It happens all the time: you meet a person, friend them on Facebook, and get along fine for a few weeks. Between cat memes and jokes about housework, you’re hitting it off! Then it happens: they post a crazy article that makes you question everything about your newly blossoming social media friendship.
What’s up with that?
Conservative articles can run the gamut between barely-discernable xenophobia to all-out tin-foil-hat nutty. Of course, not every self-identified conservative writer espouses views and uses fallacies like these, but most do.
There are several hallmarks of an article with a conservative viewpoint (even the ones that are not complete bullsh*t). Here are the markers that I’ve noticed in my years of growing up conservative, and, as an adult, desperately trying to understand the logic behind my conservative friends’ beliefs.
(I will not be linking to primary sources here because, in many cases, I consider them to be harmful or dangerous, and I don’t want to give them extra views. If you’re interested in conservative rhetoric about a particular topic, there will be plenty of hits on Google. Or you can ask a conservative relative for pointers on how to debate a “libtard” on the topic. They will be happy to provide you with a profusion of examples.)
1. Fear Words And Appeals To Emotion
One of my friends recently posted an article referring to Justin Trudeau as an “incompetent dictator.” My first thought was, yeah, he’s the most incompetent type of dictator: a democratically-elected one.
And obviously he’s not a dictator by the dictionary definition, but the article’s writer was not interested in logic: they were interested in emotion. “Incompetent” references his age as well as the conservative narrative that he’s a massive goofball, while “dictator” provokes a fear response.
I see these appeals to base emotions often. Conservative articles against abortion often appeal to emotions without any supporting evidence. They often cast the woman as the selfish whore and the “baby” (fetus) as the tragic victim. They use colorful and emotive language to grab on to your feelings.
Unfortunately, most complex issues are best discussed using logic and evidence rather than feelings. You will almost never see any data in conservative rhetoric (other than heavily doctored info, or data lacking context).
2. “The Good Ol’ Days”
Remember those days? When men were men, women were women, and the lemonade that you drank on your front porch was always ice cold?
Yeah, me neither. Probably because they didn’t exist.
We’ve always had the same social issues, to a greater or lesser extent: rape, abuse, abortion, and violence. The reason those things seemed less prevalent then was that people didn’t talk about them! They didn’t fit into the main patriarchal narrative, so they got brushed aside. Shame of being different kept people silent.
Also, they didn’t have social media– it’s easy to believe that things are horrible now when every horrible thing that happens gets spewed all over Facebook and Twitter. Yet violent crimes have been on the decline for decades, abductions are way down, vulnerable groups have more rights than ever, and by almost every measurable objective, life is better now than it was in previous decades.
But fear of change is a classic conservative trick. How else can they get folks to buy into their dated ideology?
3. Circular Reasoning & False Logic
“It’s just logic– you can’t argue with that!” That is usually following a seemingly self-evident, but almost always complete bullsh*t, statement. Something along the lines of, “It takes one man and one woman to make a baby, so that’s what marriage is supposed to be.”
Marriage has almost always been about money and power, not about procreation. Also, this argument removes the value of caring for kids who have lost their parents. Or about people who want a partnership without kids. It’s a classic logical fallacy: inject your argument with a bunch of false assumptions that you don’t explain on their face, then say, “Case closed.”
4. Moralizing
“Maybe YOU think that’s okay.”
Arguments like this attempt to simultaneously cast doubts on the values of the other person, while implying that the person making the argument is morally above reproach. This is usually combined with something like, “I don’t know about you, but I choose to follow the word of the Almighty.”
The implication is that the person believes the Bible (usually), which is the morally superior position, and obviously the other person doesn’t believe this obviously true (see #3) source for morality.
5. Conspiracy Theories
While it’s always a good idea to ask, “Who stands to benefit from this?” a hallmark of conservative rhetoric is to assume that everything’s a set-up job.
I recently read something posted by a conservative friend that argues that all this anti-Donald Trump sentiment comes from him not being part of the “old boys’ club,” and how everyone else in politics is part of “the establishment.” Which is obviously crazy, but these nutjobs like feeling like rebels by supporting a racist billionaire in favor of tax cuts to billionaires.
First of all, Donald Trump’s family invented “the old boys’ club,” and they own “the establishment.” But don’t let that get in the way of your support of a man who would gleefully cause WWIII.
6. Us Versus Them
Count how many times a conservative article uses the pronoun “they.” It’s usually used in a fairly non-specific way, so that it can be applied to any group of people the reader thinks is bad.
But in most cases, “them” means “Muslims.” By creating a feeling (see #1) of being threatened by “others,” the reader will more likely agree with the arguments being made.
Conservative thinking has always been synonymous with a regressive approach that further entrenches existing power structures. In general, the more educated and intelligent a person is, the more liberal their views. Thus, it behooves the conservative powers-that-be to avoid logic and reasoning. How else would anyone buy into their ridiculous views?
Featured image is by Joe Sepielli, available under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
