Consensus by Anecdote

I’ve participated in a lot of drunken debates, and there’s one go-to defense that always sticks in my craw: the fallacy my mother calls “consensus by anecdote,” or when the exception trumps the rule. When it comes to the most sensitive topic discussions, why do people try to undermine a rule with the exception? The one-time variable can become the driving force behind a person’s opinion, and the sweeping generalizations that come from this thought process drives me crazy.

I finally snapped and had to rant about the fallacy when I began research for my Feminism vs. Sexism series. Every time I read an article about women’s issues, there was at least one guy in the comment section that felt the need to use a counter point of “this happened to me” or “men are exploited too” or “women are jealous and/or sluts looking for attention.” Here are three examples I found in the span of 20 minutes:

Essays about women creepily being told to smile:

“So what should i make of women who have met me in the subway and said ‘i like a man in a suit’ this double standard that women can be sexually aggressive and nothing is wrong with it goes to show you the same entitlement that you seem to suggest men have…”

Articles about women being objectified:

“I rarely hear any complaints from attractive women when I tell them they are attractive. It's usually the not-so-attractive women who complain about men objectifying women when I compliment a woman's attractiveness. ”

Pieces about sexual harassment in the work place:

“Do women ever use sex to get what they want? What are the charges for that? If you want respect, act respectable.”

While it is true men can be objectified and human beings enjoy attention from each other, it is a laughable concept to believe men face anywhere near the same discrimination as women. It is equivalent to a white person trying to compare the plight of whites to blacks.

This kind of reasoning doesn’t just apply to sexism and racism either; it can be applied to all spectrums of debate discussions. I’ve conversed with many people who used the minority opinion or distorted facts to justify or confirm the “gay agenda,” alternative medicine, not vaccinating children, gun control, global warming, and/or essentially all political or religious beliefs held close by someone. Some of the “facts” I hear are nothing more than here-say or flat out lies (I’m looking at you anti-vaccination parents).

A does not equal B, if A is the fucking variable. If I have to hear one more argument –  how someone knows a person on welfare who is lazy, so all poor people are lazy; how there is one story about a woman who used abortion as birth control, so that means all women will; how your one black friend speaks for the entire population – I am going to scream.  In an age where a person needs to do Internet research to confirm a news story, how does one miracle example trump the obvious problem in many debates?

People from all walks of life enjoy living in the dark, and it always seems to involve anything that stands to exclude, define, control, manipulate, or profit off the individual. This should be a huge red flag, but the more sensitive the topic, the less likely someone is to be persuaded by facts. This fact has been somewhat proven in multiple studies. (There are a few inconsistent variables in the math and political belief study.) Why can people be so afraid of introducing a new idea into their belief system?

The psychology behind ignoring facts fascinates me, especially when the masses follow suit. The 24-hour news networks are a great example of the exception trumps rule issue. They have become nothing more than a source fueling “Talking Head” drones that run around screaming their favorite pundit’s opinion. FOX News, the master of propaganda, has turned this into an art form that I must admit, I respect to a degree. No one is quite able to produce mindless clones like this network. There is no second-guessing if someone exclusively watches FOX News. It is like speaking to a walking fact sheet of O'Reilly and Hannity bullet points. It is the same diluted facts spit out over and over again, and the moment a new, unfamiliar idea is introduced, then they revert to the FOX panic button mode of, “if I scream louder than you, I win.”I’ve noticed that anyone who needs to ramble aimlessly about a sensitive issue is typically trying to justify a strong bias they hold with only facts that contribute to their argument.

After thousands of years of humans playing sheep and following each other off a cliff, how have we not learned how to properly rationalize information? Obviously, we have to stop yelling at each other first (no one likes to feel lectured or stupid), but if we ever make it past the first step of artful debate, what is the next step? If we, as a species, have moved on to social evolution, how have we not evolved past taking sketchy, manipulative sources at their word?

The only time I really felt like I made an impact on an important issue with an opponent was when it came to gun control. After about a half hour, I stopped the conversation and asked the guy one simple question: stripping away all the facts on gun control, do you believe America has a problem with people being killed by guns? Even as an avid fan of guns, the only answer he could come up with was yes. Only when I subtracted the dramatic stories and overwhelming facts did we come to a mutual agreement.

Can the answer really be that basic? Do we put too much information on the table and forget the fundamental question that started the debate in the first place? And why have we not socially evolved to answer and focus on the first question on our own? I ask so many questions with so little answers, but I guess that is the fun of a philosophy blog.

“Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.”

― W.C. Fields