Week 11 Journal Response 4/2 – 4/6
This week we are focusing on fallacies and monsters. If you come across any fallacies you can write about that. Social media is rife with fallacies.
You can also continue with your monster analysis and connect our theory to something from popular culture.
Make sure to include a link, summary, and analysis. Minimum 250 words.
Professor Ramos' Blog 
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=F7xtPfsc&id=8B50DA6A3C43A15BE8C03A81C2DDE24A9E06294E&thid=OIP.F7xtPfschPLeevq3SL-XkAHaEU&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.bradycampaign.org%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2fevery-year.jpg&exph=700&expw=1200&q=gun+violence&simid=607995435218829475&selectedIndex=4&ajaxhist=0
In the link, we see how many people are victims of gun violence every year. In today’s society, we are exposed to gun violence via the media and sometimes the way we are raised can lead us down the path of misjudgment. The most recent event involving gun violence was the school shooting in Florida, which has brought about a lot of media attention. The survivors of the attack are marching for gun reform in order to be able to feel safe at school and everywhere.
I am talking about this in order to express that over time humans villainize people or objects into the monsters they can be. This can be connected to the first theory of monster theory and how monsters are a cultural object and hold cultural significance. In America, guns have now become more and more political and the thought of reforming gun laws is becoming more and more of a battle. Many people believe we just want to get rid of guns, however it is about making guns harder to obtain, therefore making us safer.
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http://abc.go.com/shows/blackish/episode-guide/season-04/17-north-star
In the television show Blackish, “North Star,” the characters Dre and Rainbow Johnson have a family gathering at their house for Easter. Normally, Dre and Rainbow don’t have both of their families over for Easter together; however, Dre and Rainbow miscommunicated and invited both of their families over for Easter. During the Easter dinner, Dre acknowledges that Rainbow’s family wasn’t eating any soul food and he disapproved that they were eating beets.
Dre claims that “when you reject our food, you’re rejecting us.” Dre is explaining that when Bow’s white family decides to not eat soul food, they are rejecting African American culture. This is an example of guilt by association and non-sequitur because Dre is associating their food preferences with their ethics by implying that they are racist; however, their food preferences don’t mean they are racist. Additionally, when Dre says, “If Rachael Ray started a soul-food line and put it in the frozen section, you would buy it right up,” (16:38). This is an example of hasty generalization because even though part of Bow’s family is white, it doesn’t mean they would purchase a Rachel Ray soul-food line. In Dre’s perspective, he wants to show the history of soul-food which is part of his culture; however, he regrets to acknowledge the culture of Bow’s relatives. As a result, Bow’s cousin, Brian, shares his grandmother’s story during World War 2 and how beets have become a significant connection to his grandmother. As a result, Dre’s and Rainbow’s families learn more about each other’s differences through their meal.
Furthermore, in this episode of Blackish, Bow’s mother gets upset when Bow makes Dre a plate of food. Bow’s mother says, “I think it’s a big deal when my daughter is being subservient to man.” Bow’s mother continues to challenge Bow’s action by asking Bow’s cousin (Gwen) if she makes a plate of food for her husband and blatantly acknowledges that Bow isn’t being a “liberated women.” This is an example of a genetic fallacy because Gwen and Bow’s mother see serving food to your husband is degrading towards women. The origin of serving a man a plate of food reflects back to the time when women didn’t have rights. Women were expected to be stay at home moms, clean, take care of the children, cook and serve meals. As a result, they believe that it is negative for Bow to serve her husband food because it is considered a “sexist tradition.” In reality, Bow is doing it to show her husband that she loves him through doing a nice action, such as serving him food. During the Easter dinner, Dre’s grandmother acknowledges how making her husband a meal was a sign of appreciation and love towards him during hardships. As a result, Bow’s mother and cousin learn a new perspective of serving food to a man.
This is similar to a man holding a door open for a woman. For example, I used to get upset when my dad held the door open for me and he got upset when I didn’t let him. In my perspective, I believed I am capable of opening the door myself and holding it open for him. In my dad’s perspective, he was taught a man holds the door open for woman as a sign of respect and love. I didn’t understand my dad’s perspective until I watched this episode because I didn’t realize he is doing this action as a nice gesture. Next time, I will let my dad hold the door open for me; although, I believe that a woman can hold the door open for a man, a man can serve his wife a meal, and vice versa. Ironically, both of us were getting upset at each other for doing a nice gesture.
Overall, I believe this episode uses various fallacies to challenge their audience’s views towards talking about different cultures and perspectives, in order to encourage understanding and inspire people to discuss these topics using critical thinking.
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This week we we focused on fallacies and monsters, one that comes to mind and connects to both is the story of Santa clause. He is depicted in many movies, tv shows and books as a toy maker who once a year delivers toys to children all over the world. What a great guy….Unless! You were naughty! I wish I knew actual stats on this but I think it’s safe to say that most people in the United States know the story and celebrate Christmas and go on to tell their children about him and how the whole thing works. I notice every year Christmas becomes less about Jesus’s birthday and more about presents and parties. Which for me is fine because I’m not a very religious person. To me Christmas is just something that has blown up for businesses and companies to bank in on every year. Toy companies, candy, grocery stores, Amazon, hallmark, movies, tv etc etc. then there’s people who frantically shop and stress over gifts and others forcing themselves to buy a thoughtless present for that Secret Santa at work. This to me isn’t even the saddest part, when I think about the children who are told about Santa and how if you behave all year and make santas “nice list” you will wake up on Christmas morning to presents and if you were bad and made it on santas “naughty” list you wouldn’t get anything, just a lump of coal. So say a child does wake up without presents under a tree because his parents are experiencing a hardship of some sort. Not only will the child be disappointed but they may link the idea that they must not have deserved presents. They didn’t get anything because they were bad :L Thats the monstrous part to me, it’s just a big lie, a fallacy! Pretty sure I used a few fallacies myself explaining this too but I’m still learning 🎅
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https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&hl=en-us&biw=375&bih=553&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=cq_HWu-cBMekjwT1vKPACQ&q=false+dichotomy+examples&oq=fal&gs_l=mobile-gws-img.1.0.41j0i67l4j0.38347.43897..44957…0….158.3499.2j30……….1..mobile-gws-wiz-img…..3..30i10j0i13.oaADCjdCFf8%3D#imgrc=eQiMS-N7B6cQnM
This is an example of false dichotomy. False dichotomy is a situation where a person is presented with an either-or choice when there is at least one more option. This cartoon shows two doors giving a man a choice of two paths in life, fulfillment without wealth or wealth without fulfillment. They are saying that there are only two ways to when in fact those are not the only choices. Not all wealthy people are unfulfilled, and not all poor people are fulfilled. They completely take out the middle range of people who are not wealthy nor poor. There is a broad spectrum of ranges of wealth, as well as fulfillment. This pertains to the class lesson of fallacies. I chose this cartoon to give an example and description of false dichotomy.
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This week in class we discussed different kinds of fallacies. Fallacies are all around us on social media,movies, even in books. As a little girl I loved watching Disney movies, and still do. One particular movie that I enjoyed was Lilo and Stitch. It is a movie about a little girl come across Stitch. Stitch is a small,intelligent, blue experiment alien and is the galaxy’s most wanted and many other aliens are looking for him. He one day comes to Earth and encounters things he has never encountered in his life. As the story goes on Lilo keeps him as a pet, and the other girls her age are scared of him, and her older sister at first doesn’t want Lilo to keep stitch. This movie has some fallacies in it. For example a slippery slope fallacy is stitch always getting in to trouble or generally just difficult situations; one time 2 aliens were chasing stitch and he ran to lilo’s house causing a little battle in the house between stitch and the 2 aliens causing the house to be ruined. Which in the end almost causes the social worker to take lilo to foster care, since the social worker does not think Lilo’s sister is good enough to take care of her. It all began with a little situation stitch was is in then caused many other bad things to happen after. One thing after another and that is a example of a slippery slope fallacy.
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The monster theory I’ve chosen for this week’s journal is the theory that the monster polices the borders of the possible. A great example of this monster theory is Jurassic Park. In the first film, a scientist and his team manage to extract DNA from prehistoric species in fossilized mosquitoes inside of amber and use the extractions to recreate living dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are contained in an amusement park and the scientist plans on exploiting this scientific breakthrough by profiting off of its shock value, despite the consequences. The less peaceful dinosaurs such as the T-rex and raptors are prone to their original nature; they are natural-born predators and begin hunting the group of paleontologists that are sent to the site. This example shows us that the use of science to defy nature can often be used in ways that could be potentially catastrophic for the human race as well as our current ecosystems.
This example is a demonstration of monster theory because it appeals to our taboos. The taboo of resuscitating a species long extinct, though exciting in theory, proposes a moral conflict. In the film Jurassic Park, it is shown that the resurgence of dinosaurs in the world made for a lot of chaos, violence, and potential damage to our ecosystem. In sensationalizing a societal taboo, the scientist also brought forth many ethical and moral questions and ultimately was proven to be immoral for resurrecting dinosaurs from extinction. This example helps us to evaluate morality on a logical and scientific level. Though the science behind Jurassic Park was fictional, it is very possible for science and technology to evolve to the point of recovering similar lost species. Through analysis of films, books, and other media, we are able to challenge and question our beliefs in a safe manner, whilst also avoiding future catastrophes when weighing the pros and cons of similar scientific advances in the future.
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This commercial shows what can happen when you have cable and why you should switch over to DIRECTV. It is an example of the slippery slope fallacy. It shows how one thing can lead to another over and over. A problem that seems easily to resolve but can lead to more extreme things until you solve it. Which in this commercial having cable can lead to you getting angry, getting angry can result in getting injured, getting injured results in an eye patch, an eye patch leads to you looking tough, looking tough leads to people wanting to beat you up, and people wanting to beat you up results in you waking up in a ditch. Meaning get rid of cable and get DIRECTV. The slippery slope fallacy suggests unlikely outcomes are likely to happen even without enough evidence to know. Which is what happened throughout the commercial. It is hard to prove a series of events until they happen. This means you are looking into the future in which it hasn’t happened yet so how do you know these events are going to happen? This slippery slope fallacy is all about assuming the most ridiculous events thinking they will happen. The likelihood of these events happening in this commercial is highly unlikely. So if you like cable stick to cable if not, get some directv.
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In this video we can see the use of ad hominem a type of fallacy used to bring down someone’s credibility. Ad hominem is an attack against a person and not the issue itself. Once the attack is made the person has lost credibility, and the issues or statement is deemed false. As an example, in this clip Sarah Palin makes a claim about President Obama’s nuclear defense police.” Sarah Palin taking aim at your decision to restrict use of nuclear weapons, which is your pledge not to strike non-nuclear nations who abide by the non- proliferation treaty”, and here is what Palins stated. “It is unbelievable that an administration would do it and then Palin linked it to kids on a playground “Punch me in the face and I will not retaliate “(You tube). Here is where the ad hominem takes place instead of attacking the issue Obama ignores Sarah Palins claim and attacks Sarah Palin by responding “I really have no response to that last I checked Sarah Palin’s not much of an expert on nuclear issues”. With Obama’s attack it is now deemed that Sarah Palin’s claim is deemed inaccurate and Palin now has lost her credibility. This use of fallacy is seen in politics a lot mostly in the presidential debates to be used to attack a person, and not the particular issue to make the person seem less credible. This was also seen a lot in the debate with president Trump against Hillary Clinton, and also Ted Cruz. President Trump was very good at this to make himself seem smarter and to get his opponent to lose their credibility.
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This commercial shows you what will happen if you smoke meth amphetamines, even just once. The fallacy being used here is scare tactics as the subject meth, if used, will burden you with meth dealers, meth boyfriends, meth babies, and meth face and these things are not wanted by person as they would be trapped in a never ending cycle of use and abuse of this substance with its effects slowly growing with each. It instills the same fear that a contract would give to a migrant worker, entrapment, or inability to leave the state of which you have entered and to an extent it can be true. Drugs do lead to these kinds of things, abusive relationships and drug babies are common for people who abuse these drugs. There is also a little bit of slippery slope as the side effects slowly grow and grow until they are finally effecting the user herself by altering her face into a malnourished form, that would be near unrecognizable to those who knew her. No children, especially girls who can connect personally to the protagonist as she is also a girl, want to have faces that are pocked and burnt making it clear to them that,” This can happen to you, so throw out your meth pipes and take a stance against the thing that can make you a monster.” This followed by the message, “Not even once.” showing that if you even so hasp to touch this drug you will never be the same.
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This is a music video created by the popular underground rapper Bones. In this video the artist takes a chilling stance on the topic of Columbine, the horrible tragedy that has become the most mainstream remembrance of all mass shootings. I think that Bones displayed the 6th thesis in the monster theory (the fear of the monster is really a kind of desire) because throughout the song it is clearly emphasized that Bones wishes to embody the two criminals Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris as he shows with lines such as “I’m feeling something like Eric but I’m looking just like Dylan, just another white trash kid with his mind battled all I ever wanted to do was kill them”. The line that follows shows his fantasies of destroying the evil bullies that cause Him (Dylan and Eric) reading, “These boys act tough till there ribs erupt leave your body in the library next to your favorite book boy”. This song cannot be described efficiently to someone unless they pay attention to the lyrics because it is just so graphic. The rapper Bones displayed his emotions toward the massacre with his album titled TeenWitch which includes a number of other out of the ordinary songs. Along the way Bones himself has been labeled as a monster and still receives hate from audience of all ages several years later. Me, being a massive fan of Bones and his work can safely say that for the most part he is not an evil character but a rather intelligent and conscious artist excluding his work in TeenWitch. I believe that Bones just wanted to further his shock factor in an effort to publicize his other pieces of work and he is not the same person as he was in the past granted that he was only 19 when this song was developed. I think that Bones showed people that humans do (commonly or uncommonly) conceive thoughts of hatred and aggression explained more thoroughly in thesis VI.
As a side note I want to say that this video should not be taken literally because it is created to encompass a sub-genre of music that gravitates towards lightening feelings of depression and worthlessness in an effort to comfort a listener through unconventional means
Thank You
-Jbenjamin7
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Donald Trump is using an ad hominem fallacy. Instead of bringing up anything that is relevant that Obama has done or supports, he tries to brush him off by attacking Obama’s ethos and calling him a cheater. Not only are his accusations unfounded and not supported by any reliable sources, he mentions this randomly. It seems he takes any opportunity to attack Obama’s (or any of his opposition really) ethos. This is not surprising. Donald Trump got to where he is now by viciously attacking his opponent’s ethos, while trying to desperately establish and build his own ethos by any means possible, relevant or not. In my own observations during Trump’s presidential campaign, he focused on ethos so much, that it felt as if he had not established any policy besides his wall. As we got closer and closer to election day, I found myself asking what his plans were more and more frequently. With his strong emphasis on ethos, it seems easy for a lot of points to be potentially fallacious. To me, it seems incredibly irresponsible and flawed to let oneself get so distracted by the constant digs he made to his opponents, that one would not even care about what he plans to do. It was frightening to experience everyone lose their collective minds, considering the country’s future was at stake. Ethos should never be the only major basis of a political candidate’s plan. We need to scrutinize our leaders and check them for any fallacious arguments
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http://e-fashion.us/meaning-of-red-herring-fallacy/
According to literarydevices.net, Red Herring is a fallacy that introduces a topic that in completely unrelated in argument. This is meant to distract the audience from the original topic being argued. I choose this picture because it is something I do when I take my five-year-old to the store. He always wants me to purchase something from the store even when we might have it at our home. Rather than telling him he can’t have what he wants, I shift the attention to something completely different like an activity we will be doing on the weekend. I’m sure I am not the only parent that has used this.
After learning about this type of fallacy I not only see it on social media, but that I also use them. I try and catch myself and find it easier to recognize when I see someone else using this type of scheme to argue. Our president, Trump, does uses several fallacies daily. While he was on the campaign trail he was asked about his plans to reduce Global Warming, but instead of answering the question he turned to the audience and railed them up and asked if they believed in Global Warming. Another example of Trump using red herring was during the presidential debate when he was asked about the leaked tape where he bragged about grabbing women by the genitals. His response was a quick apology and quickly changed the subject to being tough on ISIS. It is easy to use Trump as an example because of he uses fallacies constantly, and it easy to catch them on others. But it is extremely difficult to see them in ourselves.
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In the video, the two characters Jason (the civilian) is discussing the issue of gun control with the social contractor (The Government). The Social contractor is using Ad populum to affect the conversation by gaining societies views on guns thus affecting the effectiveness of the discussion of the issue since many of the facts/thoughts of the government would be tailored to appeal to the people which in some cases would be false. Jason (the civilian) uses statistics from government sources along with historical information to present to the social contractor in order to inform him that many of the ideas of gun control may not actually work due to the history of other countries enacting those same rules. Jason (the civilian) shows some statistics that gun violence in the U.S. is slowly decreasing just like Australia with the only difference of the speed of decreasing gun violence. Jason (the civilian) then moves on to talk about how having guns actually helps in the prevention of crimes while the social contractor (the government) stating “ the good guy with a gun is a myth” Jason then uses statistics from the CDC to prove that possession of guns can help in the prevention of crimes(500,000-3,000,000 per year). The social contractor (the government) then goes to argue that civilians should not have access to Ar-15 since many people believe that it is an automatic weapon, but then Jason ( the civilian) then Jason’s rebuttal includes statistics which state “all rifles combined including Ar-15s kill fewer people in the US than knives” followed by Jason commenting on the mass shooting and pointing out that almost half of the 355 mass shooting nobody was killed.
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This week in class we discussed different types of fallacies and their effect on our perception of our reality. One of the fallacies we discussed was the strawman fallacy of argument. The straw man fallacy is centered on breaking down an opponent’s argument until it is at its most basic and infantile form. Essentially, it takes an argument and breaks it down until it is so simplistic that it makes it sound ridiculous. Tomi Lahren, a young prominent right wing opinion show host, takes a stand against what she perceives to be a rumored “blue wave” approaching in the 2018 midterm elections.
All Democrats, according to Tomi believe in these principals and absolutely nothing more or less, a vote for them is a vote for “Bigger government, identity politics, less rights for Americans and more rights for illegals” while her party, the part of conservatism and republicanism believes in, wholeheartedly and without any delay or asterisks attached, a “stronger border, less taxes and more rights for Americans.” In essence, Tomi is afraid of the wave (further proof of its legitimacy) and rather than have a discourse, breaks her opponent’s position down to its most dividing components and her side’s into its most palatable components. It also leeches into our monster theory by making “illegals” other, rather than human beings born in another country they are people sapping human rights away form American citizens into themselves. In the end, Tomi’s video does absolutely nothing to further her party’s attempt to paint itself as an oppressed minority working to save the average Joe and rather as a bully.
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Last night, I watched the movie Mean Girls for what seems like the thousandth time with my niece. Mean Girls is centered around a teenager, Cady Heron, who is enrolled an American public high school after living in South Africa and being home-schooled. In the beginning of the film, I noticed a logical fallacy, one called hasty generalization. On the first day of school, Principal Duvall announces to the calculus class that Cady has been enrolled to, that a new student from South Africa has enrolled in the school. The teacher, Ms. Norbury, instantly looks right at the only black student in the class. The student notices, and says “I’m from Michigan”. Ms. Norbury assumed that people from South Africa are only black, which is completely untrue. I also noticed three emotional fallacies. The first was when the health teacher was teaching the students about safe sex. The teacher mentions that if you have sex, you will get pregnant and die. This is an example of slippery slope because the teacher is exaggerating the consequence of an action. The next one I saw was when Regina wore the top that had the breast cutouts. A similar thing happens when Cady wears army pants and flip flips. These two examples would fall under bandwagon appeal because in both instances, students began wearing tops with breast cutouts and army pants and flip flops.
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This is an Instagram post I found on a popular political page known as Dilute the Power. The picture presents a quote by Washington D.C. Police Chief, Kathy Lanier which reads “All those marijuana attacks do is make people hate us. Marijuana smokers are not going to attack and kill a cop. They just want to get a bag of chips and relax. Alcohol is a much bigger problem.” Kathy Lanier’s first line can be categorized under the Straw Man logical fallacy which according to Professor Ramos’s blog page is “misrepresenting an argument in order to knock it down. Arguing something that is not really there.” This qualifies as being a Straw Man Argument because Kathy Lanier would be assuming that arresting people for having involvement with marijuana makes every American citizen hate the police. Her statement is an over exaggeration because not every American citizen may feel upset about someone being arrested for the possession of marijuana.
The second half of Kathy Lanier’s statement reads that “Marijuana smokers are not going to attack and kill a cop. They just want to get a bag of chips and relax. Alcohol is a much bigger problem.” This part of her quote can be categorized as the Appeal to Ignorance Logical Fallacy which according a YouTube video by the Associate Director of University Writing at the University of Baltimore, Maryland it’s when “When you say that something must be true because no one has been able to say that it isn’t true.” The video goes on to use an example character named Steven Clump who claims that his deals are the best because “no one has said that they’re not the best.” Kathy Lanier’s statement is making a broad generalization about the typical marijuana smoker being harmless as opposed to the typical alcohol consumer. Although alcohol is dangerous when consumed irresponsibly, it may also be dangerous to assume that every person who smokes marijuana is harmless to our society.
This is a link to the YouTube video titled Fallacies of Reason (Logos) | How to Craft an Argument by the Associate Director of University Writing at the University of Baltimore, Maryland:
This is a link to Professor Ramos’s blog page which provides definitions for various logical fallacies:
-Jack Adams
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This image is of a fallacy know as the straw man fallacy. The image depicts of Obama’s stating that he doesn’t hate business but the editors are generally cutting out the true facts of his words and making it seem as if he hates that topic. By over exaggerating his remarks this is a fallacy by not intending to reveal his true words or intentions. I think this fallacy is a huge deal in today’s society because of what social media and the news covers about current events sometimes gets blown out of proportion. I see this a lot in social media but people use it as a form of slander. The way that the individual words out his/her comment has a malicious diction towards it. I think this connects to our class by the fallacies we are discussing and of the fallacy project that we are working on as well. This I think is used quite often throughout most people. I would say that my thought on this fallacy is not quite as severe due to the implications that has to be done in order to be a strawman fallacy. By having a comment or an opinion to be altered is something that may be spotted easily. This I think helps us understand how this can affect our perception of others when we see or hear something not coming from the source. It leads to assumptions which is arbitrarily bad in a sense especially if you don’t know the individual. Having this fallacy helps us understand what might others be saying or are trying to convey with their diction of the person they are rephrasing.
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