“Indigo, you don’t understand. If we just stand by while the government forces us to wear masks, then the government will start to take away our fundamental human rights left and right.”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe that my highly educated and intelligent friend was spewing the same “logic” and soundbites I was hearing from entertainment shows that have the audacity to call themselves the “News”.
“They’re already trying to place limits on religion, Indigo. Religion. Church and State should be separate. You agree with that at least, right? The government cannot put limits on religious meetings. I mean, how long until we’re sued for what we believe?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn’t just my right-leaning friends. I remembered the argument that those who refuse to accept every type of person society produces are nazis. If serious religious beliefs are allowed into the academic sphere, then soon all of objective reason and science will be lost to the whims of delusion.
In discussions like these, I always feel the need to somehow address the questions even though I know neither of us would gain the point. After all, once you start sliding down a slippery slope, it’s hard to stop.
What Is The Slippery Slope Fallacy?
It can be summed up by a single question: Where Does It Stop? It is the argument that innocuous points or events lead to more and more significant ones. Sometimes it’s also called “absurd extrapolation” or “the domino fallacy”. The slippery slope fallacy is the belief that if you give an inch, someone will take it and somehow run a marathon.
This logical fallacy has made it across each of our screens at some point or another. It is used in a broad range of topics, from a friend’s bad breakup:
“I keep overstepping and that’s why he left me. I can’t seem to learn – that’s why everyone leaves me. Then I overstep and they realize that I’m not only bad girlfriend material, but I’m bad wife material. Plus, I have such a specific type of guy that I like, so they probably run into each other. And since people talk and have Facebook groups for this kind of thing, they must have a chatroom somewhere about girls not to date, and I just know that I’m on there. Now I’m never going to get to have a family because no one will ever date me again because I can’t stop overstepping!”
To political topics:
“If we don’t build a wall along the southern border, then the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico will skyrocket. If someone needs to cross over illegally, then that means they can’t cross legally, which means they did something bad. When we refuse to let someone in, it means they must have done something really bad. With this logic, they must be rapists, murderers, and terrorists. We have to build a wall to stop Isis from coming into the US from Mexico.”
Why Is It So Effective?
The fallacy itself relies on the logic of cause-and-effect. That’s practically the scientific method! Looking for how events connect to one another is how we make sense of the world around us. If I use this chain of cause-and-effect, I can take any innocuous thing and make it the straw that, if allowed to fall, will cause my listener’s world to come crashing down. Now I’ve ensured that they will never agree to the point or event I chose to demonize, since they believe it will lead to the end of their world as they know it.
This is why the fallacy is so insidious: it depends and feeds on fear. In our desperation to ensure that we’re safe, we continue reading and following the logic down to its terrifying conclusion. Caught in our own emotions, we fail to see how far from the original point we’ve strayed. It all seems to make so much sense, and it’s what we quietly suspected all along.
It’s easy to fall into these chains of cause-and-effect – once we start sliding the law of inertia has a stronghold over us. It’s easier to keep an object in motion moving than to stop an object that’s already in motion. It can also be hard to notice we’re starting to slip. While the examples I used earlier were clearly outrageous, these arguments are usually far more subtle.
We get pulled into them because we’re on the internet. That’s where we go to skim rather than read, to take in vast amounts of information that we usually are already looking for. We know our opinions, and we want them validated. It’s why we’re so eager to accept simplistic, illogical conclusions such as first-person shooter video games are the reason mass shootings happen.
How Do I Stop Slipping?
The best way to avoid getting caught by a slippery slope fallacy is to simply step back from it. Its power comes from the buildup of one conclusion to another, so if you break the chain, it loses its power. If you find yourself starting to read faster, that’s a good sign that you’re slipping. Feeling a sense of shock alongside a “Eureka!” or “I always knew it!” moment is another one.
The best way to double-check whether or not an argument is a slippery slope is to compare the premise with the conclusion. In other words, take the beginning and then hold it next to the end. Often, ‘A’ does not equal ‘E’, and we can usually see that when there’s no one trying to convince us otherwise. Not allowing for arguments to fog our minds or swell to deafening crescendos allows us to see and hear clearly.
Another way to identify slippery slopes: Any arguments that rely on fear to function are dangerous. Anything that is making you angry or shocked or afraid for longer than the initial news given is usually a slippery slope. Arguments that can only appear to be logically standing when you’re emotionally sliding are not worth your time.
Read Also:
Liberals, Stop Ignoring The South
Stop Using MLK To Defend Your Hate
Reframing The Debate On Abortion
