This article is getting a lot of play on my news feed, and I am not sure why. My opinion is that the supposed nuanced issue that it speaks about is completely off base and is being used to promote the current let them eat cake sentiment regarding the poor. This, like many arguments is pride filled, they are poor and deserve the outcomes because some make bad decisions, or at best commits several fallacies of logic such as reasoning from a subset of individuals and generalizing to whole set. However, what really irks me is the way we are conflating very distinct issues. The cases of the behavior of Barneys and the shoppers should not be conflated with the issues of the poor. First, the personal financial situation of the persons in the Barneys matter is unknown and the article is asking you to make the stereotypical leap that minorities cannot afford the belt or the handbag. Even if their personal balance sheet does show the purchases to be extreme, that will not validate the conflating of this with the poor. When we speak of the poor we are talking about those requiring subsistence programs to survive. Such as food stamps and unemployment insurance. These two individuals do not represent those living below the poverty line. The rational persuasive leap is to get you to condemn the choices of these two individuals and then get you to extrapolate that condemnation on the poor as a whole. Thereby, increasing the disdain for the poor and increasing the cry for drug testing before participating in social benefit programs or worse to cry for the reduction of benefits in those programs. Do not be fooled these issues are very distinct. The one does not inform the other and you are being tricked into making rational connections that are simply not there.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 16:55:33 +0000
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