Deceptive Words is a site dedicated to shining a light on the way words are used to deceive. When I first had the idea of creating this site over a decade ago, I thought I would post a set of the typical logical fallacies most often used in propaganda and advertising, using actual ads and political statements as real-world illustrations.
I did not expect the pool of illustrations to expand so precipitously! In recent years, our nation has devolved into a divided groups of echo chambers where each person’s prefered reality is encouraged and inflated. Talk radio and Russ Limbaugh were bad enough, the “news” outlets such as Fox have increasingly abandoned hard reporting for opinion. Liberals are not innocent, there are numerous left-wing bloviators who betray their disdain for the truth every time they opne their mouths.
The advent of Donald Trump has taken us into a new age of deceptive words.
What is truth? I am convinced that there is a real, discernable truth out there that is not just opinion or spin. For millenia philosophers have examined the concepts, and they have agreed on a set of arguments that are recognizably authentic — logically correct, and likley to lead to truth — and a set of forms of argument that are recognizably false — likely to deceive, to lead away from truth. It is these forms, accepted and understood since Aristotle and Socrates, that we will focus.