Monday, November 24, 2014

Ham and Mayonnaise!

The show Parks and Recreations, is a satire on government. One of the best parts of the show are the town hall meetings that make fun of how stupid the overall government is. The citizens often oppose what ever good Leslie Knope is trying to impose on Pawnee. The citizens in arguing to get their way they use a plethora of logical fallacies.

In a town hall meeting about health and trying to prevent the selling of a candy company's energy bars the citizens oppose and one man in particular speaks up. He uses the fallacies straw man, hasty generalization, and a bandwagon appeal. The presenter Anne says that the bars contain a lot of corn syrup and that it is unhealthy for you. The man then goes into his rant saying "What's so bad about corn syrup? It's natural! Corn's a fruit! Syrup comes from a bush! I think we ought to throw those bars out and eat ham and mayonnaise sandwiches!" He then begins to chant "Ham and Mayonnaise!" and the rest of the people in the meeting join him.

The speaker hastily generalizes in his argument for corn syrup being healthy because he has no evidence and his statements about corn being a fruit and syrup coming from a bush are false. The argument is straw man because the argument goes from being about whether or not corn syrup is good for you to if people should eat ham and mayonnaise sandwiches everyday. By rousing the "Ham and Mayonnaise" chant at the end of his rant the speaker has gotten the other citizens in the town hall meeting on his bandwagon.

6 comments:

  1. These town meetings are really good examples of how fallacies are used both effectively and ineffectively. It doesn't really matter to the people whether or not its practical but, rather if it appeals to them in that very instant.

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  2. I like that you thought to use this show as some of the logical fallacies in it are glaring, and it is just all around a great show. This argument reminds me of the one used to justify whether the woman is a witch in the Monty Python sketch we watched in class.

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  3. The meetings in Parks and Recreation are a fantastic example of logical fallacies! They often include unstable arguments from the townspeople, and they almost always include and example of fallacies.

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  4. There are also a lot of ad hominem's in this clip. That one instance when that citizen called the other a Commie.

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  5. This is a great example. The clip is full of logical fallacies.

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  6. I agree with Amy. This clip is a really good example of logical fallacies. I especially liked the bandwagon appeal when they all started chanting "Ham and Mayonnaise."

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