You’ve probably seen or faced it, feigned hilarity as a means to dismiss or avoid addressing an argument.
It can take the form of “You make me laugh”, “Thanks for the comedic relief”, “ha ha, your (sic) funny!” or more bluntly “You are a clown” as a rebuttal to an eminently non humorous argument.
I’ve just had one of those comebacks during a discussion and I’m not quite sure how to categorize it among the usual logical fallacies.
Certainly it’s a non sequitur, an attempt to poison the well, no lack of ad hominem componente and there’s a strawman lurking around somewhere, but there is more to it than that and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
I can see there is an element of self reassurance at play, and indeed a need for comedic relief, but I’d like to dissect this particular beheaviour in a bit more detail; any thoughts on this?
You’ve given an example of what this feigned humor might take the form of but could you maybe also give an example of what sort of serious arguments these tactics are used to avoid?
It doesn’t address the argument at all and thus concedes that portion of the argument. It essentially says that it amounts to nothing and you won’t waste time on it. In real live court proceedings, ignoring a particularly tangential or inconsequential point, or even saying it is preposterous happens all the time. It takes a skilled rhetorician to spot a good argument and throw out the bad ones.
If the other side dismisses the argument without taking it seriously, this presents an opportunity to follow up and thrust and point out that they have no substance to refute it. If your audience agrees, you’ve gone a long way toward winning.
Knowing what moves your audience is foundational in being persuasive. You don’t make the same argument to Justice Breyer as you do to Justice Scalia. What makes each of your decision makers tick.
OK, some background. A few months ago there was a double murder here in Thailand, that has sparked a lot of speculation over who the real murderer(s) were, you know, the usual conspiracy stuff.
One point of contention among some people claiming that the two men that have been arrested are scapegoats, is the “fact” that they had their DNA tested and the results were negative before they were arrested, therefore proving a miscarriage of justice in the making.
I contested that fact, since I have followed the case and not once have I seen anything to support that assertion, so I asked for a citation.
It came back in the form of two articles, one with a picture where one of the suspects could be seen in line for testing, and another article stating that 200 people had been tested and cleared so far and there was still 100 samples to be analyzed (the second article was about two days after the first one and one week before the two suspects were arrested)
I asked how did that prove that the DNA from the two suspects had been analyzed and cleared before they were arrested since neither of the two articles mentioned the two men in particular in the first place and secondly it clearly showed that the analysis of the samples was not completed at that time.
That’s when hilarity ensued.
The feigned humor came as a reply to a third person quoting me on that question (and dismissing it with, to summarize, “200 were cleared, so there”), so although it was it was not directly addressed to my post it was directly addressed to me by username.
Going back to the claim, it obviously came from conflating different reports into one misconception, but from experience I can tell that one is at risk of loosing fingers from pointing such things out.
As an example when I disproved some assumptions from a guy that was claiming the murder was committed by a gay friend of one of the victims, out of jealously or unrequited love or just because that’s the kind of thing gays do, you know? I ended up being part of a gay conspiracy to hide the truth and protect my “happy”(sic) friends. :smack: Little Nemo I’d say bingo to that; now what’s left to do is figure out what’s wrong with those people.
Your opponent is trying to refute your argument using ridicule, which is an evasion or non-response.
Some rhetorical terms not-exactly-applicable but close:
mycterismus
from Gk. mukterizein “to sneer”
–A mock given with an accompanying gesture, such as a scornful countenance.
sarcasm
from Gk. sarcazein, “to tear flesh, to speak bitterly”
–Use of mockery, verbal taunts, or bitter irony.
apodioxis
from Gk. apo, “away” and diokein, “to pursue” (“a chasing away”)
–Rejecting of someone or something (such as the adversary’s argument) as being impertinent, needless, absurd, false, or wicked.
Me neither; I didn’t go back and say, “Aha! Appeal to Ridicule, so there!”
It would have flown right over the head of the person in question anyway, I tried to explain that person, over six different posts, the concept of burden of proof to no avail.
Such a tactic doesn’t even come close to meeting the definition of a logical fallacy, named or otherwise. It has absolutely nothing to do with making an argument and isn’t even in the same ballpark as a syllogism.
Its hinting at false authority, that I am superior to you, as the meaning and the emotion are both a show of confidence in oneself. " I am so confident that you are so wrong that I can laugh at you". Its in between that and argument ad hominem, as the ridicule can be seen to be saying “you are not worth a sensible reply !”.
