How Not to Argue Honestly 101

Full Transcript

Arguing, ideally, is an honest and sincere exploration of the truth between two or more parties.

Ideally. Of course, ideally is not what happens.

Shockingly, people don't always communicate honestly or truthfully, and not always with that virtuous exploration in mind. When they have a goal they're determined to achieve, they'll pursue it by whatever means are available.

They'll poison the conversation into muddled paths, ridicule your claims, or attack you directly. Sometimes, they'll get a high score and do all of them in one go.

Like in today's episode of "The World in Arguments", where we take one argument shaping the world and analyze it, so you can understand the world around you better, one argument, one episode at a time.

Today's argument is spoken by U.S. President Donald Trump, in response to CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins' questions on the Epstein files.

Every time from now on, when we hear a logical fallacy in the recorded clip, I'll add a "video game coin sound effect" just to hint at what is coming next. Try to pause and catch the fallacy yourself.

What is a logical fallacy? Good question! It is an error in reasoning. When one uses invalid arguments or irrelevant points are introduced without any evidence to support them, that's where we know we have one.

You probably heard the coin sound a lot of times, right? Well, because today's one isn't really an argument per se. It contains arguments, but as a whole, it functions more like a "How Not to Argue Honestly 101."

I wanted to begin the show with an example like this, not only because of the topic's significance, but for another reason. Before we begin to analyze good arguments, it helps to view some bad ones. That way, you can start recognizing the flawed patterns yourself, and most importantly, why they are flawed, and why they could be used.

These are common tactics; everywhere. And sadly, they're effective. If you don't know how to spot them, you'll fall into them. Even if you do know them casually, you'll often hear a response, feel that something is wrong, but not be quick enough to name it or handle it properly.

That is why it is worth starting from here. So let's analyze the logical issues, clip by clip.

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Red Herring

To start things off well, we begin with a classic red herring. What's a red herring? It's when you share information to mislead or divert the conversation. In this instance, President Trump replies that he's essentially "busy", which is an unrelated thing to point out to a yes/no question.

Argument from Ignorance + Appeal to Popularity

One problem here is that it's an argument from ignorance. Just because one hasn't heard about something, it cannot be used to draw a safe conclusion. But it's also an appeal to popularity; more precisely, it's treating headlines as evidence, as "public attention equals truth." What matters is that it's a two-in-one.

Just because something is not appearing in headlines doesn't mean it's not happening. For obvious and nuanced reasons, you cannot safely conclude that what's popular is the truth.

Whataboutism

Here, opposing viewpoints are presented without any proper justification for whether and why the opposition holds any validity at all. This is called whataboutism; it's another foggy tactic.

False Dichotomy

Regardless of where the legal process stands, the transparency question remains. The reply was a false dichotomy; people, of course, can and should care about multiple things at the same time.

Begging the Question + Unsupported Extraordinary Claim

When an extraordinary claim is being given, it always has to be supported with relevant evidence. An example: let's say one claims that ghosts exist. Given that the claim is so contradictory to everything else we know, very strong evidence has to be given in order for someone to trust the statement.

Here, the president shows no evidence for a claim that is extraordinary and needs to be supported. Instead, that's circular logic:

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To give you some mental space, let's recap. We can conclude the first part of the episode here. The intent for all the above was one: to fog the conversation. All these fallacies are different, but since no clear answers were given to the question, they imply that there was an attempt to switch the topic, muddle the flow, and essentially change the subject.

However, the reporter asked again, the president proceeded with another tactic: ad hominem attacks. Let's call them personal attacks.

Ad Hominem

All of this had nothing to do with arguments; it was a multi-front attack, both to the reporter and to the organization. These points are called ad hominem, and they are important to recognize right away, as they switch the conversation rapidly. What would happen if you were to defend these? You would essentially start discussing something completely different.

Can ad hominem attacks be justified? Possibly, when the attack is very well connected with the subject. I argue that this was not the case, and this was an unjustified attack. Whatever the intent, the function is the same: derail the question and discredit the questioner.

My reasons to believe so are that President Trump has a track record of these attacks as a common tactic, that the conversation was justified given the importance of the subject, and the attacks themselves have nothing to do with it. If you have a problem imagining the last premise, consider the following: would Trump react the same if a reporter from FOX News asked the same questions?

And that's a great way to combat these tactics as well; let them roleplay against themselves, and ask them what would happen if that argument came from someone they truly respect, or agree with.

While they are masked as arguments, they are not. These are tactics that can be used by anyone. And sometimes, they can be used even without a clear malicious intent. How many times have you fought with a close friend or significant other, for example, and used an ad hominem attack out of anger or frustration?

We humans are biased creatures. We fall into these biased traps very regularly, either as listeners or as speakers. And pretty much, there's no one who is safe.

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As for the Epstein files, people deserve the truth. And the victims deserve justice. To make this a reality, it would help if we could all learn to argue a little bit more. To demand what's needed, and not be swayed away by wrong arguments and biases: both from others' and ours.

See you in the next episode. For now, take care, and thank you for sticking to the end.

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