Demagogy

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For the discussion of political demagoguery and associated methods of gaining political power see the article "Populism".

Demagogy is generally a method of convincing a listener in a false fact by using methods of logic. In this sense, demagogy is not a lie, since it doesn't use false facts directly, but rather brings unsuspicious listener to draw the appropriate conclusion by himself.

Table of contents

1 Etymology
2 Methods of demagogy

2.1 Methods not involving violations of logic
2.2 Methods involving violation of logic
2.3 Arguments unrelated to a discussion

3 Sources

Etymology

The word is derived from Greek demos (people) and agogos (leading).

Methods of demagogy

Methods not involving violations of logic

Numerical demagogy - mixing of incomparable quantities. For example, "our government has increased social spending by 5 billion dollars, while the previous government has increased it only by 0.4 percent." Obviously, the latter sounds like less, but one cannot be sure.

False authority - relying on the general authority of a person who is not proficient in the discussed topic. Example: "the professor read my book, and liked it very much". The fact that it was a professor of chemistry who read a book on anthropology is omitted.

Methods involving violation of logic

For or against (bifurcation) - assuming that there are only two possible opinions on a given topic. Example: "Smith is not with us, therefore he is against us". A possibility of Smith's neutral position is ignored.

Arguments unrelated to a discussion

These methods are not always considered to be a demagogy, but are closely related to it.

Emotional attack - an attempt to bring a discussion to an emotional level. For example, "Everyone is against me!", "Can't I be right just once?", "You are stupid!", "You are demagoguing!".

Sources

B. Katzenelenbaum, "Demagogiya - opyt klassifikacii", Nauka i zhizn 9 (1989) - in Russian. Online version