Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the most pernicious fallacy, is appeal to popularity. Edward Bernays liked to exploit that little trick to manipulate people. He used it to con women into smoking, and wearing bras. Even as the new propagandists have manipulated women into eschewing families, and loving abortion. The Covid vaccine is pushed by appeal to popularity. Appeal to popularity is so powerful since we’re social animals. Being social we want to fit in. So if we detect the crowd is going a certain way, we follow, else risk being left behind. This is so ingrained that we are manipulated by it… and we are. Being undetected and effective it’s pernicious. So it’s not likely to go anywhere soon. Making it important for us to become immune to the fallacy of appeal to popularity.
When a thing is pernicious, it’s hard to get rid of. Long Covid could be called pernicious Covid. Another example is Herpes, which is a pernicious disease, as is appeal to popularity. They’re all hard to get rid of. Appeal to popularity is probably the worst. Because herpes dies with the patient, and long Covid eventually goes away, but appeal to popularity will outlast us all. Because it’s used by us all and will be used until time ends. Being so effective and so often hidden. Knowledge is defense. Realize that the popular thing may not be the right thing nor the most profitable means. Like smoking, just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it smart. The answer then, is to inure oneself to appeal to popularity, so we aren’t as effected by it. Dulling its teeth.
Appeal to popularity was used to glamorize smoking in the 1930s, and to discourage smoking in the 1980s. When the popular girls all smoked, all the girls smoked, and when the popular girls stopped, all the girls stopped. Because we often act as a herd. Not everyone. Some are more like cats than dogs or cows. The highly independent, disagreeable and hermit types, tend to go the opposite direction from the crowd. They think for themselves… for better or worse. Because, while appeal to popularity is a fallacy, there is safety in numbers. Even a wrong decision that kills a bunch of people, probably won’t kill you, if the crowd is big enough. Individualists like Dick Proenneke are rare people. Their risks are their own as are the rewards and dangers. Had nuclear war broken out… he would have barely noticed.
There’s safety in fitting in too. Scientists were studying zebras back in the day. The trouble is, they couldn’t identify one long enough to get meaningful data… so they painted one. Then the lions ate it. So they marked another… which the lions immediately ate. Eventually, the scientists figured out individual zebras must blend in to the crowd, so lions cant pick one out. Marking them so one stood out was a death sentence. In some ways we’re like zebras. There are innumerable adages about how high nails are pounded down, the dangers of sticking your neck out, and rocking boats. Even as others urge us not to follow crowds, think for ourselves, and the dangers of jumping off bridges, just because everyone else is. Which means, we need to be zebras sometimes and John Gault others.
Wisdom is recognizing when we should be Dick Proenneke, and head out alone into the wilderness, and when we should blend into the crowd. Though at no time should we allow ourselves to be manipulated by appeal to popularity. No one manipulates us for our good, they manipulate us for their good. That’s as close to the kind of universal the Taoists hate as is possible. The way to do that is by keeping perspective. Try to take a bird’s eye view of the dialogue in the media, the marketplace and at work. There’s always manipulation. Practice looking for it is a good exercise in recognizing it. So we don’t get manipulated. Because cons only work when the Mark is unaware. Learn to be aware and the swindle of appeal to popularity won’t work on you. Be a zebra or a John Gault when it serves you.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
