Red Herring

Heather Rivera

Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk.

Cartoon Johnny Cochran on South Park’s “Chef Aid”

A red herring (RH) is a distraction device and refers to an informal logical fallacy that detracts from the actual issue, allowing one to be sidetracked from what is actually happening and to draw a false conclusion. One origin of the term has to do with a police dog exercise in which policemen, while trying to discern the best trail-hunters, use strong-smelling red herring fishes in an attempt to throw dogs off the trail of a scent. So, when someone uses an RH, the claims and argument(s) she puts forward are the “red herrings” she uses to throw you off the “trail” of reasoning that would lead to another, probably more appropriate, conclusion altogether. One form of an RH looks something like this:

Step 1: Argument, issue, or topic A is presented by person 1.

Step 2: Person 2 introduces argument, issue, or topic B.

Step 3: Argument, issue, or topic A is abandoned altogether, like a dog going off trail in search of a red herring.

This occurs on a daily basis when a reporter or journalist asks the typical politician a question related to one issue (complete with its associated argu­ment), and the politician responds with a wholly different - but often com­pelling - issue (complete with its associated argument).

In the 2016 United States presidential election, RHs were flying wild! There was even an article written and published by the Huffington Post about how Hillary Clinton’s nomination itself may be an RH. Anytime one of the two major candidates - Clinton and Donald Trump - were asked a direct question, they diverted and put the attention back on the other person.

America is once again at a moment of reckoning. Powerful forces are threaten­ing to pull us apart. Bonds of trust and respect are fraying. And just as with our founders, there are no guarantees. It truly is up to us. We have to decide whether we all will work together so we all can rise together. (Los Angeles Times 2016a)

This entire speech is an RH, but this particular piece stuck out to me. She is using fear tactics to try to bond others together to rally around her. She uses the Founding Fathers to spark pride in the hearts of Americans and divert from not actually explaining what she plans to do. Then she tries to distract the listener by adding an uplifting message of working together to make things better for everyone, instead of addressing the millions in poverty and how she plans to fix the recession.

Most of Trump’s acceptance speech was designed to distract the listener, too:

What about our economy? Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly 4 in 10 African American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African American youth are now not employed. Two million more Latinos are in poverty today than when President Obama took his oath of office less than eight years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.

Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. That’s 16 years ago. Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high. Think of this, think of this: Our trade deficit is nearly $800 billion last year alone. We’re gonna fix that. (Los Angeles Times 2016b)

While he seems to offer numbers to drive home “facts,” what he is really doing is diverting the listener with what appear to be facts that stir up emotion. People think, “Yes, I am unemployed and in that pool of 14 million people you just mentioned. This candidate wants to help me!” All the while he never lays out a plan to explain how anything will be fixed! Now

that the people listening to the speech are emotionally affected and distracted, they no longer expect a planned out explanation of how help is coming for them.

RHs can also be used as a literary device to steer readers off course such as in mystery novels like Perry Mason stories and, of course, Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) presents a classic example of an RH. The readers are diverted off the trail of the real murderer and start suspecting the escaped convict and Barrymore. In the end, however, the mystery is resolved by the unexpected confession of Beryl that her husband Stapleton was the real culprit and was behind the whole mystery of the killer hound.

In 1985, an RH was not only used in the film Clue but also mentioned by name as well. All the guests in the comedic murder mystery were told a story about how each one of them was tied to some kind of socialist connection; hence, why they were being blackmailed. In the big reveal of “whodunnit,” the butler Wadsworth states, “Communism was just a red herring.”

Other examples of an RH from common speech include:

Daughter: I’m so hurt that Todd broke up with me.

Mother: Just think of all the starving children in Africa, honey. Your

problems will seem pretty insignificant then.

Mike: It is morally wrong to steal, why on earth would you have done

that?

Ken: But what is morality exactly?

Mike: It’s a code of conduct shared by cultures.

Ken: But who creates this code?

How do you avoid the fallacy? Actually, the answer is very simple. When asked a question, devise a thought out answer that actually answers the question. Do not try to distract the listener, reader, or interviewer by throwing out information that will lead away from the original topic. When a meteorologist is asked about the rain, answering the questions about rain and not talking about last week’s sunshine will avoid an RH. If I were to ask you what 5 plus 5 is and you tell me that Indian people actually invented the number zero, well then, you have distracted me from the question at hand. If a topic is proposed, and you can speak or write about it without departing from the initial trail, then you have successfully avoided an RH fallacy.

References

Clue. 1985. Directed by Jonathan Lynn. Paramount Pictures.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. 1902. Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of Baskervilles. London: George Newnes, Ltd.

Los Angeles Times. 2016a. “Hillary Clinton’s Complete Convention Speech.” July 28. http://www. latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-hillary-clinton-convention-speech- transcript-20160728-snap-htmlstory.html (accessed September 28, 2017).

Los Angeles Times. 2016b. “Donald Trump’s Complete Convention Speech.” July 21. http://www. latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-donald-trump-convention- speech-transcript-20160721-snap-htmlstory.html (accessed September 28, 2017).