Flibbertigibbet

Fun with Conservative Wing-nuts

Sometimes I find it difficult to distinguish between liberals and conservatives. Both have their own brand of mysticism. Both tend toward philosophical subjectivism. Both want the government to do things they ought not do.

So, it doesn't come as a surprise to me when I encounter conservative bloggers acting a lot like what I expect out of liberal bloggers: name-calling, misleading statements, and even outright lying. I recently had occassion to observe a conservative resorting to these tactics and more.

I won't name him and I won't give him a link because he is so intellectually dishonest and malicious that he has relegated his commentary to the depths of absurdity; he's not worth the attention.

BUT, I do want to show you one of his tactics so that you can be prepared to address it when it happens to you.

He posed this to his audience:

What are the defects in Rand's character, her novels, and her philosophy? Your evasion of this question is starting to make a lot of you appear like pod people. It's not like I'm asking you to condemn Rand. I'm just asking for one thing in three categories--her character, her novels, and her philosophy--that you find flawed. Do you have minds of your own, or have you leased them out to Objectivism? Answer the question.

Now, if the question was as simple as it is put in the first line, many Objectivists and students of Objectivism might pause give it some consideration. They probably would respond by saying they lack sufficient insight to comment on her character as a private individual but what they do know indicates that she was a living hero. The topic of her novels is broad and would likely require analysis on an individual basis. There are likely some technical issues in each that are worthy of comment, but the themes of each are sound. And her philosophy is wholly consistent.

The nefarious individual in question, however, isn't apparently deft enough to hide his motivation because his next sentence threatens his audience with his condemnation. You don't want to look like a pod person, do you?

(I don't want to get started on how ineffective it is to threaten Objectivists with appearances.)

Then we get the classic trick: "It's not like I'm asking you to condemn Rand." If you haven't gathered just from what I've said so far about the context of the discussion, you should know that he is actually trying to condemn Ayn Rand. What started the discussion was a post that called Ayn Rand an "intellectual moron" and he attempted, but failed, to offer effective criticism of his own. Now, he wants to enlist her supporters to do his job.

What a maroon!

But one of the logical fallacies he demonstrates and the one I want to discuss is bifurcation.

The presentation of only two alternative where others exist is called the fallacy of bifurcation.

In this case, either you think that Ayn Rand had a flawed character, wrote flawed novels, and offered a flawed philosophy and you have a mind of your own...

~OR~

You're an intellectual moron, a brainwashed pawn of Objectivism, and a pod person.

There are all sorts of ways to illustrate this insulting error of rhetoric.

Either you like okra or you're the devil.
A vote for Kerry is a vote for the terrorists.
A vote for Bush is a vote for Jesus.
Either you're completely insane or you've lost your mind.

It really is that ridiculous, but what tops it all off is that a refusal to answer the ridiculous question is then called an evasion and a sign that you're all the bad things the speaker has said about those who oppose him.

The writer who remains here nameless actually published a whole book pushing the notion that anyone who believes in anything is a moron. Actually, he would probably say that his position is that "ideology--not Left ideology or Right ideology, but all ideology--makes smart people fall for stupid ideas."

I'll stop now but only after highlighting another logical fallacy:

Argumentum Ad Temperantiam

If fallacies were assigned to the nations of the world, the argumentum ad temperantiam would be allocated to England. It is the Englishman's fallacy. The argumentum ad temperantiam suggests that the moderate view is the correct one, regardless of its other merits, it takes moderation to be a mark of the soundness of a position.