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Chapter 11

I'm really excited to discuss this chapter! Studying fallacies has been a part of my education since high school and I feel it rarely has come up in my Comm courses. So, for this post, I want to take the opportunity to talk about 2 of the fallacies I find most interesting, and explain how I see them applying to arguments.

First, let's start with a fun on; deception. I think the most interesting part of deception the idea that deception only works because the group being deceived subconsciously wants the same outcome. The book references advertising, explaining that the ideal imagery depicted in many ads, "relies on the force of our own fantasies" (182). This makes deception a little tricky, because it create a double-edged sword. On one hand, you can appeal to the masses by tapping into their hopes and dreams to get them to follow you, but in order to do so you have to intentionally lie, falsify, orc cover-up information that would keep them from following you. Definitely an interesting product of argumentation.
Second, I want to focus on one I am not as familiar with; obfuscation. This word sounds like a sneeze. I like it. The book explains it as giving vague or unclear information, which may lead to an alternate conclusion, without the intent of doing so (184). The first application o this I could think of is in the White House press meetings with the Chief of the Press. Often, there is sensitive information that needs to be handled intelligently in order to keep the US safe and moving forward. Sometimes this requires selecting bits and pieces of information at a time, and not giving the whole story. This often has its drawbacks when media outlets get hold of partial stories and run into conjecture.

Overall, cool topic that I'm glad we get to bring to this course.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 27, 2018 at 8:16 AM

    Hey Lucas!

    I also really liked the part about obfuscation! Other than it just being a cool sounding word, it also is about misleading information that leads others to a different conclusion. I think we often see this on social media sites in our society today. The classic "clickbait" headlines that are often very misleading and can get the potential reader to think it's an article focused on one subject, person, topic, etc. When in reality the title is just glitzy and glamorous just to catch the eye of the quick scrolling social media user. You also see this often in news outlets while reporting the news. They use these little teases about upcoming stories, first of all they just give little hints about the upcoming stories, followed by giving the story in their point of view, not always including all of the necessary and relevant information on the story. I agree that it's important for people conveying important political messages to clearly and specifically address the problems at hand. If not the public can take this message and put their own twists and fears behind it and make a big deal out of something that could've been avoided with just more complete, clears thoughts on serious national matters.

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