LinguisticMANIPULATIVE

Red Herring

What it is

Introducing an irrelevant topic to divert attention from the main issue.

How it works

By shifting the conversation to a tangentially related or completely unrelated subject, the persuader prevents scrutiny of the original point. The audience follows the new thread and the original issue goes unaddressed.

Real-world examples

  • •A politician answering a question about policy with a personal anecdote.
  • •A defendant bringing up the victim's character to avoid the charges.
  • •Responding to budget criticism by talking about a competitor's problems.

Ethical guidelines

  • ●Stay on topic and address questions directly.
  • ●If changing subjects, acknowledge you are doing so and why.
  • ●Do not deliberately distract from valid criticism.

How to defend against it

  • ►Notice when the conversation has drifted from the original question.
  • ►Politely redirect: "That's interesting, but let's get back to the original point."
  • ►Write down the original question so it cannot be forgotten.

From the Defense Playbook

DEAR MANtakes practice

A structured way of asking for something or saying no, taken from dialectical behavior therapy: Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, while staying Mindful, Appearing confident, and Negotiating.

Broken Recordtakes practice

Calmly repeat the same short statement of what you want or will not do, in the same words and tone, as many times as it takes, without being drawn into answering each new argument.

Argument Mappingtakes practice

Draw the argument as a diagram, with the main claim at the top, the reasons for and objections against it beneath, and the support for each of those beneath them, so that gaps, repetition, and unsupported leaps become visible instead of being carried along by fluent prose.

Flow the Argumenttakes practice

Borrow the competitive debater's note-taking method: write each of the other side's points in a column as they are made, put the responses beside them, and look at what is left unanswered, so that volume and speed cannot substitute for substance.

Note and Returnseconds

When a new topic is introduced in the middle of an unresolved one, acknowledge it, write it down as something to come back to, and return to the original point, so that diversions neither derail the discussion nor go unanswered.

Every playbook entry states how strong its evidence is and when not to use it. Browse the full playbook.

References

  1. Aristotle (-350). Sophistical Refutations (De Sophisticis Elenchis). Trans. W. A. Pickard-Cambridge. In The Complete Works of Aristotle (Barnes, ed., 1984) · link
    Classical enumeration of relevance fallacies; the ignoratio elenchi ancestor of the modern "red herring."
  2. Walton, D. (2004). Relevance in Argumentation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
    Modern argumentation-theoretic treatment of relevance and irrelevance in dialogue, including the red-herring pattern.
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