I have just e-mail the author of the superb Fallacy Files website as I am hoping he can help me with a problem. Perhaps you can too. Here is what I wrote:
I am hoping you can help me name a practice, namely that of using appealing to something only to destroy the thing you appealed to.Here are some examples,
” Islamic extremists use secularism to impose theocracy: a tactic that calls to mind that of the communists of old, who appealed to freedom of speech with the long-term aim of extinguishing it altogether.” [Theodore Dalrymple ]
Someone appeals to democracy so they can vote in a tyrant. Someone demands power through equal rights only so they can get power and remove equal rights.
Do you see what I mean?
The nearest I have is “Counterfeit Tolerance”:
“[Counterfeit tolerance includes] the opportunism of one who seeks, or accepts, tolerance for himself, as a minority, but who would deny it to others if ever he should be in a position to grant it;…..one who is tolerant of views other than his own because the points of difference are of little moment; ….[and] that attitude connoted best by the word condescension. It affords, or allows, tolerance to the opponent not because it believes an opponent may be right but because he is harmless.”
Carl J Friedrich, ‘The new belief in the Common Man’, 1942. (The same man who once rote “What was once thought can never be
unthought.”)Any suggestions would be most welcome.
{ 0 comments… add one now }