Demagogy

Time you got around to sponsoring a child

For the discussion of political demagoguery and associated methods of gaining political power see the article "Populism".

Demagogy is generally a method of convincing a listener of a false fact by appealing to the person's common sense and logic. In this sense, demagogy is not a lie, since it doesn't use false facts directly, but rather brings the unsuspicious listener to draw the appropriate conclusion himself. Demagogy is closely related to the logical fallacy, but unlike the latter, it sometimes has nothing to do with logic.

Table of contents

1 Etymology
2 Methods of demagogy

2.1 Methods not involving violations of logic
2.2 Methods involving violation of logic
2.3 Arguments unrelated to a discussion

3 Sources

Numerical demagogy - mixing of incomparable quantities. For example, "our government has increased social spending by 5 billion dollars, while the previous government has increased it only by 0.4 percent." Obviously, the latter sounds like less, but one cannot be sure.

False authority - relying on the general authority of a person who is not proficient in the discussed topic. Example: "the professor read my book, and liked it very much". The fact that it was a professor of chemistry who read a book on anthropology is omitted.

Methods involving violation of logic

For or against (bifurcation) - assuming that there are only two possible opinions on a given topic. Example: "Smith is not with us, therefore he is against us". A possibility of Smith's neutral position is ignored.

Arguments unrelated to a discussion

Emotional attack - an attempt to bring a discussion to an emotional level. For example, "Everyone is against me!", "Can't I be right just once?", "You are stupid!", "You are demagoguing!".

Sources

B. Katzenelenbaum, "Demagogiya - opyt klassifikacii", Nauka i zhizn 9 (1989) - in Russian. Online version