On Misapplied Truisms

Once you notice this in debate, you can never unnotice it again and it's unfortunately become a very common tactic in political discourse.

A misapplied truism is when someone says something completely self-evidently true that appears to be a response to someone else's argument but actually isn't.

A blatant example of this is when people say 'All lives matter,' in response to BLM. It's a truism because nobody can argue that all lives don't matter but the point here is that nobody has argued that all lives don't matter. BLM supporters argue that black lives matter too, not that white lives don't matter. As a misapplied truism, 'all lives matter,' pretends otherwise.

If you can't deal with your opponent's argument as it stands, a misapplied truism allows you to switch the point of contention onto something else by making your opponent's argument appear as something that it's not. It's a kind of straw-manning.

Sorry, but I am going to go there because this relates to Israel/Palestine. A lot.

"Israel has the right to defend itself." Nobody could disagree with a country wanting to defend itself. The real point of contention is whether Israel has the right to attack a city and kill 8,000 civilians (so far).

"Hamas and Netanyahu have both done bad things." Few disagree. Some on the Trumpian right like Netanyahu but almost literally nobody on the left actually supports Hamas. Defending the lives of Palestinian civilians implies no ideological support for Hamas at all, though there are great attempts to pretend otherwise.

Often people who use this technique are not even aware of it. It tells the truth in its own terms, but those terms are a lie.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

Northwest · M

I mostly agree with what you're saying, but I will disagree with this:

Often people who use this technique are not even aware of it. It tells the truth in its own terms, but those terms are a lie.

I believe that those who propagandize for one side in a conflict (or debate) deliberately use this tactic, and push it through their circle of influence. That circle of influence, by helping spread false truism, provides legitimacy to Truism.

At this point, it's really hard to say whether Hamas does not enjoy popular support in Gaza, or in Arab or Muslim countries in general. thousands of dead children "collateral damage", fog up people's vision, and the anger could be directed at either Hamas or Israel.

In 2006, with the exception of Lebanon's Shiaa, Lebanon's population's anger turned toward Hezbollah, and that led to a very limited war between Hezbollah and a number of Lebanon's groups, mainly Druze, Sunnis and Christians.

During the 2014 war, people's anger was directed at Hamas. A father, interviewed by Al-Jazeera, was asked about a hit that killed his child, and he pointed to a Hamas rocket launcher hidden behind bushes that touch the family's house as the culprit.

Israel's PR machine, helped with Western countries' governments's PR machines, has a single purpose: make the process of getting rid of Hamas, which is what everyone wants (including the Palestinian people, whether or not their current state of anger prevents them from seeing it), clean. As in eliminate discussions related to the Palestinian human toll. During WWII, or even Vietnam, the human toll was obscured, and only victories and heroics were exposed to the public.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@Northwest To clarify, there are people who've used the very arguments I used as examples who are acting in good faith. They are however, following politicians and media who are not.

trollslayer · 46-50, M

@Northwest USA did the same thing back in 2001-2, and that is how we wound up in Iraq. I think those in the Bush administration knew what they were doing, and self-justified it by saying they were getting rid of a "bad man". For the US public, it was fed as "terrorists attacked us>Saddam is a terrorist>must attack Iraq." Us with a brain thought differently, and thought the problem was MUCH more complex than a good/evil action movie. I view the Hamas/Israeil/Palestine situation similarly. I actually think the situation bears a strong similarity to that between the USA and native peoples back in the 19th century.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@Burnley123 Also I have noticed that when things like "All lives matter" have made their way from 4chan to your normie aunt and uncle on Facebook all context and nuance has been lost by that point and such things get spread by people who really are kind of clueless about the whole debate.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Yeah. It's popularity stems from its effective (though disingenuous) framing. It asks the wrong question to get the 'right' answer in a parallel debate to the real issue.

Northwest · M

@Burnley123

To clarify, there are people who've used the very arguments I used as examples who are acting in good faith. They are however, following politicians and media who are not.

Yes, that's clear.

and what I meant. Take Colin Powell for instance, he was used to legitimize the invasion, and I personally believed what he said.

Northwest · M

@trollslayer

USA did the same thing back in 2001-2, and that is how we wound up in Iraq. I think those in the Bush administration knew what they were doing, and self-justified it by saying they were getting rid of a "bad man". For the US public, it was fed as "terrorists attacked us>Saddam is a terrorist>must attack Iraq." Us with a brain thought differently, and thought the problem was MUCH more complex than a good/evil action movie. I view the Hamas/Israeil/Palestine situation similarly. I actually think the situation bears a strong similarity to that between the USA and native peoples back in the 19th century.

Yes, we had a bunch of neocons who thought this was the 1950s. The Iraq invasion is what gave us multiple financial near-disasters, and the total chaos the world is in today.