'Twas the evening of Wednesday, May 11th, and all was quiet on Instagram. The Bernie Sanders rally had come and gone two days before, as had the pictures people had posted of themselves and others at the rally. But one picture did not appear until Wednesday.
Zoe, a HISP classmate of ours, posted a harmless photo of herself at the rally accompanied by the caption, "Not too late to research the candidates and really read into their views, it's our future at stake!!" If only she could have seen what would come next. One anti-Bernie comment led to another, which was followed by an anti-Trump comment, and suddenly all hell broke loose. As I write this, Zoe's post has received 232 comments, almost all of which are contributions to this hectic political argument.
As soon as I popped myself some popcorn and sat down to read through the fight, a thought occurred to me. It was something along the lines of: "Oh boy! A political argument over social media between teenagers who are somewhat informed about politics: look at all the fallacies!" In this post, I'll examine a few of the many reasoning fallacies I've come across in the comment fight. I'd like to maintain anonymity as much as possible, so I'll refrain from name-dropping those involved in the argument. For the most part, it was two students from Christian Brothers debating several members of the sophomore HISP class.
Funny video about fallacies in a Democratic Debate.
- Circular Reasoning - Why not start at the beginning? One of the first comments from CB Guy #1 read, "Tbh all the candidates suck but I would rather have Trump over Bernie." In other words, because he likes Trump more than the other candidates, he likes Trump more than Bernie. The conclusion is stated in the premise.
- Red Herring - Later in the comment thread, someone accused Trump of being racist and misogynistic, to which CB Guy #1 responded, "I'd rather have a president who doesn't get us into more debt #feelthebern." While this may or may not be true, CB Guy #1 doesn't actually address the topic being presented to him. Instead, he diverts attention to Bernie Sanders' financial policies, a topic completely independent of Trump's social views. Way to avoid the topic, CB Guy #1.
- Appeal to Ignorance - Enter CB Guy #2. He argued for Trump's immigration plan by reasoning that illegal immigrants account for a large percentage of crime in the US. A fellow HISPster responded that this is because statistics suggest implicit bias in police and juries. CB Guy #2's response read, "That's an opinion. I don't know if you can actually prove they are biased unless you journey inside their minds." He argued that if implicit bias hasn't been proven to exist (which it has), it therefore doesn't exist. Bad move, CB Guy #2. Bad move.
- Ad Hominem - Where to begin? As you might guess with petty teen arguments, this comment fight is riddled with name-calling and attacks on character. Most of it (unfortunately) came from CKM students. CB Guys #1 and #2 were arguing that Bernie supporters just want free stuff and people should learn to "WORK themselves into that 1%," to which several McClatchy students pointed out that Christian Brothers, being a private school, requires some privilege to attend. That's a fair point, but it got a bit out of hand when a HISP student commented, "I thought with your private school education where you are taught of Christianity and goodwill you would be able to understand humanitarian politeness." This is an attempt to make the CB Guys' argument seem illegitimate, but in reality, it's little more than an insult. CB Guy #1 came back with a zinger: "Nobody respects you because of the pictures you put on social media." Because a girl's Instagram content has everything to do with her argumentation. Great point, CB Guy #1.
These are just a few examples from a fight that embodies many qualities of social media. I think this exchange demonstrates how easy it is to insult and debate people over social media whom you've never met. If this debate happened in person, it would probably last about five minutes. Behind the keys of a keyboard, it's so easy to throw around insults and make hasty reasoning fallacies without worrying about the consequences. Many thanks to Zoe's Instagram for an interesting piece of media.
I completely agree with everything you have said in this post. And great choice to do your post on this; I was hoping someone would do an analysis on that little knockout round that took place behind the students' keyboards. I was wondering if you think that the reason students kept adding on stupid statements to Zoe's post was because they saw an easy way to try to get their opinions out there without being completely shutdown or just to add to the commotion of all the first comments that were written on her post?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if anyone was actively looking to start a fight, but I'd say they just took advantage of the ease of voicing their opinions over the Internet. It's the same reason some might prefer texting over talking in person - it's far less difficult to make your opinion heard when you don't have to directly face the person you're debating.
DeleteI also saw this on Instagram and resisted the urge to join in on the debate. I also had a laugh while I was reading through it. But, as you said our media does allow us to argue and make false claims without there being any consequences. Do you think that this allows us, as students, to be more involved in politics or can our media just promote funny arguments that include many fallacies? Love you Jonah!!
ReplyDeleteI also saw this on Instagram and resisted the urge to join in on the debate. I also had a laugh while I was reading through it. But, as you said our media does allow us to argue and make false claims without there being any consequences. Do you think that this allows us, as students, to be more involved in politics or can our media just promote funny arguments that include many fallacies? Love you Jonah!!
ReplyDeleteThe Internet has definitely provided a great forum for political discussions. I think it's just the informal nature of Instagram/social media that allows for hasty errors in argument.
DeleteAnother Fallacy in the comment section: I believe it's CB guy #1 who said "Btw interested to find one non liberal at CKM." This is a hasty generalization in two ways: one, he sees a few kids commenting from liberal viewpoints and says we're all liberals, and two, he sees some of our views an assumes we're liberals. This is ironic because he was saying this in response to myself, and I am not a liberal, only some of my views align with liberal views. He also uses the hasty generalization when saying that all illegal immigrants are terrible people who just come here to commit crimes.
ReplyDeleteVery true, my dude.
DeleteI posted something similar to this a while back and I think that we both agree that social media had become a unparalleled political outlet for young people. Do you think that this is beneficial or harmful to politics and how the discussions are handled.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, it's beneficial that more young people are getting involved in politics and becoming interested in voicing their opinions. The drawback is that it's so much easier to insult someone over social media than to their face. This is probably why we see so many Ad Hominem fallacies on the Internet rather than intelligent, civilized debate.
DeleteI found it interesting the determination these two CB kids had. They really had the whole world against them. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and at time outsmarted, but that didn't stop them. I too watched the comments roll in in absolute glee, but a certain point felt compelled to chime in. I found the use of the ethos of the father of CB Guy #2 very interesting. When confronted with the stereotype that private school kids parents paychecks are thicker than Kanye's wife, he responded with a mini-bio of his father's against all odds story. What an interesting technique in a political argument.
ReplyDelete