Category Archives: Fallacies of Relevance

False Dichotomy, Red Herring, Straw Man, William Kristol

Crystal balls

Like his colleague David Brooks at the New York Times, William Kristol has been pretty much wrong about everything in the past several years (and probably before).  But wrongness, when it happens, just doesn’t happen.  There’s always a reason for it.  So I believe now, at least.

I’m not going to explain the wrongness of William Kristol–he’s wedded to an incoherent ideology, for instance.  I don’t know if that’s true, and besides I don’t have access to Kristol’s mental states.  So if  you read this and you’re a conservative, notice that I haven’t said "conservatives are wrong in their core beliefs."  Wrongness always happens in the particulars. 

I’m interested in the wrongness of his reasons.  To that end, let’s take a look at one or two.  In today’s column, he opposes the following claims:

But it’s one thing for a German thinker to assert that “religion is
the sigh of the oppressed creature.” It’s another thing for an American
presidential candidate to claim that we “cling to … religion” out of
economic frustration.

And it’s a particularly odd claim for
Barack Obama to make. After all, in his speech at the 2004 Democratic
convention, he emphasized with pride that blue-state Americans, too,
“worship an awesome God.”

That’s obviously not a contradiction or some kind of less rigorous "tension" or "inconsistency."  As explanations go, Obama’s seems fairly innocuous.  He’s clearly talking about a certain motivation for religion as distinct from say, God, the object of those religions.  Attacking this weak version of Obama’s remarks is what you might call a "straw man."
A little charity on Kristol’s part would help him see this.  But I ask perhaps too much.

Here’s another:

Then there’s what Obama calls “anti-immigrant sentiment.” Has Obama
done anything to address it? It was John McCain, not Obama, who took
political risks to try to resolve the issue of illegal immigration by
putting his weight behind an attempt at immigration reform.

Furthermore, some concerns about unchecked and unmonitored illegal
immigration are surely legitimate. Obama voted in 2006 (to take just
one example) for the Secure Fence Act, which was intended to control
the Mexican border through various means, including hundreds of miles
of border fence. Was Obama then just accommodating bigotry?

Anyone ought to be able to see the difference between criticizing "anti-immigrant sentiment" (which applies to both legal and  immigrants) fomented by Kristol’s partners on the right and supporting "unchecked and unmonitored illegal immigration."   Being against the latter, of course, doesn’t make you for the former.  This amounts to, I think, a kind of red herring.  Concern about "Illegal immigration" bears only a slight resemblance to "anti-immigrant sentiment" of the "bigotry" variety.

George Will, Straw Man

Accountability

You can tell a lot about people by how they define their enemy.  Everyone knows how George Will defines his:

"This is the crux of the difference between the two parties — belief
in the competence, responsibility and accountability of individuals.
When Obama characterizes my position as ‘little more than watching this
crisis happen,’ he again has part of a point. The housing market must
find its bottom, and no good can come from delaying the day that it
does."

I doubt any serious Democrat would agree with that silly characterization of the "crux of the difference" between the two parties.

Besides, and I might be mistaken, but it seems to me that the Democrats have long been alleging that certain individuals have been incompetent, irresponsible and, unfortunately, unaccountable. 

Op-Eds and other opinions, Red Herring

Cotton club

2 Comments

Lou Dobbs, famous for his demagoguery on immigration (among other subjects), turns to the subject of race.  In so doing he illustrates how the red herring fallacy works.  Here’s a (scrubbed) transcript of his remarks on CNN:

BLITZER: Let’s check in with Lou. He has a show coming up in an hour. I
want to pick his brain on some intriguing comments from Condoleezza
Rice involving race in our country.

You saw what she said.

LOU DOBBS, HOST, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT": I saw what she said. That the
United States has a birth defect on the issue of race. I think it’s
really unfortunate that Secretary of State Rice believes as she does.
The fact is most Americans don’t have a problem talking about race.

What we have is a problem of talking about race without fearing
recrimination and distortion and someone using whatever comments are
made for their own purposes. Usually political purposes.

The reality is, this is the most socially, ethnically, religiously,
racially diverse society on the face of the earth. Wolf, we don’t make
enough of that in the nation media. We listen to some idiot say you
can’t talk about race or there ought to be these responses when you
talk about race or ethnicity and too often, in fact nearly always, we
fail to point out that there is no country on the face of the earth as
progressive, as racially and ethnically diverse as our own.

It’s something for us to be proud of and if any – and to hear a
politician whoever it may be talk about how difficult it is to talk
about race, well the heck with them. We’re living with the issue of
race. We’ve got to be able to talk about it and I can guarantee you
this, not a single one of these cotton, these just ridiculous politicians should be
the moderator on the issue of race. We have to have a far better
discussion than that.

BLITZER: Lou, we’ll see you back here in one hour. Thanks very much.

DOBBS: You got it. [edited for accuracy]

Let’s get this straight.  First, Condoleezza Rice claims there’s a "birth defect" on the issue of race:

Asked for her views, she told "The Washington Times": "The U.S. has a
hard time dealing with race because of a national birth defect." She
says black and white Americans founded the country together — but
"Europeans by choice and Africans in chains."

If I’m not mistaken that is a historical point about race in American history–and a pretty obvious one at that.  Dobbs responds (1) by griping about politically charged discussions of race [not the issue at all] and (2), by pointing out what a diverse country we live in [again, not the issue].   Both of them are red herrings.  That we live in a diverse society or that some people demagogue on the issue of race (1) no one can dispute and (2) has nothing to do with Rice’s point.

Finally, considering Rice’s other public pronouncements on the issue of race, it’s baffling to see Dobbs react the way he does.  If anything Rice would agree with him.

Op-Eds and other opinions, Straw Man

Chance of precipitation

Yesterday the Washington Post hosted one of those "pro and con" sets of op-eds.  The issue, "ending" the "war" in "Iraq."  Sorry about the quotes, but the disagreement about the issue was the issue.  Arguing for the "pro" (end the war in Iraq) was Carter administration National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.  He maintains that a precipitous and irresponsible withdrawal is just what America needs right now.  Well, that’s what Max Boot, the con in this scenario, maintains. 

And this amounts to a classic waste of time.  Boot actually addresses Brzezinski’s claims–or what Boot claims are Brzezinski’s claims–so the Post editors ought to have intervened.  Here’s what Zbigniew Brzezinski said:

Terminating U.S. combat operations will take more than a military
decision. It will require arrangements with Iraqi leaders for a
continued, residual U.S. capacity to provide emergency assistance in
the event of an external threat (e.g., from Iran); it will also mean
finding ways to provide continued U.S. support for the Iraqi armed
forces as they cope with the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The decision to militarily disengage will also have to be accompanied
by political and regional initiatives designed to guard against
potential risks. We should fully discuss our decisions with Iraqi
leaders, including those not residing in Baghdad’s Green Zone, and we should hold talks on regional stability with all of Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran.

Take it or leave it.  As usual we’re agnostic about that position.  We’d like to point out, however, that Brzezinski isn’t advocating "precipitous" withdrawal from Iraq, which, as you can see from the following, Boot thinks he does.  Boot writes:

The consequences of withdrawal and defeat in Iraq are likely to be even
more serious, because it is located in a more volatile and
strategically important region.

and

It warned: "If Coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly … we judge
that the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] would be unlikely to survive as a
non-sectarian national institution; neighboring countries — invited by
Iraqi factions or unilaterally — might intervene openly in the
conflict; massive civilian casualties and forced population
displacement would be probable; AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] would attempt to
use parts of the country — particularly al-Anbar province — to plan
increased attacks in and outside of Iraq; and spiraling violence and
political disarray in Iraq… could prompt Turkey to launch a military
incursion."

and

. . . nothing would be more calculated to aggravate other countries than a precipitous pullout.

and

 An early American departure is the last thing that most Iraqis or their elected representatives want.

and

An even more important sign of progress is the willingness of hundreds
of thousands of Iraqis to take up arms to fight Sunni and Shiite
terrorists alongside American troops. Imagine their fate if we suddenly
exit. I, for one, hope that we do not betray our allies in Iraq as we
did in Southeast Asia.

So according to Boot, Brzezinski advocates a sudden, early, rapid, precipitous, withdrawal and defeat in Iraq.  Of course that’s silly, as Brzezinski didn’t use any of the weaselly temporal qualifiers Boot imputes to him.  And so there is a classic straw man.  Can’t the editors at the Post point that out?

It really ought to be beneath grown up discourse to engage in this kind of adolescent distortion.  There’s more that could be said about Boot’s abysmal piece–such as dubious analogies with Vietnam.  Maybe tomorrow. 

For today it ought to be said that gainsaying isn’t argument.

 

 

George Will, Straw Man, Things that are false, Weak Analogy

Write No More Forever

10 Comments

We normally try to keep current around here, but amidst the revelry and excess of our Spring Break, we missed something.  Okay, we missed a few things, but George Will’s performance of March 16, on ABC’s "This Week with George Stephanopolous," is worth back-tracking a bit.  Will is holding forth on matters of race and politics and then this happens:

If you want to know what America would look like, if liberals really had their way in running it, look at what they’re doing in their own nominating process on two counts. First, they cannot get to a majority because they have exquisitely refined rococo rules about how to achieve fairness. Secondly, they have worked for 20, 30, 40 years to make us all exquisitely sensitive to slights real or imagined, so that you run a 3 AM ad and someone says there’s not enough black people in it or where’s the Hispanics and it must be a racist ad. Hillary Clinton says something absolutely unexceptionable which is it took Lyndon Johnson also to pass the civil rights act. Denounced as racist. The Democrats are reaping what they have sown.

Fairness?! Equality?! Sensitivity?! Heaven forfend!

Ye gods. This logic is going to make Bright Eyes cry.

First, the primary process is to liberal governance as our making a mean Guinness stew is to operating a restaurant. Sure, it’s part of the process, but just as our Guinness stew prowess doesn’t indicate our ability to take over for Vongerichten, neither does the Democratic primary process indicate the inability of either Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton–or any other liberal politician, for that matter–to properly govern the country.

Second, snide attacks and smug elitism are no argument. Will’s tritely insulting claim about sensitivity treats as a disadvantage an awareness that has, at least in part, helped us to advance from a country where blatant displays of racism and sexism and the genocide of indigenous persons are the norm, to a country where no matter what happens, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States will be either a woman or an African American man.  Without specific attempts to make people aware of the deep race and gender divides in this country, we never get to the place where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are the nominees for President. Yet Will dismisses these effects with a wave of the hand, instead twisting liberal social policies in service of an undergraduate view of liberalism and democratic process.

Ad hominem tu quoque, George Will, Straw Man

Cheapskates

1 Comment

In yet another variation of his standard line, today George Will argues that when it comes to charity, liberal people and places lag behind conservatives and so "liberals" are little more than disingenuous bleeding hearts.  This combines Will’s love of the ad hominem tu quoque–the irrelevant charge of hypocrisy–with his love of the straw man–the purposeful distortion of his opponent’s view in order to knock it down (look here for a description of these particular logical errors).  His argument goes like this:

  • Liberals, judging by their bumper stickers in Austin, Texas are self-described bleeding hearts (they are motivated by pity and pity alone).
  • Self-described conservatives are more charitable than self-described liberals.
  • By their own self-description, liberals ought to be more charitable (on account of their bleeding hearts), so liberals are either:
  • (a) hypocrites for being all hat and no cattle (this is Texas we’re talking about); or (b) dumb to wait around for government to do the work that can be done by charity right now.

This argument sounds vaguely familiar.  Megan McCardle, a "liberatarian" blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, has made similar charges (discussed here and here on Crooked Timber).  She argues that if liberals want the government to tax so much, then why don’t they just give extra money voluntarily.  They don’t.  So there.  It also sounds like any similar charge of hypocrisy–if you cared so much about it, then why don’t you do something (for it, to stop it, etc.)? 

But that’s not really the point.  By any measure, liberalism is a broad political view about the just structure of government and the just distribution of goods.  Liberals will differ about the meaning of either of those things (They’ll differ to the same extent that conservatives will differ about the proper role of government).

More importantly, liberals will also differ about the reasons for their "liberalism."  Indeed, some liberals–some–might qualify as the "bleeding heart type" who fit Will’s perpetual caricature.  They whine about injustice, but they really don’t care.  Pointing out their hypocrisy might be entertaining, but it’s basically worthless.  They don’t represent all that is the liberal position.  Nor does their hypocrisy demonstrate anything about their broader political view. 

One can be liberal for reasons that have nothing to do with bleeding hearts, pity, or care.  And the strength (if it has any) of the liberal position has nothing do with the feelings and action of individual liberals–any more, at least, than the weakness of conservatism is demonstrated by the appallingly bad arguments of a pundit for the Washington Post.

Charles Krauthammer, Straw Man

What’s a non sequitur?

7 Comments

A non sequitur is another general cover all term for logical fallacy.  It’s not true that every instance of failed reasoning (of premises that fail to reach their conclusion) is a non sequitur.  Sometimes the premises are false (which happens to me all of the time, by the way).  Sometimes the premises simply aren’t strong enough to support the conclusion–they’re not false, but they’re aren’t enough of them.  When the premises are absurdly weak, or when their completely irrelevant, or otherwise contorted, then you have what logicians call a "non sequitur."  To call something a non sequitur is a fairly serious charge.  To level it means you think a person guilty of deception–either on account of ignorance or dishonesty.  Now of course we do this all of the time, the name of this site, after all, is "TheNonSequitur" (someone owned the other domain).  For the very large part, people we accuse of "non sequiturs" (for what that means for us precisely see here) fall into the latter category.  They ought to know better.  Many of them have had the best educations money can buy.  Most of them have somehow been granted positions of prominence in national or even international publications.  

So after all of that throat clearing, let’s get to today’s point.  Charles Krauthammer, the man who thinks "slippery slope" is a bonafide form of reasoning, accuses someone (I’m not sure who) of one of "the great non sequiturs of modern American politics."  Funny isn’t it.  Because of course that accusation turns out itself to be a non sequitur.  Here it is:

How did Obama pull that off? By riding one of the great non sequiturs of modern American politics.

It
goes like this. Because Obama transcends race, it is therefore assumed
that he will transcend everything else — divisions of region, class,
party, generation and ideology.

The premise here is true — Obama
does transcend race; he has not run as a candidate of minority
grievance; his vision of America is unmistakably post-racial — but the
conclusion does not necessarily follow. It is merely suggested in
Obama’s rhetorically brilliant celebration of American unity: "young
and old, rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian — who are
tired of a politics that divides us." Hence "the choice in this
election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about
rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus
white. It’s about the past versus the future."

The effect of such
sweeping invocations of unity is electric, particularly because race is
the deepest and most tragic of all American divisions, and this
invocation is being delivered by a man who takes us powerfully beyond
it. The implication is that he is therefore uniquely qualified to
transcend all our other divisions.

It is not an idle suggestion.
It could be true. The problem is that Obama’s own history suggests
that, in his case at least, it is not. Indeed, his Senate record belies
the implication.

I love the passive "it is assumed" as it suggests such grave intellectual irresponsibility–especially because of the issue of Obama’s race that precedes it.  As even the partially informed voter can tell you, no one makes that argument.  And Krauthammer doesn’t even bother to pin it on anyone.  That’s what you call a "straw man."  This happens when you either (1) pick the weakest form of an argument, knock it down, and claim to have knocked down the stronger version; or (2) you make up out of whole cloth (I always wanted to use that phrase) an absurdly weak argument for some position x, proceed to knock it down, and claim to have defeated any argument for position x.  Krauthammer here is guilty of the second variety (unless he wants to scour the globe for the person who holds the "racial" view).

In all fairness, someone at the Post ought to stop him from doing this–he seems incapable on his own.  Really.  After all, he seems like an educated person, he’s got to know that you can’t go about making stuff up.  It’s not so hard really.  When he says "argument x is a huge non sequitur" he ought to ask himself "who makes it?"  If the answer is "no one," then it’s not really anyone’s non sequitur (certainly not the greatest in American politics!).

Straw Man, William Kristol

Nattering nabob

5 Comments

The death of conservative icon William F. Buckley led someone, I don't remember who, to eulogize that "he loved his own ideas more than he hated theirs."  He wasn't, in other words, one of those "liberals are fascists" or "party of death" types that dominate conservative thought these days.  I can't really say for certain whether that's true.  My suspicion, however, is that it isn't.  Helping me along with this suspicion is William Kristol.  Writing in today's New York Times, he says:

In my high school yearbook (Collegiate School, class of 1970), there’s a photo of me wearing a political button. (Everyone did in those days. I wasn’t that much dorkier than everyone else.) The button said, “Don’t let THEM immanentize the Eschaton.”

There you see an example of the influence of Bill Buckley, who died last week at age 82. For it was Buckley who had promulgated this slogan, as an amusing distillation of the thinking of the very difficult historian of political philosophy Eric Voegelin. I’d of course not read Voegelin then (there’s a lot of him I still haven’t read, to tell the truth). But the basic thought was: Don’t let ideologues try to create heaven on earth, because they’ll deprive us of freedom and make things a lot worse.

To read Buckley growing up in the 1960s was bracing. Buckley and his colleagues — some merrily, some mordantly —  mercilessly eviscerated the idiocies of the New Left. They also exposed the flaccidity of the older liberalism. If, like me, you already had a sense from listening to most of your peers and some of your elders that a lot of what they believed was silly (or worse), you couldn’t help but be attracted to Buckley.

That doesn't paint a rosy picture.  Aside from the obsession with the worst caricature of the opposition (with the ever present but equally silly idea that their idiocy guarantees the legitimacy of your view–it doesn't), Buckley's slogan has a kind of ironic ring to it.  Conservatives have now embraced those people who literally want to bring about the Eschaton.  Just ask John Hagee.

*minor edit for sense above–"loved his ideas more than he hated THEIRS"–apologies–I posted too damn early in the morning. 

**minor edit in "minor edit"–thanks Jem. 

Accident, Charles Krauthammer, Straw Man

The Lobby Lobby

One hears a lot of complaints about lobbyists from the likes of McCain, Clinton and Obama this election season.  But did you know that lobbying was protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States?  I didn't.  Well, Charles Krauthammer will set me straight.  My intrusions are in bold.

Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom — to lobby? [No way–I don't believe  you]

Of course it doesn't use the word lobby [Phew–I thought I forgot my rights!]. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.  [I wonder where I can get one of these lobbyists]

To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding [we thought waterboarding was ok with you Charles], a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants. [He's being serious–this isn't a caricature or a straw man]

Lobbying is constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean we have to like it all [that's a relief, because I was about to embrace every single instance of "lobbying" fully in the spirit of the law rather than sophistical equivocations meant to cloud the issue.]  Let's agree to frown upon bad lobbying, such as getting a tax break for a particular industry. Let's agree to welcome good lobbying — the actual redress of a legitimate grievance — such as protecting your home from being turned to dust to make way for some urban development project.

And with this last claim we're back to square one.  When people scream about "lobbying" this election season, they mean the kind of lobbying of special interests purchasing favors and access–bad lobbying.  Just because you call it "lobbying" does not ipso fatso mean its protected by the constitution.  That would be to insist on the relevance of a general rule where it obviously doesn't apply.  But I guess Krauthammer has a right to do that.  It's a free country.

 

Ad Hominem Abusive, Ad hominem circumstantial, David Brooks

Opponents

1 Comment

If you look at opinion journalism, you'll often find the author complaining of someone's willful dishonesty and/or lack of basic critical thinking skills. This is the "opponent" (yes, I'm looking for a new name) variety of op-ed.  That's the op-ed directed at specific opponents (this also includes specific fantasy opponents).  This specific type of op-ed is typical of the conservative pundits usually featured on this page.  Paul Krugman is the only liberal I can find who writes frequently in this genre.  So, again, when people ask, "where are the liberals?" this is the answer–they just don't write or argue like their conservative colleagues.  In many respects I think they should.  

The typical opponent op-ed will consist in the claim that the object of criticism fails some basic critical thinking and/or honesty test.  Such charges seem to me to be very serious.  It's also very worthwhile that they be made.  But it's worthwhile especially when they're made properly.  When they're not made properly,they lead to the misspelling of misspelling problem.  In other words, there's a right way to attack an argument and a wrong way. 

It's truly surprising to me, however, how often such charges are made.  Take David Brooks today: 

You wouldn’t know it to look at them, but political consultants are as faddish as anyone else. And the current vogueish advice among the backroom set is: Go after your opponent’s strengths. So in the first volley of what feels like the general election campaign, Barack Obama has attacked John McCain for being too close to lobbyists. His assault is part of this week’s Democratic chorus: McCain isn’t really the anti-special interest reformer he pretends to be. He’s more tainted than his reputation suggests.

This is the basic opponent style attack.  Obama's consultants lack imagination and independent thought (they're part of the chorus!), so they mistakenly go after McCain on his strengths–he's not cozy with lobbyists, as the evidence will show.  Then he proceeds to deal with evidence. 

This, it seems to me, is the wrong way to go about the opponent op-ed.  Brooks sets the whole thing up in psychological terms.  Obama's consultants lack imagination and critical thought–they follow "fads" that lead them into making silly and false claims about McCain.  After a partial list of McCain's achievements on special interests, Brooks concludes:

Over the course of his career, McCain has tried to do the impossible. He has challenged the winds of the money gale. He has sometimes failed and fallen short. And there have always been critics who cherry-pick his compromises, ignore his larger efforts and accuse him of being a hypocrite.

This is, of course, the gospel of the mediocre man: to ridicule somebody who tries something difficult on the grounds that the effort was not a total success. But any decent person who looks at the McCain record sees that while he has certainly faltered at times, he has also battled concentrated power more doggedly than any other legislator. If this is the record of a candidate with lobbyists on his campaign bus, then every candidate should have lobbyists on the bus.

And here’s the larger point: We’re going to have two extraordinary nominees for president this year. This could be one of the great general election campaigns in American history. The only thing that could ruin it is if the candidates become demagogues and hurl accusations at each other that are an insult to reality and common sense.

Maybe Obama can start this campaign over.

The last line made me chuckle a bit (I kept thinking of "the coward with a manly bearing" and Brooks's other vile distortions from the 2004 election–insult to reality!). 

But this remark is also funny because this column is an accusation of the variety Brooks describes.  Brooks is right to respond to the claim that McCain is tainted by special interests.  In fact, if he thinks its false and he has the evidence that it is, then by all means he ought to respond.  This is a crucial function of the opponent op-ed.  It can go directly at the argument–focus the mind of the reader on whether specific claims warrant belief.

But that's where it ought to stop.  Brooks does himself in with the silly framing of his piece: people who wonder about McCain's honesty (and they are legion, by the way) suffer from a fundamental lack of critical skill–or they're mediocre.  We could do, in other words, without the ad hominems.  If it's wrong or misleading to say that McCain is cozy with special interests, then just show why.  Accusing people who think of this of shallow partisan hackery is shallow partisan hackery.