Just as well as they do it in politics, they use it in plenty of other media sources. They use it in the comments of news and even sports. People bashing one another using fallacies. They make arguments towards each other that has nothing to do with the issue. I read a sports report on Kobe Bryant and why he might be the greatest of all time which was of course the authors opinion. But instead of focusing on basketball and facts on why he wasn't, people in the comments were bringing up his 2004 rape charges that had nothing to do with basketball.
Ad Hominem Fallacy is used way to much in politics as we seen this year. The whole police election felt as if the candidates were trying more to tear their opponent down then stick to the facts ad issues at hand. I also read a story on a author who wrote about the War against ISIS. The story to me had plenty of facts and had reliable sources. But I seen in the comments people bashing this author. Someone said how can we believe this guy who isn't married with kids. The very point of that had no fact but instead basing his view on his personal life.
After all we live in a world where Logical fallacies are used in many different scenarios. People bring up things that have nothing to do with the argument and for that I don't have an answer. The media plays the biggest role in giving people their opinion. Social media lets them speak behind a keyboard on any discussion they want to join. Most of the comments you will read will be biased or have no reasoning behind an argument.
This blog posts explains logical fallacies very well. I like the examples that you used such as the election of 2016. I completely agree that this election was mostly about bashing each other than actually talking about facts and what they will do for the citizens of this country. I am not very much into politics but when I would watch some debates, i was getting so frustrated with it because they would not answer any questions or back up their previous statements. All they did, especially Clinton and Trump was bash one another and their plans. Donald Trump is a perfect example of a logical fallacy. I think the reasoning behind bashing others and not actually talking about the situation it self is for the person to feel better about themselves or they do not want to talk about the situation because they may not get the responses that they were hoping for. Over all, this post was great and i enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteYou mention two different fallacies here, the "if...then" or non sequitor fallacy related to Kobe Bryant, and then ad hominem fallacies, which are rife in political arguments.
ReplyDeleteI wonder--do people use logical fallacies because they themselves haven't thought through an issue deeply enough? Maybe where this post goes is the psychological angle regarding people who don't use critical thinking in their daily lives--and how that affects us as a society. I mean, look where it got us last year?