Fallacies All Over the Place

 WOW! Winston Churchill, another man who has a talent at hiding fallacies. I do have to admit that I’m a bit jealous of their ability of doing so. If it wasn’t because I have been doing a close reading to the speeches I would have been convince by him, as well as by Orwell and Gandhi.

Tautology is used a lot! Some examples that I found was when he states, “...they shall do so with their eyes open, and not be led blind fold into a trap,” and “Unhappily all that influence, and it is an enormous influence, has been cast the other way.” One might not realize it at first sight, but Churchill is repeating himself by using different words.

A clear common fallacy that I found was when he states the following question, “Why should these unpracticed, unproved, unrepresentative, self-chosen groups of Indian politicians disdain the immense possibilities offered within the limits of the Statutory Commission´s report, and demand an immediate setting up of a United States of India, with themselves in control, and the British army at their orders?”
Phewwww that was a long question! How many issues were merged into one? Obviously more than two. Such a long question makes us wonder on what Churchill is going to talk about. Which issues are more important? Sneaky Churchill, he just wants to make sure that he is confusing and tricking us.

Another one that I found was the fallacy of the false dilemma when he states, “But win or lose, we must do our duty.” Right here Churchill is only giving us two choices: either to win or lose. But isn’t there an in between? I don’t know about you, but I have heard of the term agreement, in which neither side wins or loses. 

George Orwell is Tricking the Audience

So far I believed that fallacies were only used when you wanted to win an argument. After reading Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell I realized that he uses fallacies while telling us a story. Most of the times, when we are telling a story, we want our audience to side with us. We want to make them feel what we felt. So why not use fallacies? A great example is we when two of your friends are fighting. They both tell you their side of the story, hoping that you will sympathy with either of them and chose a side. The best way to achieve this is by using pathos, just as George Orwell did.

Just as Gandhi, George Orwell has the skill of hidden the fallacies within the text. It´s not that easy to find his fallacies. He is pretty skillful on using pathos, so that the audiences will sympathy with him. Some examples are when he states, “… I was hated by large numbers of people,” and “…in reality I was only absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind me.” In both cases he wants the audience to feel pity for him and take his side of the story. Don’t we all do the same? How many friends have really messed things up at a party and blame in it on the alcohol? Or in class how many of us have used the excuse that we were sick last Friday and weren't able to post the homework? We are constantly trying to manipulate our audience by making them feel pity for us.

Now lets leave pathos behind and start talking about false choices. A good example that I found was when he states, “I had to shoot the elephant.” Did he really? Was anyone else putting a gun to his head threaten to use his life over the elephant? No, so why declare that he had to use it. And this is what false choices are all about. He is making us believe that he had no other choice when in reality he had a ton. Would everyone be able to spot such fallacy? No, only those who are dedicated enough to re-read his speech several time and spot his fallacies.

Ok so lets move on to my last point: hasty generalization. If you have taken AP Language and Composition with Tangen you better know what it means, but for those who don’t here is a brief explanation. According to Heinrich is a “vast conclusion with scanty data” (144). When Orwell states, “I was young and ill-educated and I had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishmen in the East.” Do we have enough evidence that EVERY Englishmen had the same problems? No. So that’s why I would consider this a hasty generalization just as Gabriela Aldana stated on her blog.

Congratulations George Orwell on doing a great job on hiding your fallacies! Since I’m sure that there are a few persons that bought completely your story and actually sympathy with you.

Playing Hide & Seek

After reading and listening to Gandhi´s famous speech at Kingsley Hall several times, I was able to recognize a few fallacies. I have to be honest that this task wasn’t as easy as I expected. Through out my life I have seen that most of the famous speeches contain fallacies. Why? The answer it´s simple: it helps persuade the audience. Even though it is considered as a rhetoric foul, it´s the easiest and most effective way to get your audience to agree with you. It might sound easy to accomplish, yet the tricky part is being able to insert fallacies into your speech without your audience noticing. In my opinion, Gandhi, does a really good job. I found his speech very inspiring, but it was probably because his good use of fallacies. The reason his fallacies were so hard to spot was because they were all hidden between his logic. The first fallacy I found was the so-called many questions. When Gandhi states, “Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules or why and how He rules and yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules” we can see how he is squishing more than two issues into one, so that he would only need one conclusion to cover them all up. In this case the proof actually meets the criteria of the choice, still Gandhi is making the sin of given the wrong number of choices. At first sight one wouldn’t be able to notice this sin, it´s just after you analyze it that you realize that Gandhi has tricked you. Another example of false choices that I found was when he states, “And is this power benevolent or malevolent?” He is actually making us choose between benevolent or malevolent. But are these really the only two choices we have? No, it´s up to use what words we want to use in order to describe the power. Still, by the way he says it, it makes use believe that we have to choose either of.

As I continued to read I found the fallacy of tautology (yet I´m not sure if I´m correct). This fallacy constitutes of repeating the same thing, just with different words. Gandhi states, “If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about their ruler I who am infinitely lesser in respect to God than they to their ruler need not be surprised if I do not realize the presence of God - the King of Kings.” At first it might sound confusing, but the truth is that he is just repeating himself. In this long-run sentence he is restating that the “poor people” has no knowledge about their ruler, never less about the “presence of God” that is “the King of Kings.” 

We also find the use of the fallacy of antecedent when he says that, “It is not a blind law, for no blind law can govern the conduct of living being.” This statement seems to be completely true, but by paying close attention we can see how we have been tricked again. He concludes that there has never been such thing as the “blind law” therefore meaning that it will never exist.

Last but not least Gandhi uses what I believe is the fallacy of ignorance as proof when he states the following: “He who would in his own person test the fact of God's presence can do so by a living faith and since faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law, the law of truth and love.” In a way he is claiming that his believes have never been disproved, therefore meaning that his conclusions are right.

Sneaky Gandhi! He effectively was able to play hide and seek with his fallacies, since I almost wasn't able to spot them. Good job Gandhi. 

Setting the Rules

As Daniel Solano said, “While logic tries to prove that something is absolutely right or absolutely wrong, rhetoric is used to provide choices from which the audience can choose and try to make them agree with your proposals.” But when you start mixing them, it is really easy for the argument to turn into a fight. Once you get to this point there is no turning back and it´s very likely you´re never going to reach to an agreement. As Heinrichs states, “In rhetoric, that constitutes the biggest foul of all: to turn an argument into a fight” (155).

As shown in this video we can see how the guardian is using pure logic to make the kid eat the vegetables. His main goal is for him to eat all the food, so he uses pure logic to make his kid feel guilty. Still the kid was able to have a better response, which helped him obtain his goal of not eating the vegetables. I bet his guardian wasn’t expecting such come back.  

According to Heinrichs deliberative argument has only one rule, “Never argue the inarguable” (158). In other words, try not to block the argument. In order to have a fluent and nice argument you have to have some basic rules. As Beatriz Preciado said, “Even if arguments give you the freedom to make your own decisions and sometimes even say what comes to mind, there should in fact be some ground rules in order for the argument to be much better.” Imagine our society without boundaries and limits. It would be a complete disastrous. We have a bunch of rules that help us differentiate between right and wrong, but we still somehow risk breaking the rules. Society has demonstrated that we need certain rules in order to function.

In this video we can see how they started playing basket without having a set of rules. Sooner or later the opposite teams started getting into arguments, because the game wasn’t being played faired.
The same happens with rhetoric that it is better to play “rhetoric´s no-rules game with just a few rules” than to turn everything into a fight.

Also as Gabriela Aldana said, “We use fallacies all the time, and many times we do so unintentionally.” We are never fully aware of when we are using the “seven deathly sins.” Which according to Heinrichs are:

1. “Switching tenses away from the future” (170).
2. “Inflexible insistence on the rules—using the voice of God, sticking to your guns, refusing to hear the other side” (170).
3. “Humiliation—an argument that sets out only to debase someone, not to make a choice” (170).
4. “Innuendo: It completely stops the argument because if your opponent objects to what you said he “can look like a fool” (167).
5. “Threats” is giving no choices, but rather forcing an opinion.
6. “Nasty language or signs, like flipping the coin” (170).
7. Utter stupidity is when the argument is childish and annoying. When both persons are ignorant and just start saying, “Yes!” “No” “Yes”, and so on.

So if you are going to get into an argument, you should have all of these rules clears in order to successfully win over your public without turning everything into a fight.