Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
I’ve recently received some new podcast reviews from some listeners that I’d love to share here! This one comes from Rebekah671. She says, “When I first listened to this podcast, I immediately loved it. Kathy is so friendly and very sensitive while addressing a sensitive topic. I have been chagrined on multiple occasions when she calls out fallacies I commit everyday without realizing it. Although it seems like she’s mostly talking to adults, I think this podcast is great for everyone - kids, teens, adults - you name it! I recently listened to the ‘5 tips for a good conversation’ episode, and it hit home. I remembered some heated conversations where all we were accomplishing was making each other angry. If everyone could listen to this podcast, we might have a nicer world to live in. I 100% recommend this podcast.” Oh my gosh, Rebekah, thank you so, so much for taking the time to review this podcast - your review has encouraged me so much!! And I agree - many conversations would go so much better if more people had these skills! If you haven’t yet left a review for this podcast, would you take a minute and do so? It means so much to me and helps the show get found by more people.
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Alright, y’all, in today’s episode, I’m going to answer a question I’ve received several times lately, most recently I was asked this by a student in the Great American Outpost homeschool group, Daniel. GAO uses this podcast as part of their curriculum when they study logic, so Daniel had been listening to the podcast and learning about fallacies. I got to meet him when I went to speak to his homeschool group and Daniel asked me: “What do you do if someone you’re in a conversation with uses a fallacy?” That’s a good question! And I’m going to guess that now that you’re learning about the fallacies, you are starting to see & hear them a lot, or at least more than you used to. You’re probably catching yourself using them, you’re catching them in advertisements & news articles, and you’re probably starting to catch them in real life conversations with other people. And that presents you with a new dilemma…do you point it out? Tell them they committed a fallacy? Holler, “That’s a red herring!”? Laugh? Pretend it never happened so you don’t embarrass them? Avoid it so you don’t cause an argument? Right? You have a bunch of options here! So how on earth do you know what to do?
Ok, so I have a few suggestions, but the thing I need to say up-front is that there’s no way I can address every single scenario in a short podcast, so I'm going to try to give a few principles that may be able to help.
The first principle that I feel is foundational comes from Ephesians 4:15, where we are told to ‘speak the truth in love’ as a path toward becoming mature. So those words, ‘speaking the truth in love’ help us know how to respond. First, we are to speak the truth, but we are to do it in love.
I heard an example a long time ago that has always stuck with me, and I think it may help you too. *steak in the face* Imagine a nice, juicy, perfectly cooked ribeye steak…they smack you in the face with it. How effective is that? That’s an example of people who are heavy on the truth and not on the ‘love’. Now, imagine that same perfectly cooked steak and before I come to serve it to you, I pour a cup of water all over it. Just some lukewarm water doused all over your steak. How appealing is that? I didn’t smack you in the face, but do you still want it? No. I watered it down so much that it’s completely unappealing and you don’t even want it. That’s what can happen when we are overly concerned with ‘love’ and hurting their feelings that we leave out any truth.
The perfect combination is the delicious steak, served up in a way that makes someone want to eat it. It’s truth spoken in love and delivered in a winsome way. Ok, hopefully that first principle has laid a good foundation for how to approach the conversation.
Now, here’s foundational principle #2: You can only deliver what the relationship can handle. Not every relationship is the same. You probably have a pretty close relationship with your parents, your siblings, your best friend, etc. Those relationships that are long-standing and solid can handle a lot more than, say, someone you work with a few days a week, an acquaintance that you see on occasion. And then there’s the category of people you don’t know that you may get into a random conversation with about something. Each of those relationships have different depth, history & therefore, they can handle different things. The relationship you have with the person you’re talking to will play a part in determining how you’ll address things when they commit a fallacy in the conversation.
For instance, if it’s your sibling and they also listen to this podcast with you, it’s probably going to be ok to say, “Oh, that was a Red Herring - you totally changed the subject!” That relationship can handle it and you have the context to be able to say that..they know the verbiage and they’ll know what you’re talking about.
But, let’s say it’s someone from church who is much older than you and you happen to be chatting with them and they happen to commit a Red Herring. That may not be the time to call them out…you don’t have the same relationship with them, nor do you have the same context with them as you had with your sibling.
Ok, here’s the 3rd principle I want to give you to help guide you in knowing how to address fallacies committed by others: You have to pick your battles. Not every statement someone makes needs to be argued with.
And here’s the 4th & last principle to help you decide how to address fallacies committed by others is this: What is your motivation? Is it to win? To be ‘right’? To make yourself look smart? To prove them wrong? If those are your motivations, I’m gonna say you may need to check yourself & your motivations. But, is your motivation to seek truth? To elevate truth & to try to love the truth? That’s a different ballgame and your chances of addressing things well is much higher if that’s the perspective you’re coming from.
Ok, so with those 4 principles as a foundation, here are a few options that you can turn to when someone uses a fallacy in a conversation:
Option 1. You can just let it go. Maybe the fallacy they commit is about something that doesn’t really matter, so is it worth it to call it out? (Now, the one exception to that might be if you’re a parent and you’re wanting to teach your child critical thinking, you may point it out on little things b/c little things can be good training opportunities.)
Option 2. If you feel like the topic is important and it’s leading the person to making some wrong & possibly hurtful conclusions, you can say something, but you can do it without saying, “You just committed a fallacy!” Try something like this: “Let me back up for just a minute, you said XYZ, and I just want to be sure I understand what you’re saying b/c that didn’t make sense to me.” Give them a chance to stop & think about what they just said and see if they can come to the conclusion themselves that they made a thinking error. You guys, never underestimate the power of asking a good question! Questions are powerful b/c the most powerful form of realization is self-realization. You could tell someone they made a mistake and they just may fight you about it. But if they can realize for themselves that they made a mistake, the chances of them being able to accept the fact that they made a mistake goes up much higher. So try asking a question: “Can you explain what you mean by…?” “How does that compare to…?” “What about in this situation…?” Guys, this is why in every single episode I teach you the thinking error behind each fallacy and I give you the question to ask when you’re faced with it. It’s so that you not only can identify that someone made a thinking error, but you can also identify what that error is…and you can now ask a good question to get them to look at their own thinking. Questions are powerful.
Option number 3 would be in a situation where the stakes are higher. Let’s say you’re in a conversation with a good friend and they’re going down a line of thinking where the results could be significant. It could have a significant impact on their life if they continue in their bad thinking. Let’s say you’ve asked questions and they’re still not getting it. This is when I would pull out the fallacy and say “look, that’s a Red Herring…it means the answer you’re giving is just avoiding the question and you haven’t addressed the issue at hand. Would you mind speaking to the actual issue please?” You see how I’m able to be a bit more direct and speak the truth, but still do it in love?
Ok, I have something that may help with this. If you’ve listened this far in the podcast, you’ve heard a LOT of fallacies, and if you’re like me, it’s hard to remember them all and keep them fresh in your mind, let alone remember the definitions and the questions that go along with them. So, I have created a resource to help you do exactly that. I am creating an e-book from this podcast. I’ve created an e-book that has each fallacy, the definition, a brief example and the question to ask yourself to help identify it. This is the number 1 thing you, my audience has asked for, b/c so many of you want to have something to print off for easy review. Well, this is it! Right now, it goes up through episode 99, but when you purchase the e-book, you’ll get all the updates for free as we go. So, this month I’ll be updating it again adding the more recent episodes, and I’ll continue to update it all the way through Season 1, whenever I get through it all. You’ll pay 1 price and you’ll get all the updates for free. I purposely tried to make it easy to use as either a digital product or to print out so you can reference it at home…hello, I’m a homeschool Mom, and we are the queens of print-outs! Lol. The E-book is just $9 and you’ll get immediate access, and you’ll be notified when updates are available so you can continue adding to your copy. If you want to check it out, just go to www.filteritthroughabraincell.com/
Alright, y’all, I know this is a longer episode than I normally do, but I’ve had this question several times and wanted to really give a thoughtful answer, so hopefully this helps.
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?”
