http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU4t9O_yFsY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMS

ID: 3452954 • Letter: H

Question

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU4t9O_yFsY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhkL-mji9UE

Take a look at the three videos above and think about what they have in common. They all commit a fallacy that is not specifically mentioned in our text, but clearly a fallacy of relevance -- the fallacy based upon fear, or the argumentum ad metum.
Then read this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear

Your assignment is to comment on the cartoon below (after the questions).

Why is this cartoon an appeal to fear?

Who is the person in the tent?

What is the fear that the cartoon plays upon?

Are there other fallacies that we've studied that you think might be at work in this cartoon?

"If cartoons can contain fallacies, then they can contain arguments, since fallacies are indeed arguments, albeit bad ones." What's your view on this statement? Is it true? Or false? What are the reasons for your belief?

Explanation / Answer

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary. Also, I cannot comment on the image of the “cartoon” in the question as you have not uploaded it separately, the image does not appear.

(Answer) The fallacy based on fear in this scenario is argumentum ad metum. This means that a person is convinced to undertake method A simply because a fear about method B has been instilled in them.

As far as logical fallacies go, it is not cogent to elicit a response based on the appeal to emotions but it should rather be out of logical reasoning.

Video

Option posed as the right one

Option that instills fear

Bush reduces finance for security.

Bush supports more finance towards intelligence operations

America with slashed intelligence operations.

Bush supports the death penalty.

Bush supports death penalty

His opponent’s idea for the weekend pass sets criminals free on the weekends.

Ronald Regan is supposedly incompetent.

Jimmy Carter is more competent.

Regan does not have what it takes to keep America safe.

“If cartoons contain fallacies, they contain arguments as well.” This is because even an erroneous argument is an argument nevertheless. This is because an argument is a communication tool that is used to coax the opposite party to adopt our point-of-view or simply agree with us. Since an argument is a tool, let us equate it with a hammer. A hammer can be used to hammer on bathroom tiles and break them or a hammer can be used to hammer a nail on to the wall to hang a pretty picture. In other words, any tool can be used logically or illogically. The argument that most of these videos have in common is that of imagining the worst case scenario to be indelible. The argument does not even consider that mistakes can be solved through improving methods, learning from mistakes, redirecting resources etc.

When the details of both situations are not evenly considered and weighed to come to the logical conclusion, the fallacy of fear comes across as a potent argument. In the case of the image “the subtle conspirator”, the cartoon in this image represents daily morning prayers at school. It is called “Rome” to represent the Roman Catholic Church, the cudgel represents the violence that is incited by religion and the propaganda box represents the propagation and controversy that religious institutes have dealt with in the past. The boy from the tent is seen “eyeing” the American public school with a view to “deploy” his weapons of violence and propaganda. All this with the hint that, if morning prayers make their way to the American public schools, violence and propaganda would traverse the American system.