Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off with a quick review of a fallacy we covered earlier in the podcast: the Gambler’s Fallacy. The Gambler’s Fallacy happens when someone tries to predict the outcome of what is actually a random event by looking at past outcomes. I know, that sounds a little confusing. Let me give a few examples and it’ll make more sense.
Let’s say someone is flipping a coin. They flipped the coin 5 times and got ‘heads’ all 5 times. They’ll commonly say something like this: I’m sure the next one will be ‘tails’ b/c there’s no way I could get 6 heads in a row.
Question to ask yourself if you find yourself leaning toward the Gambler’s Fallacy is this: “Is this outcome statistically random? If so, there can be no probability build-up.”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, check out Episode 45.
Interested in homeschooling? For more than 25 years, Classical Conversations has
equipped parents just like you with the support and tools to home educate. Start
your journey today and find your local Classical Conversations community of
homeschool families at classicalconversations.com/gibbens
Alright, let’s dive into today’s new fallacy, The Appeal to Spite. An Appeal to Spite happens when someone uses the emotion of spite to discredit an argument, rather than using an legitimate argument or rebuttal. Now, I think we should probably define the word Spite here so we are all on the same page: dictionary.com defines it as a malicious, usually petty, desire to harm, annoy, frustrate, or humiliate another person. So an Appeal to Spite happens when someone tries to make you feel angry or annoyed at another person so that you will reject or ignore their argument.
Here’s an example of an Appeal to Spite: “Don’t you just hate how those rich, liberal elite actors & actresses go on social media to promote their agenda?” Ok, so can you see how this person is just trying to get you to feel spite for the actors & actresses, rather than actually making a good argument about why they disagree with the agendas they’re promoting?
And that’s the problem behind an Appeal to Spite: it’s not actually addressing the issue or the argument at hand. It’s simply an Appeal to Emotion that is meant to distract from the issue at hand by getting you angry & riled up. You have to be very careful to not let yourself get emotionally manipulated so that you can’t think clearly about what people are actually saying!
Here’s another simple example of an Appeal to Spite: “Are you really going to vote for Ed for class president? Don't you remember when he called you ugly in the 4th gradel? Why would you vote for him?” See how they’re not even arguing about whether Ed would make a good class president, they’re simply getting someone to feel spite for Ed b/c of something mean he said several years earlier.
Question to ask yourself: “Is that really a valid reason to disregard what they’re saying?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
