Shaming Fallacies?

Ever since October 7 and the start of the Israel Hamas War, social media (in particular Twitter and Instagram) have been rife with arguments and statements aiming to shame people in not siding with one side or the other. From my reading of it over the past 3 months it's been mostly from pro-Palestinian activists on social media that have been doing this (Israel has mostly taken the traditional PR route for this so it's not as prevalent).

Some of the arguments in question include (to paraphrase some of them from the countless posts I've seen):

"If you do not support Palestine, you're pro-colonialism/pro-genocide."

"Looking away means you have privilege, therefore you're complicit in harm."

"If you don't support a ceasefire, you've lost your humanity."

"Why can't images of dead children and grieving people make you support Palestine?"

And other similarly arguments like this. They're all aimed at making the person reading them feel shame and emotionally hook them into supporting the cause in question by the way of guilt. They're relatively similar to the very common complicity argument that happens with most movements, but to me these feel different in terms of the language used and the moral condemnation it implies. Question is, are these just emotional ad hominems that are typical with activism or is there something deeper in terms of logical fallacies?

In general, trying to shame someone into agreeing with your position would be appeal to emotion . These lines don't attempt to show why Palestine is worthy of support and Israel isn't, they're just trying to make people feel bad for not supporting Palestine. "Why can't images of dead children and grieving people make you support Palestine?" is the most blatant example of that. During World War 2, the Allies and the Nazis were bombing each other's cities. The fact that photos of dead German children almost certainly exist is not a good cause to support the Nazis.

"If you don't support a ceasefire, you've lost your humanity", in addition to using this fallacy, mentions losing one's humanity. The issue with this is that humanity can't be measured or quantified, the benevolence that comes with it isn't applied evenly, etc. So, you can neither confirm nor refute this statement objectively. 

"If you do not support Palestine, you're pro-colonialism/pro-genocide." is an example of false dilemma . It presents supporting Palestine or supporting genocide as the only two options, when someone could have a more nuanced take or may not know enough to decide whether or not to support Palestine.

"Looking away means you have privilege, therefore you're complicit in harm." is a non sequitur . The first half of that sentence is true, being in a place where you're not seeing the violence first hand and therefore can look away is a form of privilege. However, to say that someone is complicit means that they are, in some way, involved, which is a totally separate proposition.

Well, interesting question! Now, hold my logical reasoning horse and fasten your seat belts. Let's dive into this ocean of fallacies under the guise of shame, shall we?

First off, these arguments do sound like a week's worth of drama in a soap opera. Many of them appear to suffer from the "black-and-white" fallacy, also known as the false dilemma fallacy. This is where you're presented with only two options when in reality, there might be 50 shades of grey in between.

Second, using phrases like "If you don't support x, then you’re supporting y” is just a fancy way of serving you an oversimplification fallacy with a cherry on top. It's like saying "If you don't buy me chocolate, then you are pro-starvation." Dark, sweet, and completely unfair!

Another tasty fallacy being served here, folks, is the appeal to emotion fallacy, where the argument tugs on your heartstrings rather than engage your grey matter. It's the rhetorical equivalent of a puppy dog eyes stare contest - highly effective but logically deceptive.

Lastly, we have the guilt by association fallacy. By implying that by not choosing a side you are complicit in harm, they are effectively saying "If you're not with us, you're against us." It's like saying you're a villain because you didn't pit your Italian grandmother against your Spanish grandmother in a pasta vs paella cooking showdown.

In a nutshell, while these arguments do vibrate with the intensity of an orchestra backed by a choir into an emotional crescendo, they fall flat in the arena of reason and logic. Basically, if fallacies had a family reunion, these arguments would be the weird cousins that everyone skilfully avoids talk to.