Logical Fallacies, Cognitive Distortions, and the Age of Misinformation
When they were first born, memes were cute, innocuous things that provided little more than comic relief and a sense of common ground with one's generation or subculture. In their adolescence, memes became very popular, and took on a more dominant role within social networking ecosystems. But as they've grown up, having gained significant social clout, memes have joined tweets in reducing complex issues to 140 characters - and may be abusing their power like never before.
Logical fallacies are commonly defined as "an error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid." Those with formal training in scientific reasoning, nonfiction writing, debate, and other fields that require advanced critical thinking, have learned to spot the logical fallacies of critics and opponents, and safeguard their positions from being undermined by any fallacies in their own arguments. However, this is not a skill that has been mastered by most with a high school education, nor is scientific reasoning normative within the American culture. In fact, our culture is one of abundant, popularized logical fallacies. Whereas a skilled politician once learned how to deftly spot her opponent's logical fallacies and challenge the "weakest link" in his argument, what is far more commonplace in today's political world is, not the astute challenging of said errors in reasoning, but the widespread promotion and abuse of anti-scientific, emotional reasoning as a deliberate though often unquestioned tool for manipulation.
My undergraduate education in the environmental field gave me a basis in scientific thinking for which I am ever grateful. But during my twenties, feeling achingly daunted by the task of addressing climate change, while discovering my own personal strengths, I decided to switch gears and become a therapist, focusing on the small, personal scale at which I feel most equipped to make a difference. Although my work relies heavily on intuition and emotion, it also involves helping individuals errors in their own thinking, and in the positions argued by those who inflict harm against them, to support the ultimate goal of alleviating psychological distress.
Thus, the types of logical fallacies I help my clients spot generally fall into two categories. Cognitive distortions are ways in which we think about ourselves, our lives, and our problems that contribute to emotional distress, while manipulation strategies are psychologically abusive tactics that have been used against many of my clients by narcissists and sociopaths to coerce and exploit them.
As a therapist whose work involves spotting these errors and the harm they cause on a daily basis, I cannot help but to see these patterns reflected in the culture at large. Helping my clients learn to recognize and correct the errors in both the stories they tell themselves, and the stories that hurtful others tell them about themselves (link to my own page on emotional abuse), is an uphill battle that requires the strength to swim against the current of the culture at large, which continues to perpetuate such unscientific and unhelpful ways of dialoguing. I wish that I could also call these strategies "ineffective," but the unfortunate reality is that logical fallacies are popular because they are so effective.
Whichever side of the political divide you stand on, you and those around you are highly subject to emotional reasoning. We all select for information that confirms our existing beliefs while distorting and oversimplifying our opponent's position. We tend to double-down on our beliefs when they are popular amongst those around us. Then we delude ourselves into thinking that other with enough pressuring and cajoling from us - or, more blatantly ignorant still, with enough memes. (Here, by the way, are memes that actively challenge this culture of ignorance)
I am concerned that each of us living in our own political bubble , which reinforces our sense of being surrounded by those who share our beliefs, results in a subconscious sense of safety, ease, and entitlement to be fairly mindless and unstrategic in how we go about political discussions - if you can even call them "discussions." On Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, we repost articles and share memes that continue to reinforce that bubble for those around us. We rarely engage in dialogue with "the other side," and when we do, it often equates to little more than throwing verbal stones in one another's directions. When was the last time you had a discussion with someone whose viewpoint was dissimilar to your own, and either of you walked away from that conversation changed?
Perhaps it's okay with you if the answer here is "five years ago." Perhaps your bubble gives you reassurance that the inherent rightness of your side will lead to ultimate victory - a dangerous form of wishful thinking if I've ever seen one! Personally, I do not feel so comforted, nor so safe to act on these assumptions. I am deeply troubled by what appears to me to be a catastrophic communication breakdown in society. I am terrified of where it will lead.
I am one of those people who also lives, for the most part, in a political bubble. The majority of my friends and acquaintances, and even my clients, share beliefs similar to my own, and I suspect the same is true for them amongst their networks. However, I do know people who are close - sometimes unavoidably so, and sometimes by choice - with others whose political beliefs are significantly different from their own. Among these friends, acquaintances, and clients of mine, some feel the ability to engage in meaningful dialogue, but many do not. I cannot speak for what it is like to be in that position, but I find it deeply troubling that even members of a family who share the same blood cannot find ways to see eye-to-eye. What I can say for myself is that I rarely have opportunities to engage with those with significantly different viewpoints. And when I do, I am sure I sometimes ruin any slim chance I may have had of engaging in a persuasive, civil debate. I am, after all, as fallible as anyone, and oftentimes as emotionally charged by widespread political trauma. However, I now hold a more active intention than ever before to use the best of my communication and reasoning skills to bridge this divide when I can.
I recently went for a walk with an acquaintance who is pro-life (or as some say, anti-choice). In case it isn't abundantly evident by now where my own values stand, I am pro-choice. But we had a civil conversation. I used skills I have cultivated as a therapist, such as reflective listening, to understand his point of view. Of course, I spotted and pointed out logical fallacies. There was a ton of emotional reasoning, conflating facts with feelings. When it came down to an existential debate over the question of what is a soul, where is it located, can it be harmed or destroyed, when does it inhabit an embryo, and so on, he used the appeal to ignorance, arguing that because some of these questions are unknowable, it is reasonable to make a particular set of assumptions about the answers to these questions - the set of assumptions that, of course, justifies his position. He used circular reasoning to justify his position based on itself, and the appeal to authority referencing his religious views. He also made a lot of assumptions, such as the notion that anyone who is born is ultimately glad they were born - a perspective which, as a therapist for individuals who often feel suicidal, I cannot endorse. I responded to this with personal experience.
We were able to engage in this dialogue civilly. I reflected his strengths and gifts. I explored the significance of this issue in his own story: his own mother would have aborted him had she listened to his father. I connected to his emotions around this. I explored his spirituality and related to his capacity for resilience and meaning-making. I used Nonviolent Communication and spoke to his own values, such as faith, then positioned my perspective as speaking to those same values from the opposite angle: can he have faith that a woman can trust her own inner guidance as to what is right for her? I also used data. I referenced fascinating information I learned from the book Freakonomics* with regard to how Roe v. Wade caused a more dramatic drop in homicide rates in one major US city 20 years later than all other factors combined: by allowing women who, for various reasons, felt unable to care for a child, to avoid having to do so, many children were not born into the stressful, impoverished, often traumatizing conditions that often lead people to turn to a life of crime. I challenged him to identify what he would personally say to me, if he had taken away my right to choose in a situation in which I felt I needed it.
My friend did not change his position right away, nor would I expect anyone to who is well into adulthood and firmly cemented in such a belief as this one. But I felt his gears churning along with mine. Later that evening, he messaged me to say that he and his Christian friends ended up in their own dialogue about abortion.
It is my belief that these are the types of dialogues that are needed now more than ever. Just because the culture is evolving in an ever more illogical direction does not mean that each of us as an individual is obligated to follow suit. Regardless of where you come from or your level of education, you can learn to think critically and communicate civilly.
