1905 What Is Said Is Not What Is Real
Persuasion is the science and art of manipulating language. It would be wonderful if all persuasive speech were trustworthy and transparent, but that is not the case. History is full of whole population being persuaded to follow well-formed arguments into disastrous consequences. Being persuasive is not the same as being accurate, true, right, or having a good idea.
Propaganda is the best example. Propaganda, at least the negative sort, is successful because it uses slight-of-hand language so that what is said is not the same as what is real. For a country saturated in social media, biased major media, and embroiled in seemingly endless ideological conflict. Clarity and accountability are paramount.
There are some tools of slick logic that are especially pervasive and therefore especially important. They show up constantly in “news” and “information” platforms. They are employed by politicians and commentators incessantly. Here are 7 of them:
1. Distort or misrepresent in order to create an image to attack.
This is usually referred to as building a straw man. The image is a good one because the intension is to begin with an accurate image of an idea or person, distort it, then return to the distortion in order to attack it. In the discussion about socialism and capitalism, the left builds much of its arguments in this way. For them, it is normal to caricature capitalism in its worst condition, generalize that to America’s system, then attack the system. The reality is that there does not exist unregulated capitalism nonetheless almost all the arguments of the left use the extremes of abused capitalism as their model.
2. Compare two things equally which are not the same.
A good example of this is the idea of using two generally related kinds of things against each other, despite the fact that the terms in the comparison are not the same. If a person is comparing socialism to capitalism but uses the caricature from above for capitalism, then neglects to compare it to unregulated socialism instead of just socialism, they have committed this fallacy and their comparison should be ignored.
3. Present only half of reality.
Most of the time this form of argument is referred to as committing a half truth. Using the term half-truth doesn’t describe the whole method. The same approach can be used with any kind of statement that is trying to present information as if that information should constitute the end of the discussion. Most of the time when you read or listen to a progressive complain about income equality in America, they are using half information for their argument. Three recent studies have shown that poverty in America is not nearly as severe as the main stream media or the left in general claims. The most used statistics come from the Census Bureau and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which exclude such elements as money from food stamps, free or subsidized medical care, affordable housing programs, tax benefits and free or reduced cost social services. The more complete information includes all those items. The startling results of this more honest approach show a 2% poverty rate as opposed to an 11% to 15%. It demonstrates that nearly two-thirds of low-income children move upward as adults. The result is that vilifying capitalism in order to justify socialism is a false claim.
4. Make sweeping emotional generalities.
It is also not unusual for critics of America’s economic system to claim that it is responsible for egregious levels of suffering and oppression. The fact is America can proudly demonstrate that 98% of her population lives far above any existing true socialist system in the world. The other obvious problem is that suffering, and oppression have been a human condition throughout history and therefore to claim any direct relationship between it and capitalism is wildly overstated.
5. Apply false assumptions.
It has become popular among progressives to equate any type of government regulation or service to its citizens as a socialist principle. It is an interesting claim, but it is based on the idea that if something is used in a socialist system, then applied in a capitalist system, those tools are by default socialist in nature. But such an idea is a false parallel which mislabels methods that have existed throughout civilized societies for all of history as if only a socialist group formulated it or invented it.
6. Exaggerate.
Human beings love to amplify a point by overstating the facts. This device is common to all worldviews and individuals. The most important point is not that everybody uses it, but that when it is used it must be honestly confronted and analyzed. To say, for instance, that billionaires control the government has great appeal, but demonstrates that they are ignoring the entire structure of American Federalism, from the elected congress to the elected executive, to our independent judiciary.
7. Use deceptive labels to soften offensive ideas.
Americans have become accustomed in the culture war to giving a pass to euphemisms. We have been trained to accept racism under the guise of Affirmative Action or an illegal alien as an undocumented immigrant. The net result is thanks to an affective campaign from progressives. Too many of us have become callus to the harsh realities.
Sit down anytime and watch a politician being interviewed and you will hear probably some of the finest uses of diversion. IF you listen carefully, you’ll notice that a lot of questions never get answered. How many times have we heard the question, “How will you pay for the Green New Deal?” only to be schooled in the evils of climate change and the uselessness of fossil fuels.
So goes the battle for the culture.