We need to talk more about misinformation. It's not new, right? Some people engage misinformation just because they don't understand how to find reliable information. But others purposefully practice misinformation for their selfish reasons ... and we could talk about political and religious and economic (think scams) and sexual and so many other selfish people use misinformation.
But here, let's start with what we saw this week in the Week of the Freeze.
A "red herring" is a logical fallacy that we need to look for, especially in political discourse, and especially how some politicians use red herring to confuse the audience -- the citizenry. Specifically, a red herring (a herring is a fish; don't ask) fallacy consists in diverting attention from the real issue by focusing instead on an issue having only a surface relevance to the first.
It's like when I was a young boy and my father challenged me when I broke the back window with my baseball. I responded (I can remember this), "Rob told me that we had a new game this weekend." Notice that I didn't say, "Yes, my aim was poor and I broke the window." Instead, I tried to backtrack, talk about something only on the surface relevant, hoping that my dad would get confused (!) and drop the issue ... all while the window was obvious broken.
More seriously, this week, Texas Governor Abbott used red herring and other fallacies to appease to his political base while taking responsibility to Texas's infrastructure failures for decades.
I include the source from Hannity and Fox's source, to ensure that I am not editing the source:
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” he said. “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis.”
In fact, the crisis this week was not because of any "green new deal" (which is not even a real thing yet; it is a proposal for the future) and the problem with the wind turbines in west Texas were not because of wind, but because the turbines are not weatherized for extreme coldness. Wind turbines in norther states and across Canada and Europe are properly weatherized and those turbines continue fine through 12 months a year. Of course, Abbott is highly invested in carbon industries such as oil and coal and his political base seem to be afraid of renewable energy (wind, solar) and this TV audience knows this.
I'm not trying to focus on the politics. But know that politics rely so much on rhetoric, remember that rhetoric is neutral -- it is the communication relationship of individuals and society -- but we can use rhetoric for good or bad; for our selfish means or for society's betterment. Notice that I'm not saying that Abbott is lying. That's another discussion.
For now, let's look at multiple news sources with hot topics such as money, energy in Texas, and people dying this week. I'd recommend look at additional sources such as Houston Public Media, Houston Chronicle, and Texas Tribune. The discussion can be more complicated than what Abbott says, but that's what we do as citizens and as college students.
As community college students, we must be aware how those in power use rhetoric to maintain their power, and how community college students will be empowered with critical rhetoric, starting with questions of the rhetoric of the college, our local ecologies, and in the state.
One more video:
Comments
Post a Comment