Argumentum ad populum (stroking)

 

Argumentum ad populum means “argument to the people” or “telling the people what they want to hear.” The colloquial term from the Watergate ear is “stroking”, which conjures up pictures of small animals or children being stroked or soothed with compliments until they come to like the person doing the complimenting – and, by extension, his or her ideas.

We all like to hear nice things about ourselves and the group we belong to – we like to be liked- so it stands to reason that we will respond warmly to a person who tells us we are “hard –working taxpayers” or “the most generous, free spirited nation in the world.” Politicians tell farmers they are “the backbone of the American economy” and college students that they are the “leaders and policy makers of tomorrow.”

    Obviously, the intent here is to sidetrack us from thinking critically about the man and his ideas. Our own good qualities have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Ask yourself, “Apart from the nice things he has to say about me (and my church, my nation, my ethnic group, my neighbors), what does the candidate stand for? Are his or her ideas in my best interests?”

 

Argumentum ad hominem

 

Argumentum ad hominem means “argument to the man” and that’s exactly what it is. When a propagandist uses argumentum ad hominem, he wants to distract our attention from the issue under   consideration with personal attacks on the people involved. For example, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, some people responded by calling him the”baboon”. But Lincoln’s long arms and awkward carriage had nothing to do with the merits of the Proclamation or the question of whether or not slavery should be abolished.

     Refuse to be way –laid by argumentum ad hominem and ask, “Do personal qualities of the person being discussed have anything to do with the issue at hand? Leaving him aside, how good is the idea itself?”

 

Transfer

 

   In argumentum ad hominem, an attempt is made to associate negative aspects of a person’s character or personal appearance with the issue or idea he supports. The transfer device uses the same process of association to make us accept or condemn a given person or idea.

   The process works equally well in reverse, when guilt by association is used to transfer our dislike or disapproval of one idea or group to some other idea or group that the propagandist wants us to reject and condemn. “John Doe says we need to make some changes in the way our government operates; well that’s exactly what the Ku Klux Klan has said, so there’s a meeting of great minds!” That’s guilt by association for you; there is no logical connection between John Doe and get us thinking (and worrying) about the Ku Klux Klan and its politics of violence.

   How can we learn to spot transfer device and distinguish between fair and unfair associations? We can teach ourselves to suspect judgment until we have answered these questions: “Is there any legitimate connection between the idea under discussion and the thing it is associated with? Leaving the transfer device out of the picture, what are the merits of the idea by itself?”

 

Bandwagon

 

Essentially, the bandwagon urges us to support an action or an opinion because it is popular, because “everyone else is doing it.” This call to “get on the bandwagon” appeals to the strong desire in most of us to be one of the crowds,   not to be left out alone. Advertising makes extensive use of the bandwagon appeal (“Join the Pepsi people”), but so do politicians (“Let us join together in this great cause”). Senator Yakalot uses the bandwagon appeal when he says that “More and more citizens are rallying to my cause every day,” and asks the audience to “join them – and me – in our fight for America.”

   Once the mass begins to move – on the bandwagon – it becomes harder and harder to perceive the leader riding the bandwagon. So don’t be a lemming, rushing blindly on to destruction because “everyone else is doing it.” Stop and ask, “Where is the bandwagon headed? Never mind about everybody else, is this - what is best for me?”

 

Faulty cause and effect

 

As the name suggests, this device sets up a cause –and – effect relationship that may not be true. The Latin name for this logical fallacy is post hoc ergo propter hoc, which means “after this therefore because of this.” But just because one thing happened after another doesn’t   mean that one caused the other.

An example of false cause- and – effect reasoning is offered by the story (probably invented) of a woman aboard the ship “Titanic.” She woke up from a nap and, feeling seasick, looked around for a call button to summon the steward to bring her some medication. She finally located a small button on one of the walls of her cabin and pushed it. A split second later, the Titanic grazed an iceberg in the terrible crash that was to send the entire ship to its destructions. The woman screamed and said, “Oh, God, what have I done? What have I done?” The humor of that anecdote comes from the absurdity of the woman’s assumption that pushing the small red button resulted in the destruction of a ship weighing several   hundred tones: “It happened after I pushed it, therefore it must be because I pushed it”- post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. There is, of course, no cause – and- effect relationship there.

     Don’t be taken in by false cause and effect; be sure to ask, “Is there enough evidence to prove that this cause led to that effect? Could there have been any other causes?

 

  

False analogy

 

         A famous example of this is the old proverb “Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream” often used as an analogy to convince voters not to change administrations in the middle of a war or other crisis. But the analogy is misleading because there are so many differences between the things compared. In what ways is a war or political crisis like a stream? And is a nation of millions of people comparable to a man trying to get across a stream? Analogy is false and unfair when it compares two things that have little in common and assumes that they are identical. Senator Yakalot tries to hoodwink his listeners with false analogy when he says, “Trying to take Americans out of the kind of cars they love is as undemocratic as trying to deprive them of the right to vote.”

    Of course, analogies can be drawn that are reasonable and fair. It would be reasonable, for example, to compare the results of busing in one small Southern city with the possible results of another, if the towns have the same kind of history, population, and school policy. We can decide for ourselves whether an analogy is false or fair by asking, “Are the things being compared truly alike in significant ways? Do the differences between them affect the comparison?

 

Begging the question

 

   Actually, the name of this device is rather misleading, because it does not appear in the form of a question. Begging the question occurs when, in discussing a questionable or debatable point, a person assumes as already established the very point that he is trying to prove. For example, “No thinking citizen could approve such a completely unacceptable policy as this one.” But isn’t the question of whether or not the policy is acceptable the very point to be established? Senator Yakalot begs the question when he announces that his opponent’s plan won’t work “because it is unworkable.”

    We can protect ourselves against this kind of faulty logic by asking, “What is assumed in this statement? Is the assumption reasonable, or does it need more proof?”