Hi folks! Time for another entry in the Bootcamp series! Just a quick one today. For today’s offering, let’s take a look at the Fallacy of Relative Privation.
So, what is it?
This fallacy happens when a party rejects an argument by countering with a perceived worse problem. The intention is to render the original argument irrelevant by stating that there are worse problems, so therefore the original argument is minor/irrelevant/not really a problem.
This is a pretty popular fallacy. It’s the old “We can’t do anything about X because children are starving in Africa!” argument, or “How can you even be thinking about Y when Climate Change is such a big issue!”
Expenditures on things like NASA get hit with this a lot. “Why are we even thinking about sending people to Mars or the Moon when we have kids going to school hungry here in the US?”
The truth is that people (and countries) can walk and chew gum at the same time, as the saying goes. In the last example, it’s not that there is a lack of resources to do both, it’s that we don’t have the political will to do both. The Mars program isn’t stealing food off the plates of school children. That’s being accomplished entirely by our own politicians making decisions about where to allocate funding and deciding that feeding kids is less of a priority than, say, giving a tax break to billionaires.
The key on this one is to understand that just because there may be other issues in the world, perhaps even ones that ARE legitimately more pressing or important, that does not preclude taking action on other issues as well or require that all attention and resources be devoted to the issue the fallacy user expresses to be more important.
Just a quickie today folks, so that’s it for now! Until next time!
Prior Bootcamp Installments
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp:
The Strawman
The Slippery Slope
Begging the Question
Poisoning the Well
No True Scotsman!
Ad Hominem
False Dilemma
Non Sequitur
Red Herring
Gamblers Fallacy
Bandwagon Fallacy
Appeal to Fear
The Fallacy Fallacy
Appeal to Personal Incredulity
Appeal to Authority
Special Pleading
Texas Sharpshooter
Post Hoc
Appeal to Nature
Furtive Fallacy
Alphabet Soup
Middle Ground
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp:
Bystander Effect
Curse of Knowledge
Barnum Effect
Declinism
In-Group Bias
Hindsight Bias
Survivor Bias
Rhyme-as-Reason Effect
Apophenia (& Paradoleia)
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Confirmation Bias
Anchoring Bias
Critical Thinking Bootcamp:
Sea Lioning