Times of fallacies
The most important thing is not to be right, but that the dialogue, the conversation, never end.
“We are a dialogue”, wrote the romantic poet Hölderlin, to express that the experience of the outside world, of things, is not outside the inner life. We are always talking, even if we don’t do it out loud or with other people. The deepest dialogues of life take place within each one. In communication we externalize that permanent dialogue that we carry inside. It is very likely that at the same time that you are reading these words, you are also talking to yourself.
Thinking, speaking and writing are words that are related to three fundamental abilities of every human being. The medievals, within their educational system, called the disciplines whose objective was to help the human being to perfect these capacities with the name of trivium. They called: logic, the art of thinking; grammar, to the art of writing; and rhetoric, the art of communicating well in public. Perfecting thought and mastering the relationships between concepts, judgments and reasoning constitutes the central axis of written or spoken discourses.
The word is an essential instrument to build social life. However, when this is falsified, strong ties between people cannot be created. The word not only has to be clear, it also has to be truthful, fair and true. Human beings have the ability to embellish our speeches with nice words, but they can turn out to be false. Even more, behind many false speeches, but with the appearance of truth, the intention to harm or divide people is hidden.
When we think of a speech, we are likely to picture a politician’s spiel or an academic’s lecture. However, it is good to keep in mind that a speech is any communicative act that aims to persuade a person or social group about something. This means that we are always immersed in a kind of roll, where what will define a good speech is not the duration, but the effectiveness. But it is good to clarify that, in addition to being persuasive, the speech must be truthful.
The speeches are structured based on logical reasoning. Although they can also be based on fallacies: a type of persuasive argument that can distract or confuse the interlocutor, because the message expressed contains ambiguities and contradictions that are not immediately perceptible. Faced with this type of incorrect messages, it is important to be attentive to unmask the deception that is hidden behind many political and social discourses.
Among the most common fallacies is the false dilemma. The dichotomous positions are quite problematic because they tend to generate polarization. Reducing a problem to a conflict between two opposing sides does not lead to a solution. The dichotomous thinking polarizes and does not allow real problems to be overcome because it leads to ignoring that there are intermediate points that are not subject to the extremes. To deal with this type of reasoning, we must begin by recognizing when a story speaks of separation and extreme positions, that it does not contemplate intermediate points.
The tendency to see only the negative, to exaggerate things and overestimate figures is a consequence of dichotomous thinking. It is important, above all, not to be impressed by bombastic and exaggerated speeches. Those who live in conflict at all times is because they have joined, even without thinking about it, on opposite sides. Each one capitalizes on the feeling of hate from a different perspective. The extremes divide society. It is hard for us to understand that the destiny of social and political life cannot be imprisoned by a discourse whose premise is: “Whoever wins gets it all”. It is always possible to find new ways to solve problems.
Hasty generalizations are also part of a fallacious argument. Making assumptions from insufficient samples leads to inappropriate conclusions; even more, when a personal anecdote is confused with the state of the world. Although personal experiences are valid for the people who have them, it must be recognized that they are not enough when judging a reality in its entirety. Although it is a reality, many people tend to deduce generalities from their own experiences.
Ad hominem (against the person) is a fallacy that arises when a person is directly attacked, but not his ideas. Although the personal attacks are much more mediatic, in a debate what has weight are the ideas and the arguments. People are respectable, but ideas will always be debatable.
Immanuel Kant, in his essay: What is Enlightenment?, states that each person should have the courage to dare to think and use their own reason. This invitation resonates through the urgent need to develop critical and evaluative thinking, which allows giving solidity to ideas. In this sense, we must be aware that when arguments are based on beliefs, opinions, emotions, signs or assumptions, they will always be weak.
Being right and understanding reason are two different things. When you fight to be right, division is generated because, in many cases, it is difficult to recognize that the interlocutor may also be right. The reason is discursive and intersubjective, for this reason, we are called to build a society on reasonable bases.
As long as we all continue talking at the same time we will end up yelling at each other, but not understanding each other. Prejudice makes communication sick and leads us to take discussions personally. The key is to understand the reason, because each person has something to say and to contribute. The most important thing is not to be right, but that the dialogue, the conversation, never end.
