PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

The second group of fallacies that we are going to study is

the Psychological Warfare.
We have defined this group of fallacies as:
Psychological Warfare
Meaning from Association
Misuse of Authority
Repeated Assertion
Attitude Fitting
Tokenism
Poisoning the Well
Rationalizing
Argumentum ad Baculum
Argumentum ad Hominem
Confident Manner

The group of fallacies that

seduce and intimidate mans
sensuousness, emotions and
subconscious drives.

We have also mentioned that this group of fallacies

contains ten types of fallacies.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEANING FROM

ASSOCIATION
The fallacy of meaning from association is perhaps the
most abused fallacy in the production of commercial
advertisements.
Here, the advertised products are put side by side with
logically unrelated things and ideas, to suggest that if you
purchase this or that product you too get the associated
things and ideas.
For instance, a bottle of whiskey is shown in front of a
famous masterpiece painting.
The advertisers had carefully calculated it that the
intended audience will associate the fine quality of the
masterpiece with the quality of the whiskey.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEANING FROM

ASSOCIATION

This beer commercial

poster associates the
product with sexy and
scantily dressed girls.
There is no logical
relationship between this
particular beer and the
ladies.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEANING FROM

ASSOCIATION

There is a more obvious logical

relationship between beer and
the beer tummy, or the beer
bloat.
But advertisers do not associate
this two things.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEANING FROM

ASSOCIATION

These two cigarette brands associated

cigarettes with sexual attractiveness
and glamour, although cigarettes have
no logical relationship to the two things.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEANING FROM

ASSOCIATION

Cigarettes are more

logical related with
lung cancer.
But advertisers would
not show images like
this.
The Marlboro Country is always represented as a romantic and wild
scenery, where men conquer the great outdoors.
But the real Marlboro Country could actually be like the following
image.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEANING FROM

ASSOCIATION

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 1: MEANING FROM

ASSOCIATION
Marshall McLuhan, a pioneering theorist in
mass communications, has even suggested
that advertisements will not only seduce
mans sensuousness and emotions, but
even his sub-conscious itself.
This is what McLuhan calls the subliminal
seduction.
This same fallacy is employed by politicians whenever
they circulate pictures of themselves in a pose with, say,
Mother Theresa of Calcutta, or the Pope, or the
Archbishop of Manila, or with any other important
personalities, in newspapers, self-printed calendars, and
posters.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 2: MISUSE OF

AUTHORITY
Since we cannot possibly be experts in all sorts of fields,
consulting and appealing to authorities are oftentimes
useful.
When one finds a mathematical problem
too difficult, it is only appropriate to
consult ones mathematics professor, or
when having problems with an English
composition, the best thing to do is to
approach the language professor.
The fallacy of misuse of authority happens
whenever we cite an authority in one given
field regarding an issue that is outside
his/her field of competence.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 2: MISUSE OF

AUTHORITY

In this poster a very famous

singer, who may be an
expert when it comes to
music and vocalization, is
endorsing a particular brand
of soda, forgetting that she
is not necessarily an expert
on sodas.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 2: MISUSE OF

AUTHORITY

Michael Jackson said

heal the world, make it a
better place. Then, we
better should. How can
the King of pop be
wrong?

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 3: REPEATED

ASSERTION

It is a fact that it is easier to accept a lie that one has

heard many times before than to accept truth that one
has never heard of.
The fallacy of repeated assertion takes advantage of this
psychological fact.
This fallacy repeats or multiplies essentially the same
assertion with the aim that sooner or later people will
accept it as true.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 3: REPEATED

ASSERTION

Adolf Hitler used this fallacy, when he practically littered

Germany with his ideological banners and slogans.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 3: REPEATED

ASSERTION

The politician who clutters all the street corners and

public walls with his and office long before election time,
and with truck-loads of posters during the campaign
season is guilty of this fallacy.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 3: REPEATED

ASSERTION
More ingenious advertisers
will compose catchy jingles
or television scenes that
will hopefully recur over and
over again in heads of the
audience, so that even
though the advertisement
is no longer in front of them
they will still see it or hear
it in their minds.
But of course stating a lie a
hundred times will certainly
not make it true.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 4: ATTITUDE FITTING

The person's attitude is his habitual way of

other persons, objects, situations or ideas.

regarding

The fallacy of attitude fitting is done through inserting into

the argument persons, objects, situations or ideas that
are known in advance to be positively or negatively
regarded by the intended audience.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 4: ATTITUDE FITTING

As early as the later part of the ninth
century, the Vikings discovered a huge
island that is 85 % covered with ice.
Wanting to attract more settlers, they
named it Greenland.
At about the same time they also discovered another
territory which was lush and fertile, wanting to keep the
island for themselves they called it Iceland.
They knew very well that other peoples love the images of
a green and fertile land, and were disgusted with the
images of ice and frozen wasteland.
Their strategy of naming in order to attract and repel was
an early example of attitude fitting.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 4: ATTITUDE FITTING

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 4: ATTITUDE FITTING

Dark
Skin?
Introducing:

Filipinas love to have whiter skin. Pharmaceutical

firms give them several whiteners to choose from.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 4: ATTITUDE FITTING

And this is a gross

example of attitude
fitting:

WARNING!
This is a
disturbing scene.
Do not try this at
home.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 4: ATTITUDE FITTING

A fair knightly fight

An unfair knightly fight

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 5: TOKENISM

This fallacy happens when people are misled
gestures as the real thing.

to see

a token

Whenever substantial action is needed but performing it would be too

expensive, time and effort consuming, and even distracting to ones
agenda, people often resort to tokenism.
This cartoon, for example,
pokes fun on the creation of a
department
without
the
necessary funding. Hence, the
department is practically drawn
on a blank wall.
The real thing here is the
department, while the token thing
is the front door of the office.
By presenting the front door,
without the real department,
tokenism happens.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 5: TOKENISM

On August 21, 1971,
Plaza
Miranda was bombed.
Two
grenades exploded in the middle
of a political rally, which killed
nine and wounded several
persons. Among the injured were
Senators
Roxas,
Salonga,
Osmena, and Kalaw.
To appease the people, the incumbent
president publicly ordered a thorough
investigation, fully knowing that after the
excitement would die down, the public
clamor for justice will
also wane. Of
course, the criminals were
never
captured.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 5: TOKENISM

One of the favorite themes politicians love to print in their
campaign posters is their token shot hugging a dirty street
urchin here, or shaking hands with miserable slum
dwellers there, as if to document their love for the poor
and the downtrodden who after the elections they
immediately neglect and abandon.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 6: POISONING THE

WELL
When one poisons a well all the water that is drawn from
it becomes poisoned and unpotable.
The fallacy of poisoning the well works similarly.
It
happens when one discounts in advance the opponents
evidence, proof, or counter argument, thereby preventing
him from employing them.
When a biblical fundamentalist says
theories
are
speculations,
and
speculations are always unreliable, now
how do you prove your theory of
evolution?, he is already discounting in
advance the value of a theory and has
prevented his opponent to argue in favor
of it.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 6: POISONING THE

WELL

When your biology professor exhorts the

class that only lazy students ask for
examinations with open notes, then asks
later on who wants an examination with
an open notes he is using the same ploy.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 7: RATIONALIZING

Aesop, a 6th century Greek folk hero
and teller of animal fables, had a story
about a fox who felt so bad because
he could not grab the hanging bunch
of grapes.
After some more tries the fox finally
gave up and comforted himself, saying,
Anyway, those grapes are sour. Who
would like to eat sour grapes?

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 7: RATIONALIZING

When ones ego is placed in an unpleasant situation one
can spin untrue, but pleasant, reasons to settle things.
Some teachers who were driven into their profession by
circumstances would rationalize that it is their decision to
be in their profession because molding the youth into
better citizens is the noblest task a man could ever
dream of.
If real reasons are not available, pleasant reasons can
always be made.
This is the fallacy of rationalization, it makes a clearly
delicious bunch of grapes sour, and the obviously sour
lemon sweet.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 8: ARGUMENTUM AD

BACULUM
This fallacy still bears its classical Latin name. Baculum
means a club or staff, and argumentum ad baculum
roughly means
an
argument accompanied with a
threatening blow of a club.

This fallacy happens when force or the threat of force is

used instead of proper reason.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 8: ARGUMENTUM AD

BACULUM
A professor who is bombarded with numerous questions
regarding a controversial subject matter can easily control
everything by screaming shut up, or else I'll flunk you
all, but he commits this fallacy.
The father who says you better study well, or Ill cut your
allowance, is as guilty as the board room strategist who
insists all executives should act in accordance with this
proposal, otherwise the CEO will recall their
appointments.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 8: ARGUMENTUM AD

BACULUM

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 9: ARGUMENTUM AD

HOMINEM
Argumentum ad hominem is another fallacy that still
bears its classical Latin name.
It simply means
argument against the person.
Normally, arguments attack the opponents arguments and
counter-arguments.
The fallacy of argumentum ad
hominem attacks the person of the opponent himself.
It wrongly assumes that if you discredit a person, his
argument is also discredited. Yet, obviously it does not
follow that if a person is a thief, his arguments are all
wrong.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 9: ARGUMENTUM AD

HOMINEM
When the prefect of students yells at a defendant in a
disciplinary investigation, I don't believe your alibis, you
are a cheat ever since he is arguing against the person
of the student and not against the students reasons and
evidences.
However, in court adjudications
argumentum ad
hominem may be reasonably used.
Lawyers may
attack the testimony of witnesses by focusing on their
character, credibility and expertise because witnesses and
experts like doctors, and psychologists often present
opinions which we cannot argue with directly. The next
best way then is to evaluate their credibility, integrity, and
judgment.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE 10: CONFIDENT

MANNER
When reasons, evidences, proofs and
answers are unavailable, one can still
fool others by using proper gestures, well
calculated intonations and positive
language.
The fallacy of confident manner is saying
too little or nothing at all in so much
impressive words and body language.
This fallacy is not only useful to
politicians, who are forced to make
stands and comments about so many
things, but also to students who are
taking oral examinations and graded
recitations.

End of Presentation