make it] . Can anyone make the case that the conflicts we saw in places like Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia had anything to do with protecting the freedom of American citizens? [This is such an enormous swindle it is hard to take it all in. First, answering "no" here does not answer any other versions of this because he has shifted his terms yet again - from protecting risk to individuals; then to immediate defense of the nation; and now to freedom. Here he asks one question, poses an unanswered second, even though I believe it to be answerable, and then declares he has carried an entirely different point. Furthermore, this list of wars is far from exhaustive. It is also a temporal fallacy. What happened in another time and place involving people who are now dead may or may not have some bearing on the current circumstance, but he needs to demonstrate the connection. Nevertheless, not trying he leaves us to surmise in the negative and by sleight of hand gets our eye to saw in half the lady that was not there. ]
Now, the same people [not so fast - were they the same? Who were they?] who were so quick [again argumentative. Were they quick? Most of them are now dead] to send soldiers off to kill and die [ I thought the intent was to defend something or other, but now it is to kill and die, which are the means of war and not the goal of war. This is a fallacy of motivation. It is another sleight of hand. Just war is ok, but killing and dying are not.] for democracy overseas [yet another slippery shift in what we are about.] while ignoring the government's assaults on our liberty here at home [plenty of us have not ignored assaults on our liberty here at home ] are calling [who is doing this] for unity [he is putting words in my mouth. I don't call for unity. I call for action to protect us from terrorists and their sponsors. If others want to join me fine. If not, I still want action.] in battling yet another foreign enemy [Now he is inconsistent. He argued above that we are supposed to fight foreign enemies, but now, fighting more foreign enemies is bad. Do we go to war against domestic enemies?] . Perhaps our [Perhaps? He is hedging. Also, what's this "we" stuff?] current predicament [now we are in a predicament. What is this predicament that he has so casually seduced us into?] calls for some serious self-examination. [his current predicament certainly calls for him to engage in some serious self-examination. How can one short paragraph carry so many factual fallacies and false assumptions?]
In our nationalistic frenzy [we Americans are raving lunatics striking out at anything with not thought, plan or provocation] we have been so intent on rooting out evil overseas [I thought our goal was to get rid of the Taliban and disrupt the terrorists, not root out evil overseas. We have gone from aggrandizement to dying for democracy overseas to rooting out evil overseas] that we have failed to notice the sins of our own nation [This is a charge that does not hold up. We are well aware of our own sins.] . Again, I ask, what separates the U.S. from the terrorist nations of the world? [I have repeated the question. Therefore, I am serious. Also, as soon as I say something, I will be right. He has prepared us for the answer that he wants to give. We are ready to scream surrender. We see, aided by his empty rhetoric that there is no difference, not a wit, of which he is, in any case, devoid]
Many [just who are these they, we, manys and mosts] would say that we have a much greater respect for life [than whom] and would never consider unleashing the kinds of atrocities we saw on September 11. Attacking innocent civilians with such cold-blooded calculation is beyond our comprehension [It is not beyond our comprehension at all. We comprehend the hatred expressed for our values and way of life very well and are working overtime to root out the evil maniacs who perpetrated this crime against humanity] . This kind of thinking [what kind of thinking. He hasn't expressed a coherent thought to this point] lends credence to the old adage "ignorance is bliss." [what does it mean to lend credence to an adag? Does he mean that he now believes that ignorance is bliss? And from this we are to conclude that we are ignorantly blissful or blissfully ignorant. ]
During the last "just" war, World War II, [this is argumentative. Who says this was the last just war. Him? ] the U.S. made it standard military procedure [By order of the President of the United States it is now military procedure] to specifically target civilians [if it is a military target skip it. It is the civilians we are after] . German cities like Hamburg and Dresden were subjected to some of the most intense bombing raids in history [Only because we were after civilians. There were not legitimate military targets in these places.] . Even [what even. They made war on us] Japanese non-combatants [pretty soon they will become innocent civilians in his next sleight of hand] in Tokyo could not escape the relentless firebombing [They could. Their government could have begun discussions with us of terms to end a war that they started] . This policy of attacking civilian targets culminated [it is our policy to bomb civilians and therefore, no argument, I HST am going to drop the bomb. Maybe HST made the decision based on other arguments] in President Truman's order [I thought HST, the sentient human made the decision, not the inanimate American policy] to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The result of these kinds of attacks [these kinds implies that there were lots of other attacks like this. Be precise, it is important] throughout the war was a civilian death toll that climbed into the hundreds of thousands [and how many millions of military and/or civilians were killed by the unprovoked enemy action to which we were responding] . Our government deliberately utilized this kind of warfare [these "this kind of" statements are irritating and gratuitous. It is also a fuzzy referent. To what kind of warfare would he have had us resort in this last just war?] in order to strike terror in the hearts of foreign civilians [maybe the end was not terror, but putting a stop to this god awful war that they started. ] . Sound familiar? [God is he an obnoxious whining bastard. No it doesn't sound familiar. Nor does it sound right. But this sets us up for the next swindle]
Needless to say [then don't say] , we do not have to look outside our borders for examples of the very evil we claim to loathe [we claim to, but don't in fact loathe it? What evil is it that we supposedly loathe. And since this evil, or some evil exists within out boarders we are not to look outside our borders for some other evil - like terrorists who blow up American cities. We can and do look inside our boarders for terrorists, but that is not the very evil he wants us to focus on, but some other evil, which is, in fact different] . Case in point, abortion [If you want to argue the moral equivalence of abortion and terrorism argue it. But he isn't man enough to do this directly. He is a cowardly swindler ] . Since the unconstitutional [The S.C. said it was constitutional, and the Congress has not overturned it. It may not conform with his sense of morality, but under our constitution, by the actions taken it is Constitutional. ] Roe v. Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973, we have witnessed the government-sanctioned murder [Thou shalt kill, kill, kill - I think not] of over 40 million innocent children [I am not going to get sidetracked into an abortion argument, but this is the author's swindle. He has suckered in the anti-abortion crowd in a false syllogism. If we oppose terrorism we must fight abortion and if we admit abortions we cannot fight terrorism] . This is an accomplishment that even the worst terrorist nations cannot claim. [This is false. Even if you admit his point about abortion, there are lots of horrors of equal magnitude out there] Why have we failed to unite against this particular evil? [Well, you know the answer. Because you cannot get two people to see it the same way because despite what the anti-abortion crowd argues the case is not clearly all on one side of the case at all. It is a mess. An it isn't that we are all moral monsters - we all agree that swindling little old ladies out of their life savings is immoral. Some issues are more ambiguous than others and they are not all of a piece.]
It is understandable that Americans continue to feel outraged by the attacks of September 11. [His oily condescension is really irritating. It is understandable - but perhaps not justified?] The media guaranteed that all of us had a front row seat to the grim scenes of death and destruction [Our outrage isn't that 5,000 people were killed and $100B of GDP went up in a puff of smoke. It is only these grim images of violence played over and over that have overcome our more sensible instincts and conditioned us into feeling an unnatural outrage] . We could not escape the gruesome images [You could. You could turn off your TV. Some of us even did.] of commercial airliners slamming into skyscrapers, people hurling themselves out of windows to avoid being burned alive, or a million tons of steel and concrete raining down upon victims and rescuers. [Who is being gratuitously gruesome?]
Think of the collective outrage that would ensue if we were granted the same kind access to the carnage inside an abortion clinic [Think - like the old liberal homily "envision peace." We are asked to think and seduced into believing that thinking would make it so, but the reaction hasn't happened as he wishes. We have been so subjected and the collective outrage has not appeared. The author should ask and answer the question why?] . Imagine if we were to catch a glimpse of the bloody, twisted heaps of mangled limbs, see babies survive an abortion long enough to be tossed out alive with the rest of the medical waste, or hear the screams of mothers realizing, too late, the devastating consequences of their actions. [Again he resorts to gruesomeness, and creates a new category of logical fallacy. He needs to argue the point but appeals to our emotions instead, thinking that it is only our emotions that are at work, and no rational faculty, when we are outraged at Sept 11]
Are all these innocent lives worth it? [The slippery bastard does it again and slipped in an innocent when we were not looking. Previously we were just attacking civilians. Now the charge has morphed to attacking innocent civilians. Also, worth what? There is some end that we are apprently after. Name it fer chrissake. It is a bad sentence. The question should have been phrased are the deaths of these people worth the end that we achieved, whatever it was. Were German or Japanese civilians innocent when their governments were guilty?] Should we applaud the deliberate killing [who applauds deliberate killings. I don't, and I really don't think HSTdid either] of over 200,000 Japanese civilians by our atomic bombs because it ended World War II a few weeks ahead of schedule? [now he resorts to a pejorative without getting his facts right. A few weeks, a few months, a few years, a few hundred, a few thousand, a few 100,000 lives. What is the difference? Those who argue that we only ended the war a few weeks early commit the counterfactual fallacy. They are attempting to argue in a world where the bomb was dropped and the war ended and have no evidence from a world where the bomb was not dropped. Were the skies of Japan white with criss-crossing surrender proposals? Were citizens pleading with their government to get the inevitable over with? I think not.] Are we to just accept [ who we? Who "just" accepts] the murder of 1.5 million children [I don't accept it. But the problem with the argument is that it is a stretch to get from abortion of foetus to murder of children the latter of which we all accept is wrong. The former presents some problems. Some moral questions are difficult for a reason. If not we wouldn't have this contention in our society. ] every year because of our distorted [his use of the word distortion is a distortion. If you disagree with him you are distorted] view of individual liberty and personal choice [it is not distorted. It is a deliberate view of individual liberty and personal choice with which this author, and many in his audience differ.] ? Do we continue to tolerate [we don't tolerate the actions of a government. We elect representatives. If we don't like what they do, we elect different representatives.] the actions of a government that believes it has more important [what are these more important things that he has in mind. Tell us] things to do than protect the rights of the innocent [Slippery, slippery, slippery. We went from defending citizens from risk to protecting the rights of the innocent. And not just some rights, or all rights, or all innocent. But this argument is worse than this. It is that because our government allows abortion, we cannot tolerate its actions and therefore it is wrong to defend ourselves against foreign enemies. The further twist of illogic is the proposition that the author seems to advocate, namely, if we are going to do the indefensible and defend against foreign enemies then we must not allow abortion. Surely these actions can be debated independently]?
Foreign civilians, unborn children, national integrity [these things are not of the same kind. This fallacy of composition is important because criminal acts accumulate. You are the worse for being guilty of three than of two, but the third, sacrificing national integrity is not a crime against people. It is a violation of an abstract concept. You don't go to jail for deranging a semantic structure. You go to jail for injuring a human being.] - evidently [it ain't evident. You need to demonstrate it] , these are the sacrifices with which we are willing to live [Who we. He maybe or they but certainly not me.] . Such a thing is to be expected when a society adopts an "end justifies the means" philosophy. [This is jumping to a conclusion. We did not adopt an ends justify the means philosophy and saying it don't make it so] In doing so, we have only [only, maybe we have done something else as well, but he excludes anything else without argument] succeeded in demonstrating that we are just as capable [being capable is not a violation of morality. Ethics is about deciding what you do do out of what you can do.] as any terrorist nation of committing acts of senseless violence [some of the acts of which we are accused are not senseless and there was plenty of thought behind them] with little or no regard for the sanctity of human life [this is a gratuitous tautology added because of its additional moral opprobrium What else is a senseless act of violence? This entire paragraph is so bad I don't know where to start. First, it appears to be a circular argument putting the cart before the horse syntactically and therefore logically. We sacrifice civilians, children, and national integrity, therefore we are guilty of an "ends justifies the means philosophy." Therefore we get what we ask for, namely the sacrifice of civilians, children, and national integrity. There is another error, which is that an "end justifies the means" philosophy signifies nothing significant, though it casts a pall of moral opprobrium. What the author would like to mean is that a desirable end means the means are immoral (e.g. invoking low welfare payments as justification for abortion means that we are scoundrels) Unfortunately, the syllogism is not universally true, and in fact it is usually false. Sometimes the end is the only way of deciding whether the means are ok. Oral health is the justification for tooth extraction, which act otherwise performed would be felonious battery. The morality of any act, will have to stand or fall on its own, weighing the benefits of the act along with the consequences and there is no universal rule. ]
So [i.e. "therefore," therefore what? What has he argued above the allows him to therefore anything other than that he is a bad writer and an intellectual fraud.] just what exactly is it that separates the United States from the terrorist nations of the world? [He would be helped if his question were more precise. But he gets a pass. He has now asked the question three times, for emphasis, and still is unable, despite his valiant (well actually pathetic efforts) failed to find an answer.] Maybe [but maybe not. You see he hedges so he cannot be wrong] the answer is more elusive than we care to admit. [Did the answers floating around in his perfervid imagination elude his efforts to trap them in a cage of clear and rational expression, or did he evade addressing the many clear answers that this question provokes, however imprecisely worded it is. Ideas are not elusive, sentient beings are. And like I said, if you hunt lion in Alaska you will find them elusive. You have to try the right place. And, concerned that a mountain lion might be a lion because he gets wrapped up in words rather than things and acts he keeps changing the name of the animal he is hunting every time he sees a track in the permafrost. Instead of answering the question he declares it unanswerable - having worked overtime to evade rational thought- and with the mastery of the illusionist the nothing that he leaves us with draws us to connect the dots in our minds eye and conclude that we are the moral equivalent of terrorists. I presume that was his purpose. If his purpose was to state that he didn't know the answer, why did he not, like the poor student who has not studied, write in his essay book "I don't know." He has set himself up for failure. He has to prove a negative - by his logic structure, and except in mathematics that is very hard to do. It is impossible when there are very good answers to his question staring him in the face.]
What in the hell does this mean? Is this English? What is the purpose of your [comment ommited] analysis and why do we care?
The quality of the rhetoric is appalling now, and we have to sift through much chaff to find the wheat.
It used to be that Vanity posts were MERCILESSLY pilloried, and there was about one article from the powers-that-be per week admonishing against worthless Vanities (yours is NOT one of those, BTW).
In fact, people were regularly run off just for posting stupid nonsense, and it was so strictly enforced that many dealt with thusly would log on one last time under a pseudonym, and announce an "alternative" website had been set up. (The ONLY one of these that was in any way successful, BTW, was Lucianne.Com, and I think even it has fallen on hard times).
I consider, with all due respect, that this dates from the time when FR first began accepting regular donations. The Management felt--understandably--that people who "pay" for access ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. And later that seemed to extend to most of FReeperdom in general, even some who were rather outrageous (the idiotic Libertines being a great example of that, lately taking over the "Most Obnoxious" Award from the Buchananites.
It does a lot more for ones reputation in the long run if one is reasoned and logical. I would implore anyone who doesn't already know, to study the numerous lists of logical and rhetorical fallacies on the internet and follow them in your own posting so that we look intellectually sound at the very least. I'd be happy if everyone simply used correct first order logic, never mind the rest.
Guilty as charged. I had rewritten it in my text editor, but working between that and the posting window is cumbersome and I messed up getting it across.
too long...
There is a point. This author wrote the worst piece of illogic I have yet seen on FreeRepublic. It is astonishing that so many fallacies can be cramed into so few words.
wasted it away...
Your undertaking is a WASTE of time!
Leni
I pointedly refused, already, to apologise for the fact that one author can commit so many errors of argumentation in such a short piece of prose writing. Further, I have seen writing almost this bad from the left, but I have never seen anything so atrocious that suckered in so many people from the right. How he works to sucker folks in is very very subtle. You have to watch in action, closely, word by shifty word and phrase by inverted phrase.
We might not be able to find or name the fallacies found in such posts with as much accuracy as you do but we ain't stoopid either.
That said, thanks for the effort.
I'll try to avoid that. Obviously, it was a painful experience for you, and I'll learn from your mistakes.
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