Linguistic

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.

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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