We are being hornswoggled

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We are being hornswoggled

I think that one of the most egregious informal fallacies we Americans are bombarded with is prescriptions camouflaged as descriptions. Prescriptions are things established or decreed by fate or nature; a prescription is just what is and cannot be anything else.

The value of education lay in its monetary value, GDP is an accurate measure of a nation's accomplishment, the environment is not an issue in the Corporate bottom line, well-being is the Corporate bottom line, the Corporation is responsible only to their share holders, health care in America is the best, CEO pay is meritocracy in action, etc. These are all understood as descriptions of reality rather than being the prescriptions of those who profit by such things.

I am claiming that we are led to accept as truism that it is natural for education to be valued in dollars, a GDP growth of 4% is a measure of the nation's well-being, Corporations are not responsible for the environment, CEOs get the big bucks because they are what make the institution successful, etc.

In such a milieu we easily accept the hurricane as a description of why the poor have lost everything in New Orleans. An examination will, I think, disclose that the poor were doomed to such a happening by the ordination of the powerful over past decades.

Describing the status quo as natural and universal is an effective means for maintaining the status quo.

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There are many such examples. Here's a classic one from a previous A2K post:

Quote:

People are free to do what they wish and unfortunately they are not knowledgable enough to know what is good for them self or for their democracy that has been handed to them and that they may lose for future generations because they are not awake.

The person who made this claim was unable or unwilling to produce a single piece of datum in support of his or her characterization of the intellectual capacities of these unspecified "people"; when pressed for examples, he or she would answer only with stock sound bytes. I suspect that the repeated evasion of examples is a sure sign that someone is dealing out prescriptions rather than descriptions.

In this particular instance, it's pretty clear why the poster was committed to selling his or her pre-formed vision of the world: he or she is an inveterate romanticizer of philosophy, and if we can convince ourselves that "people" are hopelessly ignorant, then philosophy can heroically step in to save the day. The poster was more intent on glorifying intellectual masturbation than with substantiating his or her "diagnosis." He or she was prescribing, not describing.

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Shapeless wrote:

There are many such examples. Here's a classic one from a previous A2K post:

Quote:
People are free to do what they wish and unfortunately they are not knowledgable enough to know what is good for them self or for their democracy that has been handed to them and that they may lose for future generations because they are not awake.

The person who made this claim was unable or unwilling to produce a single piece of datum in support of his or her characterization of the intellectual capacities of these unspecified "people"; when pressed for examples, he or she would answer only with stock sound bytes. I suspect that the repeated evasion of examples is a sure sign that someone is dealing out prescriptions rather than descriptions.

In this particular instance, it's pretty clear why the poster was committed to selling his or her pre-formed vision of the world: he or she is an inveterate romanticizer of philosophy, and if we can convince ourselves that "people" are hopelessly ignorant, then philosophy can heroically step in to save the day. The poster was more intent on glorifying intellectual masturbation than with substantiating his or her "diagnosis." He or she was prescribing, not describing.

You comprehend the difference between the two concepts very well but I suspect your particular example is in error.

Here are a few suggestions some others have made.

voluntary compliance because the Wizard 'trusts' us
the war on drugs to 'protect us from ourselves'
no-fault insurance to 'be fair to all'
inactivity fees to 'remind' us to make more money
packaging,packaging,packaging to 'keep it sterile'
welfare (remember the book "Pass the Poverty Please"?) as a 'safety net'
1,000,000+ words in the tax code to 'address every concern'
Business/Political doublespeak to 'be precise':
(this is a quote: "The rate of pay for the offices referred to under section 703(a)(2) of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 (5 U.S.C. 5318 note) shall be the rate of pay that would be payable for each such office if the provisions of section 703(a)(2) and 1101 (a)(I)(A) of such act (5 U.S.C.5318 note and 5305) had not been enacted." Go ahead and post what you think this is and I will tell you if you're right.)
the proper rations of the '4 basic food groups' to 'live healthier'
necessity of credit cards for safe verification/non-monetary transactions (especially galling)

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I feel confident that my example is apt, given the criteria I've outlined. Do you disagree with my example because you suspect the poster did provide evidence backing up his or her claim, or do you disagree because you don't think a refusal to cite evidence is an indication of prescriptive rhetoric? Or some other reason? I can give you a link to the post and you can decide for yourself whether the poster provided convincing evidence to substantiate his or her "description" of the "people's" ability to think for themselves. I can also provide other examples from the same poster in which claims about the population are made and elaborate cures are proposed in order to address the claims, but no mention is made about how the poster knows the claims are valid in the first place. It is clear that the poster wants his or her readers to accept the claims as a given and judge the merits of his or her conclusions on that premise; but a reader who is truly concerned with distinguishing prescriptions from descriptions knows that any unspoken pleas to treat conclusions as premises are tell-tale signs of prescriptive rhetoric.

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Shapeless wrote:

I feel confident that my example is apt, given the criteria I've outlined. Do you disagree with my example because you suspect the poster did provide evidence backing up his or her claim, or do you disagree because you don't think a refusal to cite evidence is an indication of prescriptive rhetoric? Or some other reason? I can give you a link to the post and you can decide for yourself whether the poster provided convincing evidence to substantiate his or her "description" of the "people's" ability to think for themselves. I can also provide other examples from the same poster in which claims about the population are made and elaborate cures are proposed in order to address the claims, but no mention is made about how the poster knows the claims are valid in the first place. It is clear that the poster wants his or her readers to accept the claims as a given and judge the merits of his or her conclusions on that premise; but a reader who is truly concerned with distinguishing prescriptions from descriptions knows that any unspoken pleas to treat conclusions as premises are tell-tale signs of prescriptive rhetoric.

I clicked the refrence and I got an HP ad.

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I didn't insert any URL links in my post. It looks like you clicked on one of those green advertising links that get inserted into A2K postings when certain words happen to coincide with whatever the ad is advertising. (Is there a way to disable those things?) If you would like the link to the posting I'm referring to, let me know.

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Shapeless wrote:

I didn't insert any URL links in my post. It looks like you clicked on one of those green advertising links that get inserted into A2K postings when certain words happen to coincide with whatever the ad is advertising. (Is there a way to disable those things?) If you would like the link to the posting I'm referring to, let me know.

I suspect I would give the same answer. I form my opinion based upon observation and judgment. That is all any one of us have. If our observation and judgment is poor we will suffer for it because our life depends on the quality of these faculies.

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coberst wrote:

I form my opinion based upon observation and judgment. That is all any one of us have.

Certainly. The trick is to make sure the latter comes from a good assessment of the former. In the examples I had in mind, the judgment either preceded the observation (what logicians refer to as "confirmation bias," and which frequently results when a pre-determined picture is established before the thinker has actually studied the data), or the judgment was made without the support of observation (what I referred to as not substantiating claims with evidence), or most uncritically of all, the judgment was disguised as observation (when the thinker, whether intentionally or not, treats the conclusion as a premise).

Sometimes these things happen without the person being aware of it, which is an honest enough mistake. But in other instances--especially when the thinker has been called on it innumerable times and continues to make the same errors of reasoning--it's an act of willful ignorance. Sometimes I find myself in sympathy with a sentiment you've expressed in previous posts, namely, that we would all do well to study elementary logic.

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Shapless

You may be correct, I may have got the cart before the horse. If you wish me to revisit the particular matter I will.

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We are being hornswoggled

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