In having discussions about difficult topics, people often shut down conversation though the use of a logical fallacy. We discus a few of the ones that I often see.
Notes
A straw-man is a bad-faith argument where you argue against a distorted version of your conversation partner’s position
A red-herring is an argument that’s unrelated but sounds like it might be
Whataboutism is the attempt to point to something that is worse when someone points out a flaw in some system or person.
The canonical example comes from the Soviet Union who would respond to criticizm regarding human rights by pointing to the times/events where the West had a bad human rights record such as slavery.
The fact that something else is bad doesn’t make the first thing good
The Balance fallacy is treating all arguments as equal regardless of evidence, validity, etc.
If you can recognize these issues, you can stop and responds with greater clarity.
One of Brighter Evening’s goals is to help people to be better able to understand the world so that we can make better decisions.