Fallacies Psychological Warfare1

7/21/2019 Fallacies Psychological Warfare1

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PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

•The second group of fallacies that we are going to study is

the Psychological Warfare.•We have defined this group of fallacies as:

Psychological WarfareThe group of fallacies that

seduce and intimidate man’s

sensuousness, emotions andsubconscious drives.•Meaning from Association•Misuse of Authority•epeated Assertion• Attitude !itting•To"enism•#oisoning the Well•ationali$ing

• Argumentum ad %aculum• Argumentum ad &ominem•'onfident Manner

•We have also mentioned that this group of fallacies

contains ten types of fallacies.



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEAIG FROM

ASSOCIA!IO

•The fallacy of meaning from association is perhaps themost abused fallacy in the production of commercial

advertisements.

•&ere, the advertised products are put side by side with

logically unrelated things and ideas, to suggest that if youpurchase this or that product you too get the associated

things and ideas.

•!or instance, a bottle of whis"ey is shown in front of a

famous masterpiece painting.

•The advertisers had carefully calculated it that the

intended audience will associate the fine (uality of the

masterpiece with the (uality of the whis"ey.




ASSOCIA!IO

This beer commercial

poster associates the

product with se)y and

scantily dressed girls.

There is no logical

relationship between this

particular beer and the

ladies.

http://www.ihana.com/big_trip/diary/2002/12/images/beer/brahma7_vA.jpg




ASSOCIA!IO

There is a more obvious logical

relationship between beer and

the beer tummy, or the beerbloat.

%ut advertisers do not associate

this two things.




ASSOCIA!IO

These two cigarette brands associated

cigarettes with se)ual attractiveness

and glamour, although cigarettes have

no logical relationship to the two things.




ASSOCIA!IO

'igarettes are more

logical related with

lung cancer.

%ut advertisers would

not show images li"e

this.

!he Marl"oro Co#$%ry is al&ays re'rese$%e( as a ro)a$%ic a$( &il(

sce$ery* &here )e$ co$+#er %he grea% o#%(oors.

,#% %he real Marl"oro Co#$%ry co#l( ac%#ally "e li-e %he follo&i$g

i)age.




ASSOCIA!IO




ASSOCIA!IO

•Marshall Mc*uhan, a pioneering theorist inmass communications, has even suggested

that advertisements will not only seduce

man’s sensuousness and emotions, but

even his sub+conscious itself.

•This is what Mc*uhan calls the s#"li)i$al

se(#c%io$.

•This same fallacy is employed by politicians whenever

they circulate pictures of themselves in a pose with, say,Mother Theresa of 'alcutta, or the #ope, or the

Archbishop of Manila, or with any other important

personalities, in newspapers, self+printed calendars, and

posters.

http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062857/K=marshall+mcluhan/v=2/SID=e/l=II/R=6/SS=i/OID=391f65c853b679ec/SIG=1id1aooki/EXP=1120696269/*-http%3A//images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dmarshall%2Bmcluhan%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3DFP-tab-img-t%26fl%3D0%26x%3Dwrt&h=399&w=321&imgcurl=www.monarchyfreecanada.org%2Fimages%2Fportrait_marshall_mcluhan.jpg&imgurl=www.monarchyfreecanada.org%2Fimages%2Fportrait_marshall_mcluhan.jpg&size=14.2kB&name=portrait_marshall_mcluhan.jpg&rcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.monarchyfreecanada.org%2Fcanadians.htm&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.monarchyfreecanada.org%2Fcanadians.htm&p=marshall+mcluhan&type=jpeg&no=6&tt=672&ei=UTF-8



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE : MIS/SE OF

A/!HORI!Y

•ince we cannot possibly be e)perts in all sorts of fields,

consulting and appealing to authorities are oftentimesuseful.

•When one finds a mathematical problem

too difficult, it is only appropriate to

consult one’s mathematics professor, orwhen having problems with an -nglish

composition, the best thing to do is to

approach the language professor.

•The fallacy of misuse of authority happenswhenever we cite an authority in one given

field regarding an issue that is outside

hisher field of competence.




A/!HORI!Y

/n this poster a very famous

singer, who may be an

e)pert when it comes to

music and vocali$ation, isendorsing a particular brand

of soda, forgetting that she

is not necessarily an e)pert

on sodas.




A/!HORI!Y

Michael 0ac"son said

1heal the world, ma"e it a

better place.2 Then, we

better should. &ow canthe 3ing of pop be

wrong4



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 0: REPEA!E

ASSER!IO

•/t is a fact that it is easier to accept a lie that one has

heard many times before than to accept truth that one

has never heard of.

•The fallacy of repeated assertion ta"es advantage of thispsychological fact.

•This fallacy repeats or multiplies essentially the same

assertion with the aim that sooner or later people will

accept it as true.




ASSER!IO

Adolf &itler used this fallacy, when he practically littered

5ermany with his ideological banners and slogans.




ASSER!IO

•The politician who clutters all the street corners and

public walls with his and office long before election time,and with truc"+loads of posters during the campaign

season is guilty of this fallacy.




ASSER!IO

•More ingenious advertiserswill compose catchy 6ingles

or television scenes that

will hopefully recur over and

over again in heads of the

audience, so that even

though the advertisement

is no longer in front of them

they will still see it or hear

it in their minds.

•%ut of course stating a lie a

hundred times will certainly

not ma"e it true.

http://www.thebackpew.com/backpew/images/voicesstop.jpg



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 2: A!!I!/E FI!!IG

• At about the same time they also discovered anotherterritory which was lush and fertile, wanting to "eep the

island for themselves they called it Iceland .

•They "new very well that other peoples love the images of

a green and fertile land, and were disgusted with the

images of ice and fro$en wasteland.

•Their strategy of naming in order to attract and repel was

an early e)ample of attitude fitting.

• As early as the later part of the ninth

century, the 8i"ings discovered a hugeisland that is 9 ; covered with ice.

•Wanting to attract more settlers, they

named it Greenland .




Dark Skin?Introducing:

Fili'i$as lo3e %o ha3e &hi%er s-i$. Phar)ace#%ical

fir)s gi3e %he) se3eral &hi%e$ers %o choose fro).




A$( %his is a gross

e4a)'le of a%%i%#(efi%%i$g:

WARIG5

!his is a(is%#r"i$g sce$e.

o $o% %ry %his a%

ho)e.




A$ #$fair -$igh%ly figh%A fair -$igh%ly figh%



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 6: !O7EISM

•This fallacy happens when people are misled to see a to"en

gestures as the real thing.

•Whenever substantial action is needed but performing it would be too

e)pensive, time and effort consuming, and even distracting to one’s

agenda, people often resort to to"enism.

•This cartoon, for e)ample,

po"es fun on the creation of a

department without the

necessary funding. &ence, the

department is practically drawn

on a blan" wall.

•The real thing here is the

department, while the to"en thing

is the front door of the office.

•%y presenting the front door,

without the real department,

to"enism happens.




•<n August =>, >?@>, #la$a

Miranda was bombed. Two

grenades e)ploded in the middleof a political rally, which "illed

nine and wounded several

persons. Among the in6ured were

enators o)as, alonga,<smena, and 3alaw.

•To appease the people, the incumbent

president publicly ordered a thorough

investigation, fully "nowing that after thee)citement would die down, the public

clamor for 6ustice will also wane. <f

course, the criminals were never

captured.




•<ne of the favorite themes politicians love to print in their

campaign posters is their to"en shot hugging a dirty street

urchin here, or sha"ing hands with miserable slum

dwellers there, as if to document their love for the poor

and the downtrodden who after the elections they

immediately neglect and abandon.



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 8: POISOIG !HE

WELL

•When one poisons a well all the water that is drawn from

it becomes poisoned and unpotable.

•The fallacy of poisoning the well wor"s similarly. /t

happens when one discounts in advance the opponent’s

evidence, proof, or counter argument, thereby preventing

him from employing them.

•When a biblical fundamentalist says

1theories are speculations, and

speculations are always unreliable, nowhow do you prove your theory of

evolution4,2 he is already discounting in

advance the value of a theory and has

prevented his opponent to argue in favor

of it.



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 8: POISOIG !HE

WELL

• When your biology professor e)horts theclass that only la$y students as" for

e)aminations with open notes, then as"s

later on who wants an e)amination with

an open notes he is using the same ploy.



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 9: RA!IOALIIG

• Aesop, a th century 5ree" fol" hero

and teller of animal fables, had a story

about a fo) who felt so bad because

he could not grab the hanging bunch

of grapes.

• After some more tries the fo) finallygave up and comforted himself, saying,

1Anyway, those grapes are sour. Who

would li"e to eat sour grapes42



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 9: RA!IOALIIG

•When one’s ego is placed in an unpleasant situation one

can spin untrue, but pleasant, reasons to settle things.

•ome teachers who were driven into their profession by

circumstances would rationali$e that it is their decision to

be in their profession because molding the youth intobetter citi$ens is the noblest tas" a man could ever

dream of.

•/f real reasons are not available, pleasant reasons can

always be made.

•This is the fallacy of rationali$ation, it ma"es a clearly

delicious bunch of grapes sour, and the obviously sour

lemon sweet.



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE ;: ARGUMENTUM AD

BACULUM

•This fallacy still bears its classical *atin name. Baculum

means a club or staff, and argumentum ad baculum roughly means an argument accompanied with a

threatening blow of a club.

•This fallacy happens when force or the threat of force is

used instead of proper reason.




BACULUM

• A professor who is bombarded with numerous (uestions

regarding a controversial sub6ect matter can easily controleverything by screaming 1shut up, or else /7ll flun" you

all,2 but he commits this fallacy.

•The father who says 1you better study well, or /’ll cut your

allowance,2 is as guilty as the board room strategist whoinsists 1all e)ecutives should act in accordance with this

proposal, otherwise the '-< will recall their

appointments.2




BACULUM



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE <: ARGUMENTUM AD

HOMINEM

• Argumentum ad hominem is another fallacy that stillbears its classical *atin name. /t simply means

argument against the person.

•Bormally, arguments attac" the opponent’s arguments and

counter+arguments. The fallacy of argumentum adhominem attac"s the person of the opponent himself.

•/t wrongly assumes that if you discredit a person, his

argument is also discredited. Cet, obviously it does not

follow that if a person is a thief, his arguments are all

wrong.



PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1=: COFIE!

MAER

•When reasons, evidences, proofs and

answers are unavailable, one can stillfool others by using proper gestures, well

calculated intonations and positive

language.

•The fallacy of confident manner is sayingtoo little or nothing at all in so much

impressive words and body language.

•This fallacy is not only useful to

politicians, who are forced to ma"estands and comments about so many

things, but also to students who are

ta"ing oral e)aminations and graded

recitations.



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