Political deception: Separating the wheat from the chaff

Almost all politicians engage in deception as it is part of the political game. No politician can survive without a modicum of deception in their conduct. 

Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques. Rhetoric can be further explained as language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content. 

Rhetoric is the art of using ethos, pathos and logos and this is widely made use of by the media personnel and institutions. Ethos is an appeal to ethical aspects of any subject and it is a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader. Pathos is a charm or an appeal to emotional side of a story and is a way of convincing an audience, of an argument, by generating an emotional response. Logos is an appeal to logical aspects of a matter and has a direct bearing on the ability to persuade the audience by reasoning on a matter. 

It is extremely important to keep the voters educated on the political issues, however only a very few have exposure to philosophical understanding of the ‘nature of things’ in this world. Logic has always been a vital instrument in cutting through knotty political issues and it is high time for the Government to introduce logic as a basic subject for GCE O/L students. 

The country is producing MBAs whose main task is to capture a market and the whole education is about selling a product. The citizens are required to rise above mundane issues of selling products to matters that are sacred to economic governance of the country. Do people have a basic education to grasp and contemplate on governance issues? 

What is a logical fallacy?

A logical fallacy is an obvious error of reasoning due to sheer ignorance of the person or his lack of education and exposure to public affairs. Politician can engage in deliberate effort to hoodwink the masses. If citizens are smarter than politicians it would be difficult for politicians to take them for a ride. Under what circumstances can a citizen take a politician for a ride? Citizens must always demand the evidence or the mechanism through which a certain policy could be achieved. The solution must be convincing and it must not be based on assumptions. 

When someone adopts a certain hypothesis or postulate, or tries to persuade someone else to adopt a position, based on a faulty piece of reasoning, that person might possibly commit a fallacy. There are two basic criteria for identifying an argument. Deductive argument is a form of reasoning and an argument in which the conclusion is derived from the premise. 

Example: Premise 1. All humans are mortal Premise 2. Socrates is a human. Conclusion; Socrates is mortal. Here the premise is ‘true’ hence the conclusion too would be ‘true’. If the premise is ‘wrong’ hence the conclusion must necessarily be ‘wrong’. In the case of inductive argument conclusions are based on ‘probability’. Example: The Sun has risen every day so far. Therefore the sun will rise tomorrow. This statement is based on probability. 

Fallacies in local politics

It would be relevant to examine some of the contemporary debates where deception was used to the hilt. During the 2015 presidential election Wimal Weerawansa used his skill in persuading the electorate and demanded to know from the Sirisena camp as to why not a single statement on ‘national security’ had been included in their election manifesto. If a citizen reasons this properly ‘national security’ is not a matter that can be discussed in an election manifestos because whoever was going to be elected was duty to bound to uphold the Constitution and protect the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. Hence this was a clear example of a deceptive argument employed to sway the public opinion.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been quoted as saying that Mattala Airport was now deriving income from aircrafts that fly over Mattala Airport. If this statement is analysed properly, one could argue that Mattala Airport was built, after spending so many billions, to derive income from aircrafts flying over Sri Lankan airspace and not for landing. The issue is if Mattala Airport was closed, these aircrafts would still fly and the flipside of the argument is that Mattala Airport is serving rich countries at the cost of poor Sri Lankans who are paying for these costly loans. 

The airlines that fly over Sri Lanka are mostly Emirates Airlines of UAE, Qatar Airways of Qatar and Qantas Airways of Australia. These airlines will operate their flights even if the Mattala Airport is closed. They will still pay the same charges. Yet another argument deployed by the Rajapaksa camp was that Ancients kings too built huge dams and reservoirs and no one objected to it then. What was lacking in our country was the development priorities. 

During late President Premadasa’s time there was a statement raised by the then Opposition discounting the fact that Gam Udawa was not as popular as the President Premadasa was trying to portray. The Opposition then made use of arithmetic to demolish the argument advanced by the President Premadasa. The then Opposition argued that certain millions had entered the Gam Udawa exhibition site. This could be verified from the ticket sales at the gate. Assume the entry is free and assume ‘X’ number of visitors had passed through two gates, it would require certain ‘Y’ hours. If the gate had been left open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. only a certain ‘Z’ of persons could enter. This was an exercise in logic.

There are ample examples to quote as far as political deceptions are considered. TV Journalist Suranga Senanayake had the courage to debunk the theory that a youth member from the Rajapaksas were required to boost the image of Army recruitment process at a time when youths were reluctant to join the armed forces. Suranga countered it by posing the question as to whether the Speaker of Parliament, Minister of Economic Development, Chief Minister and Defence Secretary were needed because there was no one to take over that role. 

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

There is an old saying that ‘if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is then or must necessarily be a duck’. This means what you wear and how you look or how you act is often more important than what you really know about it.

People are made aware of the political situation through mass communications. People themselves cannot engage in verifying the accuracy of news contents. The preponderance of citizens relies on media for political issues and would never resort to digging into a story either because they are heavily preoccupied with their lives or through ignorance. No citizen can delve deep into an actual agreement/a particular contract (e.g. Avant-Garde agreements) unless there is an acute need for it. The professional organisations and civil society organisations, if they are impartial, can undertake independent studies on political issues for mass education.

Media plays a crucial role in creating public opinion. It has a dual role of educating the masses and also has the responsibility for accurate reporting and accountability. Media can ignite sensitivities and excite the masses for mass political agitations. In 1983 there have been reports of arson against Tamil business establishments at isolated places each times a Sinhalese solider was killed by LTTE. In July 1983 there were banner headlines in newspapers that 13 soldiers had been ambushed by LTTE and the news spread like wildfire and it caused a massive civil commotion in Sri Lanka unparalleled in our history. 

It is the media that can separate the wheat from the chaff on behalf of citizens. Do the media personnel have the required training, capacity and the will to provide such a space? Is it also the responsibility of each individual to identify chaff from wheat through his own acquisition of required knowledge? 

(This writer is a freelance journalist, a political analyst and holds an LLM in International Commercial Law. He also holds a Diploma in Philosophy from University of London.)