Top Five Logical Fallacies in the Social Justice Movement

Posted by Solver 5 years, 5 months ago to Culture
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By Bo Bennett
1. Overextended Outrage. This is a form of poor statistical thinking where one or more statistically rare cases are implied to be the norm or the trend (without evidence) for the purpose of expressing or inciting outrage toward an entire group. It is a form of extreme stereotyping, based on the cognitive bias known as the group attribution error. An example within social justice: Two bigots brutally assault a gay man in Mississippi. LGBT groups all over the country protest increasing violence against gays citing this case (when in fact, violence has not been increasing).
2. Political Correctness Fallacy. The assumption or admission that two or more groups, individuals, or ideas of groups or individuals, are equal, of equal value, or both true, based on the recent phenomenon of political correctness, which is defined as, a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts, and, as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent. This can be seen as an over-correction of stereotyping. An example within social justice: Social justice groups are outraged that airport security profiles people as potential threats based on physical and cultural characteristics.
3. Identity Fallacy. When one's argument is evaluated based on their physical or social identity, i.e., their social class, generation, ethnic group, gender or sexual orientation, profession, occupation or subgroup when the strength of the argument is independent of identity. Example within social justice: All of these fallacies are bogus since they are written by a White, cisgender, heterosexual male.
4. Base Rate Fallacy. Ignoring statistical information in favor of using irrelevant information, that one incorrectly believes to be relevant, to make a judgment. An example within social justice: 22 trans people were murdered so far this year, which means there is a war on trans people! (In fact, if we factor in the base rate of murders and how many trans people there are in the population, we will find that trans people are less likely to be murdered than cisgender people).
5. Traitorous Critic Fallacy. Responding to criticism by attacking a person's perceived favorability to an out-group or dislike to the in-group as the underlying reason for the criticism rather than addressing the criticism itself, and suggesting that they stay away from the issue and/or leave the in-group. An example within social justice: Calling anyone who criticizes ideas in social justice a "bigot," "racist," "Nazi sympathizer," etc., even if that person considers themselves a proponent of the movement.


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