How NOT to convince anyone of anything…

I’ve posted before on winning the provisional assent of others, to impel adherence to a claim that a given thing is more the case than not.

Personally, I’m skeptical of the idea that any statement of fact about the world can be known and shown true with absolute certainty, or that it needs to be.

So now I’m doing a full 180° turn to show how to keep someone from seeing their way to your conclusion, to keep your argument from at all following from the premises, even if and when those premises are technically true.

I’m going to tell you how to keep people skeptical of your claims, and even skeptical of your skepticism if that’s the nature of your claims.

First, be sure to pepper your argument with lots of loaded partisan language, especially that appealing to an ideology that the intended audience does not share. While it doesn’t make your argument automatically false, it does raise a big red flag to listeners and thus instant suspicions of subjective bias in your framing of your claims and your argumentation.

Try to avoid couching your claims in neutral, more objective-sounding language.

After all, how you say something is as crucial as what you say, since with anyone it’s more what they hear you say than what you are actually trying to.

Use lots of buzzwords, epithets, and partisan slogans. Try to condescend or belittle your audience if you can. This will almost certainly make them instantly hostile and much less receptive to your argument.

Feel free to make use of schoolyard argumentation tactics, such as browbeating, snark, name-calling and feigning confidence while at once arguing defensively and insecurely.

After all, flaming people like a common online troll is always a good way of closing peoples’ minds to what you are trying to say.

Second, pay no heed whatsoever to the soundness of your own reasoning. Use lots of logical fallacies so as to make your opponent scream, “FAIL!”

After all, you are the one making the claims, or why would you bother arguing about whatever it is to begin with?

Try your darnedest to pick out apparent flaws in any refutations your opponent may come up with to your arguments, while remaining oblivious to any and all flaws of your own.

If at all possible, try to remain ignorant of basic principles of both formal and informal reasoning, especially any working knowledge of fallacies.

In keeping with this, misrepresent the arguments of your opponent, and if possible, deliberately commit as many distortions of those arguments as you can. Try to be willfully ignorant of your opponent’s actual position, since it’s easier to tear it down when it’s not what they’re actually arguing.

Try to ‘read between the lines’ and make up a position neither actually expressed nor truly implied in the opponent’s argument.

Thirdly, use lots of factual statements as support for your argument, that even if true, are totally irrelevant to the claims you’re making, or, optimally, alleged facts that are not actually the case, particularly those from or filtered through a non-credible obviously partisan media source, like Faux News, or the HuffPo, even if the original source so filtered is NASA.

In this case, it’s a good idea to have glaring gaps in the chain of inference connecting evidence and claims. Try for an unwarranted inferential leap, one without any real justification at all.

Make an effort to quote someone as evidential support for your position when that quote or factual statement is out of context with the original source, or actual set of statements made.

Quote-mining, media soundbites, and ‘lying with footnotes’ all have a long and honored tradition in journalism, politics, religion, and the scientific fringe alike.

Finally, avoid properly verifying or citing any of the specific sources you get your facts from. If opportunity presents itself, plagiarize verbatim with impunity, since honestly citing or referencing your sources as themselves and not you, even just hyperlinking to them where and when needed or requested is a no-no.

If you must, offer some vague reference of a source that cannot easily be followed up on and verified… or falsified… by your opponent. Nothing makes for an unconvincing argument than lazy or improper source documentation.

Follow these simple rules (un)scrupulously, and you will be almost certain never to convince anyone with even borderline critical reasoning faculties, especially us damned smartypants fervent skeptics and our dogmatic scientism.

Remember this: The audience, including your opponent, is the final judge of the success or failure of your arguments, and a sure way for them to fail is to ignore the audience’s predispositions, situations, and modes of thinking and reasoning.

So go forth, Incredulous One, and make others skeptical of whatever it is you say!

Fractal of the Day: Parabola

All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2011 Troy Loy