.
I found this (old) website with a huge list of vividly described propaganda and debating techniques and think it's worth sharing.
It's not by pure chance that some of the propaganda techniques are illustrated with examples from tyrants and warmongers.
(The author seemed to have a bigger feud with a certain organisation, though.)
P.S.: Google / Blogger is forcing the stupid new interface on us bloggers now. Be patient if strange things happen, especially concerning format, disappearing posts etc.
.
Glad you found this. There are a few courses I believe everyone should take at University, and among the top are geography, social statistics, and Logic In Argument. This was a nice (incomplete, but nice) little list. You in particular have problems with the straw man, post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc 'analysis', glittering generalities and hidden assumptions, among many others. Of course, no one is perfect, but you don't need to make a career out of it, Herr soldat.
ReplyDeleteIt's always most difficult to spot one's own rhetorical tricks, we're usually using them unconsciously.
DeleteThe short format of a blog post doesn't allow for long lists of footnotes, lengthy evidence chains or excursions and so on. It's not equal to a ten-page article in a peer-reviewed journal. This coupled with the problem that honest disagreement can lead to the (false) diagnosis of a rhetorical trick guarantees that a blog cannot maintain a white vest in face of the list of rhetorical tricks that's linked here.