Rumors about rumors

When someone in a political context receives criticism based on alleged rumors, there are two possible reactions. The first is to defend oneself using legitimate arguments, that is, by providing evidence to neutralize the accusation. The second, however, involves questioning or denying the accusation. A real and fairly recent case: someone claimed that a politician had included an academic degree on his resume that was actually falsified, and thanks to this, he obtained a professional position that wasn't his. The clearest and most honest response seemed obvious: provide said document, or admit that it didn't exist. All other actions to refute what someone has said—including, in this case, an alleged suicide attempt—are worthless, no matter how spectacular or even dramatic they may be. There is another old way of neutralizing criticism: using fallacies, whether basic and predictable or more sophisticated. One of the most common is the infantilizing one. tu quoque (in Latin, "you too"): "Are we corrupt? And you, eh? Don't you remember, the case such and such..." Another very common one is the accusation ad hominem, that is, it doesn't take into account the content of the criticism but instead attacks the person who made it, and in this way it thinks it can avoid it. The list would be very long and it moves according to trends. For example, for years what is ironically known as reductio ad hitlerum (The phrase was coined by Leo Strauss, by the way.) It consists of criticizing something simply because Hitler advocated or practiced it. "Hitler was a vegetarian, a teetotaler, and a non-smoker; therefore..."

In recent times it has become normal to defend oneself from criticism by arbitrarily and selectively placing it in the sphere of malicious rumors, fake news, from misinformation, etc. The comments that seem favorable to us, on the other hand, always They come from rigorous and honest sources. That's great, isn't it? In the case of certain issues considered sensitive, this attitude can reach extremes bordering on the comical. There are some programs on TVE or La Sexta where any comment referring to Pedro Sánchez's government is analyzed from this perspective. This generates rumors about rumors: the good ones come from real journalism, from decent people, while the bad ones are always—always, always—the result of "the hoaxes of the extreme right"This dynamic has become so standardized that it influences the timing of certain programs, including the comments of panelists. With your permission, I will call this informational fallacy argumentum carrarensis, in honor of the great Raffaella Carrà (1943-2021) and her 1974 hit RumorThe oldest members of the group will surely remember: "Rumore, rumore. / Non mi just feel sicura, sicura, sicura never..." Can denying only trite, convenient rumors generate new ones? Of course. When someone denies a rumor, they often do so by providing—or rather, slipping in—the alternative version of events that best suits them. Lest you think we're talking about abstractions, I'd like to recall a debate that arose in the wake of the extremely serious events in Torre Pacheco. In this case, the majority of "the hoaxes of the extreme right" They were very toxic: they spread them freely, and with the intention of causing harm. Not everything was rumors or fake news, however. I remember at least two very heated debates, one in a Spanish context and the other in Catalonia, where the demographic composition of the prison population in relation to the general population was hotly discussed. Some sought to incriminate a group based on abusive generalizations, while others sought to exonerate them by using theargumentum carrarensis. In the case of Catalonia, however, the numerical data provided by Idescat, expressed in absolute frequencies and without percentage sleight of hand, they are what they areI understand that for some people they are extremely uncomfortable, but unfortunately there are no others.

The section Prison population by nationality and geographical areas of origin from the Idescat website must be properly contextualized and, above all, must not be used as a weapon to make malicious statements that are sometimes just examples of covert racism. But neither should it be modestly hidden to try to prop up the fallacy ofargumentum carrarensisThis is not only useless, but ultimately counterproductive. Rumors and fake news must be combated with evidence and real news, not with ideologically-cool journalism.