Guilt by Association · 10:45am Dec 17th, 2012
Guilt by Association
Person X supports/does A and if you support/do A you're just like Person X, therefore you should not support/do A.
Example A:
Ida Praposar: I would like to enroll my son in a seminary.
Lojika McPhallussy: Stalin attended a seminary as a child. Aren't you afraid your son will turn out like Stalin if he's put in one?
Example B:
Ida Praposar: I was thinking of converting to Islam.
Lojika McPhallussy: If you convert to Islam then you'll be just like Al-Qaeda.
This one is pretty much always fallacious. The person using Guilt by Association is usually trying to dissuade the person they're arguing with by likening their actions to a controversial figure*. Even if an idea is central to the motives of a controversial figure, making an association to that figure is usually just an attempt to appeal to emotion instead. For example, even if someone is arguing in favour of eugenics, it doesn't mean that person is a Nazi. Even if someone wishes to make homosexuality illegal, it doesn't mean they're with the Westboro Baptist Church. Even if someone wants to abolish social classes, it doesn't mean that person is a communist. Mostly, though, ideas that are only tangentially related to the figure are used to make this fallacy. I've often seen long debates about Hitler's religion in topics like circumcision or public transit.
*Very often, Hitler or Nazis. In fact, this happens so frequently that an internet law has been made about it:
Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
Dude, do you know what else Hitler did? Hitler breathed oxygen, was literate, and wore pants. Let's abolish breathing, reading and pants. (Totes in favour of the last one.)
I don't so much think of it as a fallacy but idiocy. Like wearing a sandwich-board that says 'my brain is turned off'.
This was quite a fun lesson!
I will never understand the aversion to pants. I, for one, like them and find them necessary!
621451
So basically what you're saying here is that you are just like Hitler.
I am ashamed.
Six million did not die so that this sort of thing could continue.
There's a subtle version of this you see all the time in commercials targeting kids.
Show some kids enjoying your new product. See how fun it is? See how colorful it is?
Now show the dorkiest dad in the history of dorks in the history of dads enjoying the traditional version. See how dorky he is? See how blandly colored the thing is?
The commercial implies: You don't want to be like this dork, do you? Use the awesome product!