Do you accept "No discussion" and "The Big Lie Technique" as logical fallacies?
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Original Question
Owen Williamson, lecturer in Developmental English at University of Texas, El Paso, who I suspect is retired, put up the page, Master List of Logical Fallacies, about which he says, "No claim is made to "academic rigor" in this listing." While it may not meet the standards of "academic rigor" there are two fallacies listed that I haven't seen elsewhere but feel are certainly realities whether or not they classify as true fallacies. In the acknowledgements at the bottom is one to Bo.
I'm curious to know others' responses.
No Discussion (also No Negotiation; the Control Voice; Peace through Strength; a Muscular Foreign Policy; Fascism): A pure Argumentum ad Baculum that rejects reasoned dialogue, offering either instant, unconditional compliance/surrender or defeat/death as the only two options for settling even minor differences, e.g., screaming "Get down on the ground, now!" or declaring "We don't talk to terrorists." This deadly fallacy falsely paints real or potential "hostiles" as monsters devoid of all reason, and far too often contains a very strong element of "machismo" as well. I.e. "A real, muscular leader never resorts to pantywaist pleading, apologies, excuses, fancy talk or argument. That's for lawyers, liars and pansies and is nothing but a delaying tactic. A real man stands tall, says what he thinks, draws fast and shoots to kill." The late actor John Wayne frequently portrayed this fallacy in his movie roles. See also, The Pout.
The Big Lie Technique (also the Bold Faced Lie; "Staying on Message."): The contemporary fallacy of repeating a lie, fallacy, slogan, talking-point, nonsense-statement or deceptive half-truth over and over in different forms (particularly in the media) until it becomes part of daily discourse and people accept it without further proof or evidence. Sometimes the bolder and more outlandish the Big Lie becomes the more credible it seems to a willing, most often angry audience. E.g., "What about the Jewish Problem?" Note that when this particular phony debate was going on there was no "Jewish Problem," only a Nazi Problem, but hardly anybody in power recognized or wanted to talk about that, while far too many ordinary Germans were only too ready to find a convenient scapegoat to blame for their suffering during the Great Depression. Writer Miles J. Brewer expertly demolishes The Big Lie Technique in his classic (1930) short story, "The Gostak and the Doshes." However, more contemporary examples of the Big Lie fallacy might be the completely fictitious August 4, 1964 "Tonkin Gulf Incident" concocted under Lyndon Johnson as a false justification for escalating the Vietnam War, or the non-existent "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq (conveniently abbreviated "WMD's" in order to lend this Big Lie a legitimizing, military-sounding "Alphabet Soup" ethos), used in 2003 as a false justification for the Second Gulf War. The November, 2016 U.S. President-elect's statement that "millions" of ineligible votes were cast in that year's American. presidential election appears to be a classic Big Lie. See also, Alternative Truth; The Bandwagon Fallacy, the Straw Man, Alphabet Soup, and Propaganda.
Comments on Question
Answers
4"No Discussion" is not a fallacy; it is merely refusing to engage. We all have limited time and we need to prioritize what we spend time discussing. The reason it is not a fallacy is because there is no argument... by definition.
"The Big Lie Technique" is actually based on the cognitive bias known as Illusion of Truth Effect and commonly called argument by repetition .
These are examples of what would be called a Thought-Terminating Cliche.
They are not fallacies because they literally are not arguments, just memetic devices designed to shut down discourse entirely.
I don't think No Discussion is a usually logical fallacy. I'd put it under the category of "refusing to reason". The person refuses to make an argument for their belief, either by claiming it's not up for debate, or rattling off a cliché in place of reasoning (the latter would be a thought-terminating cliché, which isn't fallacious either, but is rationally suspicious).
In some cases it could qualify as an appeal to force. This would be the case if someone, say, suppressed a discussion on pain of body harm.
The Big Lie, as Mr. Wednesday pointed out, would be a society-wide argument by repetition.
The description of No Discussion mentions argumentum ad baculum, AKA appeal to force . In the form presented, it sounds like it may also fall under false dilemma .
The Big Lie sounds like a form of argument by repetition . But, rather than taking place within a single conversation, the repetition occurs over a longer timespan.
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You're a victim of the big lie technique yourself. You're repeating the mantra that the evil "Nazis" invented the big lie technique. In fact, there are countless online references claiming that Adolf Hitler himself was the architect of the big lie. I did some research and discovered that's a lie itself. It turns out, the quote commonly attributed to Hitler was actually associated with Goebbels - and he was commenting on a familiar Jewish propaganda technique. The Germans may have appropriated the technique, but they didn't invent it. Nor were the Jews innocent scapegoats as you claim.
I contacted a couple online dictionaries that credited Hitler as the source of the infamous quote, showed them my references, and they changed their entries. When I posted the information on a Jewish forum, other people added more supporting information, and it was a very popular post. However, they later deleted it, replacing it with the usual crap about the Nazis inventing the big lie.