Tweet
I wanted to post what I see are common bad or disingenuous debate tactics. These are tactics that are designed to avoid debate as opposed to engage in it.
I want to avoid most fallacies. While fallacies are poor tactics, they are not often used disingenuously. They are made when arguing for/against a point, but may not have strength. What I'm talking about are the tactics that attempt to shut a debate down, or avoid points altogether.
There's not a commonly used name on this one, but the one I've seen most often is "Fallacy of the perverted analogy". This tactic is done by expressing outrage at the analogy subject, as if comparing two things along one axis means that you are saying they are exactly alike. (I.E. "Did you just compare <X> to <Y>?") The general answer is "Yes, along the axis of comparison then X and Y perform the same role."
The next one is malicious use of "Apples and Oranges". While analogies can be right or wrongly comparative, malicious use of apples and oranges complains that two things simply cannot be compared, usually because of something entirely unrelated to the comparison being made. I.E. You can't compare those two cars speed, one is red and one is yellow. Apples and oranges, Churchill came from England, you can't compare him to Washington. Not all apple/orange defenses are wrong, but if the comparison is wrong you should be able to define what the differences are that make the comparison invalid.
Then there's Source Dismissal. I see this one most commonly used here by those on the "lefti-ish" side of the forums. Here, an argument is dismissed entirely by simply saying it came from a particular source, regardless of the news story being reported on. The mere fact that it came from, say, the daily beast is enough to dismiss without engagement, even if the article is coming from various other "legitimate" sites, and is widely known about.
Whataboutism vs Notasbadism. These two are commonly used, I have to say I engage in the first, as do most. I would say it's poor debate tactic, but not malicious. It engages with the points being made. "If you think <A> is bad, should you not concede that it was bad when <someone else> did it?" It's not great, but it at least engages in the debate. On the otherhand, Notasbadism seeks to shut debate down. The most common way I've seen it used is to simply say "You can't complain about <A> because <your guy> did it worse." That doesn't engage in the debate, it attempts to shut it down.
Finally I'll stop with "Answer Question B when asked Question A". This is a common evasion tactic where you answer a different question as opposed to the one asked of you during a debate. It's malicious because it again avoids engaging in the question asked. This is generally done because answering question A makes the person uncomfortable or exposes a difficult trade-off they don't care to acknowledge.
What are the malicious debate tactics you've seen. Remember, we are talking about tactics designed to avoid the discussion/points, not just those that are poorly made.
I want to avoid most fallacies. While fallacies are poor tactics, they are not often used disingenuously. They are made when arguing for/against a point, but may not have strength. What I'm talking about are the tactics that attempt to shut a debate down, or avoid points altogether.
There's not a commonly used name on this one, but the one I've seen most often is "Fallacy of the perverted analogy". This tactic is done by expressing outrage at the analogy subject, as if comparing two things along one axis means that you are saying they are exactly alike. (I.E. "Did you just compare <X> to <Y>?") The general answer is "Yes, along the axis of comparison then X and Y perform the same role."
The next one is malicious use of "Apples and Oranges". While analogies can be right or wrongly comparative, malicious use of apples and oranges complains that two things simply cannot be compared, usually because of something entirely unrelated to the comparison being made. I.E. You can't compare those two cars speed, one is red and one is yellow. Apples and oranges, Churchill came from England, you can't compare him to Washington. Not all apple/orange defenses are wrong, but if the comparison is wrong you should be able to define what the differences are that make the comparison invalid.
Then there's Source Dismissal. I see this one most commonly used here by those on the "lefti-ish" side of the forums. Here, an argument is dismissed entirely by simply saying it came from a particular source, regardless of the news story being reported on. The mere fact that it came from, say, the daily beast is enough to dismiss without engagement, even if the article is coming from various other "legitimate" sites, and is widely known about.
Whataboutism vs Notasbadism. These two are commonly used, I have to say I engage in the first, as do most. I would say it's poor debate tactic, but not malicious. It engages with the points being made. "If you think <A> is bad, should you not concede that it was bad when <someone else> did it?" It's not great, but it at least engages in the debate. On the otherhand, Notasbadism seeks to shut debate down. The most common way I've seen it used is to simply say "You can't complain about <A> because <your guy> did it worse." That doesn't engage in the debate, it attempts to shut it down.
Finally I'll stop with "Answer Question B when asked Question A". This is a common evasion tactic where you answer a different question as opposed to the one asked of you during a debate. It's malicious because it again avoids engaging in the question asked. This is generally done because answering question A makes the person uncomfortable or exposes a difficult trade-off they don't care to acknowledge.
What are the malicious debate tactics you've seen. Remember, we are talking about tactics designed to avoid the discussion/points, not just those that are poorly made.
Comment