Bamboozling the public

Anyone who engages in intellectual debate comes to recognize the tactics, ploys, and dirty tricks that debaters use to bamboozle an audience when the facts and logic aren't going their way.

Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought

Steven Pinker

Perhaps I should have commented on Steven Pinker's comment during the political season, except that it is always the political season, and what he says is as true in December as it was in October.

In The Stuff of Thought, Pinker offers three examples of common tools for bamboozling audiences:

1. The appeal to authority.

Most recently the authority most often appealed to is science. "Follow the science," politicians like to say when discussing the present pandemic, except when science runs counter to what these politicians want to do. Then they ignore the science. Thus schools remain closed in some areas even though medical authorities generally agree that school children are neither endangered by the virus nor likely to pass it on to others. Further, scientists don't always agree with each other, allowing politicians to pick the science they prefer. Medical experts don't even always agree with their own previous statements on the subject, sometimes changing their positions on the wearing of masks, the wisdom of lockdowns and related issues. Like a lawyer in a courtroom, a politician can always find an expert to back up any position.

2. The ascription of motives.

Amy Coney Barrett, the new justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, supposedly would vote to end health insurance protection for persons with preexisting conditions. Democrats supposedly intend to pack the Supreme Count and make Puerto Rico a state. Much of what passes for political debate comes down to bold, usually exaggerated statements about what the other side will certainly do if they gain power. Using statements actually made by politicians on the other side is one thing, but putting statements into their mouths is something else.

3. The calling of names.

Donald Trump and anyone who supports him is a racist, perhaps even a Nazi, according to many Democrats. Republicans are fond of calling their political opponents socialists, perhaps even communists. No doubt some Trump supporters are racists (as are some Biden supporters), and no doubt some Democrats are socialists at heart. Still the name-calling has more to do with bamboozling the public than with facts and logic.