Post by hobo8675309 on Nov 19, 2010 23:59:49 GMT -5
Let's observe some of the persuasive tenencies used politics, shall we?
1. Argumentum ad Odium: Depsite many politicians claiming to maintain close friendships with their opponets, they often turn to oughtright bitter and dishonest attack ads to guarantee their own political dominance. This tactic is known as argumentum ad odium, Latin from Argument of Spite. Humans, particularly males, are most responsive to enraged emotions, as opposed to say, happy emotions, and they will more likely vote for a candidate whom expresses outrage against big government or massive tac cuts for extremely wealthy citizens or even the opponet in general than an ad that promised a nice, resonable, happy European social democracy. The sad thing is, politicians cannot even afford to hate one another, because both parties have been pushed closer to the center by private interest group (which bring me to the next political strategy...)
2. Argumentum ad Temperantiam: Latin phrase meaning "Argument to Moderation". Unfortunately, this argument is totally abused and distorted to something it truly isn't. I'm a huge supporter of moderation, however, most of us look at politics through a very narrow Overton window, and thus we immediately assume that moderation is between liberal and conservative. However, to truly enforce moderation, we must broaden our scope of thought to every extreme civic available, and should we do that, we will find ourselves in moderation between the far right movement of capitalism, and the far left movement of communism, which will land us right in a situation of Social Democracy, and depsite bearing the beauty of moderation and neutrality, is still seen as extensively radical by most Americans. So yeah, it sounds like a good idea, but doesn't really work.
3. Education through Indoctrination: Many of us would argue that all education is oriented to support liberal or conservatives, but I disagree. The politics of educationa are very dependent on the advancement of the material taught. In early academic institutions, the instructors are very much conservatively biased. I still remember hearing my THIRD GRADE teacher tell the class that "Ronald Reagan was a great president", and I'm sure that it's not hard to find a Democrat who would disagree with that statement. Regardless of the political implications of her opinion, she did make that blunt statement, and pandora's box was openned. Later in Middle School, I remember two instructors, both of them language arts teachers, speaking out against No Child Left Behind and in favor of the death penalty. All of this changes in collgege, when proffesors are all really hardcore progressives. Because the colleges are owned by private institutions, proffesors can freely speak out on contraversial topics that are completely unrelated to the course, without ever having any sort of intervention or even minor conflict. Thus, all people educated through Elementary to High School are most likely to become conservative "Blue-Collar Workers", and everyone educated up to college is more likely to be a liberal "Intellectual", which is an unhealthy disparity between the two most sought-after social demographics in an election.
4. Argumentum ad Ignorantium: An argument of ignorance based off of lack of proof. While this is rarely used in actual politics, social and cultural debates use at all the time. Ofr instance, "You have no proof that God doesn't exist, so He does". Another counter argumentum ad Ignorantium might be, "If there is no scientific proof in any supernatural being or occurence, than it is for incompetent morons and should not be beleived in at any cost". Like everything on this list, argumentum ad ignorantium is a very dangerous political tactic to become involved in, because it is often subject to being pointed out for what it is by every rational thinker on the opposite side of which the argument is being used by.
1. Argumentum ad Odium: Depsite many politicians claiming to maintain close friendships with their opponets, they often turn to oughtright bitter and dishonest attack ads to guarantee their own political dominance. This tactic is known as argumentum ad odium, Latin from Argument of Spite. Humans, particularly males, are most responsive to enraged emotions, as opposed to say, happy emotions, and they will more likely vote for a candidate whom expresses outrage against big government or massive tac cuts for extremely wealthy citizens or even the opponet in general than an ad that promised a nice, resonable, happy European social democracy. The sad thing is, politicians cannot even afford to hate one another, because both parties have been pushed closer to the center by private interest group (which bring me to the next political strategy...)
2. Argumentum ad Temperantiam: Latin phrase meaning "Argument to Moderation". Unfortunately, this argument is totally abused and distorted to something it truly isn't. I'm a huge supporter of moderation, however, most of us look at politics through a very narrow Overton window, and thus we immediately assume that moderation is between liberal and conservative. However, to truly enforce moderation, we must broaden our scope of thought to every extreme civic available, and should we do that, we will find ourselves in moderation between the far right movement of capitalism, and the far left movement of communism, which will land us right in a situation of Social Democracy, and depsite bearing the beauty of moderation and neutrality, is still seen as extensively radical by most Americans. So yeah, it sounds like a good idea, but doesn't really work.
3. Education through Indoctrination: Many of us would argue that all education is oriented to support liberal or conservatives, but I disagree. The politics of educationa are very dependent on the advancement of the material taught. In early academic institutions, the instructors are very much conservatively biased. I still remember hearing my THIRD GRADE teacher tell the class that "Ronald Reagan was a great president", and I'm sure that it's not hard to find a Democrat who would disagree with that statement. Regardless of the political implications of her opinion, she did make that blunt statement, and pandora's box was openned. Later in Middle School, I remember two instructors, both of them language arts teachers, speaking out against No Child Left Behind and in favor of the death penalty. All of this changes in collgege, when proffesors are all really hardcore progressives. Because the colleges are owned by private institutions, proffesors can freely speak out on contraversial topics that are completely unrelated to the course, without ever having any sort of intervention or even minor conflict. Thus, all people educated through Elementary to High School are most likely to become conservative "Blue-Collar Workers", and everyone educated up to college is more likely to be a liberal "Intellectual", which is an unhealthy disparity between the two most sought-after social demographics in an election.
4. Argumentum ad Ignorantium: An argument of ignorance based off of lack of proof. While this is rarely used in actual politics, social and cultural debates use at all the time. Ofr instance, "You have no proof that God doesn't exist, so He does". Another counter argumentum ad Ignorantium might be, "If there is no scientific proof in any supernatural being or occurence, than it is for incompetent morons and should not be beleived in at any cost". Like everything on this list, argumentum ad ignorantium is a very dangerous political tactic to become involved in, because it is often subject to being pointed out for what it is by every rational thinker on the opposite side of which the argument is being used by.