How to Spot the Bullshit
Have you ever sat there zoning out of a conversation just because it’s going in every direction? Or it’s repeating the same point over and over again? Congratulations! You are an unconscious victim of Excess Verbiage.
So on my previous article, I told you about taking a Coursera on understanding arguments, right? The same course have helped me realise that after all these times, during debates, arguments, even daily conversations, the excess verbiage is a trickery that has been used both consciously and unconsciously!
Excess verbiage is basically adding unnecessary premises to your argument for many reasons. According to Professor Armstrong in one of his lecture, it is to fool your opponent. Well, not necessarily fool as in to make foolish, but perhaps to stall, to extend time in clocked debates, to divert, to fill in conversations, and more.
I believe we are all a ‘victim’ and a ‘perpetrator’ in the same time. So I’m here to jot it down further just in case you want to be more aware of it, or to actually do it.
There are two types of excess verbiage:
A. Repetition: It’s pretty straight forward what this means, the person giving the argument is clearly repeating himself. Not repeating sentence by sentence, but might be one main sentence, backed up by various figurative language.
I’m quoting the example from Professor Armstrong, this is also quoted from a debate done by a politician in the US.
We might not easily notice the repetition, but we can definitely hear out how the core argument is being emphasised by the supporting figurative languages. After crossing out the excessive verbiage, here’s the one thing that’s basically the core of the argument.
Here’s the analysis:
What he’s trying to say is that the deficit cannot be eliminated. Hence:
- “I want to be honest with people” does not provide any relevant information that supports the main argument.
- “People have heard that over and over and over in four years” does not mean that this changes the fact that the deficit can be eliminated, or provides a conclusion at some point.
- “We cannot do it” and “we’re in too deep a hole” is basically a different way (metaphorical way) of saying that the deficit is indeed not able to be eliminated.
B. Tangents
Tangents in definition is a straight line touching a curve (thanks to geometry, am I right?). In arguments, it’s basically a diversion that is irrelevant to the main topic. Sometimes we do this because we get carried away, or we forgot our train of thoughts, or to try to put things to a bigger context to provide further understanding. To a certain extent, tangents are useful, but further than that it might be a trick.
Example, I am in midst of argument with Jonatan (my boyfriend) about the world inflation. I said to him, “the inflation reminded me of that time in high school when I wrote a 20 pages essay on the history of inflation in Indonesia comparing it to three neighbouring countries. I got an A on that essay and it made me so proud of myself.” Notice how that time in high school does not actually relate to the ongoing argument about the world inflation? It diverts the conversation to another path, which on this example is to an experience in high school.
Sometimes, some people goes off on irrelevant premises or tangents not because they lost their train of thoughts, but perhaps because they’re trying to fool you. This is what’s called a red herring.
The name red herring supposedly comes from somebody who crossed the red herring over the trail and then the hounds could not track his scent anymore. That is basically what’s going on here. Sometimes, people produce tangents to distract you from the main line argument, because they know what their weakness in that line of argument is… — Professor Armstrong, Duke University
Sometimes red herring can also come in a form of a supporting data, that are not necessarily 100% supportive to the argument. Example: “The poverty rate in Jakarta is only 9.22% in 2019, therefore Indonesia is a super rich country.” This absolutely is an non supportive data whatsoever. You can’t provide a specific data and generalise it to draw a conclusion. Specific data might make a person sound credible because it shows us that they’re knowledgable. But we have to also pay attention to whether or not the data provided is a red herring, or is it really supportive of the argument.
All these tricks are so fun to learn and figure out. Personally to me, it makes me realise the things I’ve done in the past. These days, it helps me pay better attention to what other people are saying, and it helps me improve my communications skills. I recon you to check out the 100 free courses from Coursera that’s open for public until 31st May 2020.
If you’re taking the course on How to Understand Arguments by Duke University, we might see each other on one of the forums. Good luck spotting excessive verbiage from now on!
Or… as I call it: excessive ‘bullshit’, lol.
