Question

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"X happened to me, and I turned out okay, therefore X is not harmful." Is this a Fallacy?

I run into this pattern when discussing any kind of improvement to childrearing. For example, suggesting that parents not spank their children immediately elicits the response "I was spanked, and I turned out fine, so spanking is okay."

Other examples include the comments here: www.seventeen.com/enterta. . .
wherein women state that playing with traditional, idealized Barbies did not harm them, and therefore there is no need for a new, more natural-looking Barbie doll... that, in fact, anyone who claims playing with idealized dolls might create poor body image in girls is merely being oversensitive.

Same argument for nutrition: "I grew up on fried no-vegetable school lunches, and I turned out okay, so I don't see why it's so important to make school lunches healthier."

"I got beat up every day at recess, and I'm fine, so people should stop being such bleeding hearts about bullying."

and so on, and so on. It makes the entire argument impossible because people refuse to consider that something they were able to tolerate might still not be a good thing. I suspect that some are merely unable to imagine that other people might not cope as well as they do, but I think the majority respond so defensively because they don't want to consider the possibility that maybe they WERE harmed by these things, that they might be different, more successful people if they weren't carrying quite so much baggage.

This happens so often, I'm sure there has to be a proper name for this pattern, but I'm new to learning about logical fallacies and I'm having trouble parsing the lists with enough understanding to confidently say, "Yes, this is appeal to tradition" (for example). Does anyone happen to know what this is? Thank you!
asked on Thursday, Nov 20, 2014 11:12:21 AM by

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Bo Bennett, PhD
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In short, it can be considered the anecdotal fallacy. This is accepting one example in place of statistically relevant information.

You have presented excellent examples of this fallacy. This is seriously flawed thinking where people cannot accept or refuse to accept that an issue extends beyond their personal perception. Scientifically speaking, these kind of claims are analogous to conducting a flawed study with a sample size of one, then generalizing the conclusions to the population—an extreme form of Hasty Generalization .

To claim that "X is not bad in general because X did not negatively affect me" is a serious fallacy with potentially disastrous effects. The rich having the attitude that they don't need universal healthcare, therefore it is a bad thing. The scientifically inept claiming that they don't see any signs of climate change, therefore it's not happening. And the rest of the American public who, through lack of knowledge rather than malicious intent, deny the existence of real problems because they don't personally experience any of these problems.

I don't mean to be too hard on anecdotes. They do have their place in rhetoric: like pumping people up at Amway conventions.

answered on Thursday, Nov 20, 2014 11:17:50 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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