The Thinker's Guide to Fallacies by Linda Elder & LINDA ELDER

Author:Linda Elder & LINDA ELDER
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Foundation for Critical Thinking
Published: 2019-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Dirty Trick # 19

Demonize His Side, Sanitize Yours

Most people are not sophisticated. To manipulate them into accepting your side, systematically use “good” words to characterize it, while you systematically use “negative” words to characterize your opponent. You believe in democracy, freedom, stability, compromise, fairness, strength, peace, protection, security, civilization, human rights, sovereignty, reformation, being open, defending the innocent, honor, God’s comfort, normalcy, pride, independence, a mission, facing hardship, ...Your opponent believes in tyranny, suppression, conflict, terrorism, aggression, violence, subversion, barbarism, fanaticism, the spread of chaos, attacking the innocent, extremism, dictatorship, plots, cunning, cruelty, destruction.

A variation on this strategy consists in sanitizing your motives, by explaining your reasons to be “righteous.” “I am not motivated by profit or greed. I do not want to enhance my power and influence. I don’t want to control and dominate. Certainly not. I want to spread the cause of freedom, to share the good life, the blessings of democracy (bla, bla, bla).” You obscure your real motives (that are often selfish and based on considerations of money and power) while playing up motives that sound good and make you appear high-minded. This strategy is sometimes called “finding the good reason” and includes the practice of giving “lip service” to high-minded principles (asserting them loudly, while ignoring them in practice).

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