Customer Reviews

Logic and Mr. Limbaugh: A Dittohead's Guide To Fallacious Reading

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I found these reviews to be the most even handed.

The Truth hurts!, August 13, 2001
and
Repeatedly Distorts What Limbaugh Says, January 4, 2000

Reviewers appear not to understand that the book is tongue in cheek. Dr. Perkins realizes that Limbaugh is a talk show host of the Donahue school, providing entertainment but not argument or logical persuasion.

Lancek is right to point out that Rush is only an entertainer, and "a reader" is correct that passages from Rush that Perkins presents as containing arguments often were not intended as arguments.

As far as being an introductory text in logic the book is good. It combined successfully clear instruction with the popular culture of its day. I wish Perkins had been able to find more examples of unequivocal fallacies. So many of his examples could be resolved as the fallacy of "evading the issue" rather than some other fallacy.

Logic and Mr. Limbaugh: A Dittohead's Guide To Fallacious Reading

Notice all the bad reviews posted here of this book mimic the baseless mudslinging style of Limbaugh himself (calling the author a "marxist," etc. with no reference to the fallacies pointed out in the book).

My criticism of this book is it's a little wordy and not as direct as it could be, although it's a good thing Perkins is constantly bending over backwards to give Limbaugh the benefit of any doubts. The book would be an excellent introduction to logic and fallacies to a beginning student, and no one can provide a richer source of fallacies from which to draw from better than Rush Limbaugh. I actually like to play 'Name that Fallacy" when listening to Limbaugh, because they come fast and furious. Of course nowadays he has plenty of competition from Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, etc., all enjoying the lucrative biz of manipulative fallacy.

It's actually very sad these people have built such lucrative careers employing fallacy--it's sad one can be so successful in base manipulation in this day and age, and in this once-great nation. Limbaugh has contributed greatly to denigrating and crippling our language by subverting objectivity for spin, and spawning and encouraging so many, even in politics and in the current administration, to practice the same. Notice how Limbaugh--according to himself--has never been wrong or mistaken? Exactly. Anything and everything can be spun to the gullible. A very sad development for this world.

Professor Perkin's book is excellent for two main reasons. First, the beginning chapters are an easy to follow general introduction to the philosophy of logic for the average layperson (like moi). While it does not go very far in depth, the most useful and basic definitions of deductive and inductive arguments and their forms and fallacies are given. Second, in a calm and light mannered tone, it skewers what has always bothered me most about the Limbaugh phenomena: a desire on the part of his admirers (including himself), many in powerful political and media circles, to pass him off as an astute political thinker/critic, instead of what he is: a loud-mouth blabbing his opinions (which, of course, he has the perfect right to do). Perkins stresses that his book is not about saying Rush's opinions are incorrect, merely that the arguments and logic he uses to back up theses views are, to be charitable, sub-par. For an astute political thinker/critic Limbaugh's logical skills are poor and if you want to read examples of Rush playing fast and loose with the facts check out the book, "The Way Things Aren't". Limbaugh, like too many people on both sides of the political spectrum, is a shallow, lazy thinking reactionary. He isn't about embracing any political philosophy or ideology, merely a platform. That which is deemed in the media or public consciousness as "liberal", well, he's against it. Without listening to his program or reading either of his books, I can tell you his opinions on any major political or social issue, and no, I'm not psychic (It's easy, you try it!). Perkin's book is a great example of how Limbaugh (and yes, there are some on the left as well) is a master of what perhaps could be dubbed the anti-Socratic Method.

I bought this book to practise my logical reasoning skills with actual logical arguments and fallacies - I'm not interested in US domestic politics. The main problem of the book from this point of view is that Mr. Limbaugh seems to make errors mainly in the form of ad hominem fallacies. And though the book contains many examples of other kinds of logical errors in Limbaugh's writings, some types of common fallacies are missing.

The idea of collecting and analyzing political arguments from the point of view of logic is a good one, but for learning logical reasoning the book should be more comprehensive. For that purpose, other political thinkers should be covered, too.

For those wanting a good introduction to logical reasoning I recommend Kelley's "The art of reasoning".

First of all, many of the grudges against this book defend Rush by stating that it is hard for him to be logical for hours on end on his radio show. Unfortunately the author did not refute arguments from Rush's radio show. In fact all of them, as far as I remember, are cited from Rush's book. It's not hard to maintain logical consistency for 200 pages. The arguments are cited verbatim from Rush's book "The Way things ought to be" and therefore the author is not guilty of taking Rush out of context. The book was mostly entertaining {eg. Rush's arguments, and the realization that they are littered with more fallacies than I thought}, but somewhat annoying - especially when the author tried to fix the majority of Rush's argument. An invalid/weak argument is an invalid/weak and trying to fix it makes it an entirely different argument. By the way, did anyone know that he uses invalid and cogent to describe the same argument forms? Cogency refers to inductive arguments and validity refers to deductive arguments. When did the editor not catch this? For what this book is worth, you can pick it up and run through it in a couple of hours. With respect to accusations of liberal bias - there is none. The author takes great care to stick with logic and undermine the arguments solely using the tools of logic and not politics. It's amazing how some people don't actually read what they're reading.

This book should be required reading for all students at some point in their education. Perkins, a Professor of Logic, provided an excellent and concise explanation of logical thinking by using examples of illogical statements drawn from several books by Rush Limbaugh.

Honest, logical, clear thinking is the only sure antidote I can think of to the distorted, hateful, polarizing rantings of people like Limbaugh.

Congratulations, Dr. Perkins!

Limbaugh is not a nice man - witness his recent attack on Michael J. Fox. Nor is he an honest man. This excellent book exposes Limbaugh's lies, fallacies and arrogance. Limbaugh's views are faith-based, not sustained by the evidence available. His opinions are strongly held, but that is no proof of their validity. He wraps himself in the mantle of patriotism, but his America is not the America of Washington and Lincoln; it is rather that of the Klan and the Know-Nothings.

This book is an absolute MUST READ for anyone that prefers to think for themselves. Teaching elementary logic using the statements of Rush is brilliant! Not only does the reader review logic, but they also see how illogical Rush really can be.

Give this to anyone who takes Rush seriously, and enjoy them making such statements as "taken out of context" and "well, he's only an entertainer." Most dittoheads will refuse to read it- "liberal propaganda" they'll say. Then again, that's how Rush treats the truth as well.

A great read!

This is an important book as it releases some helium in the grotesquely huge balloon that is Rush Limbaugh's stratospheric success. He is the guy who identified the neo-Silent Majority as a serious demographic for radio, in the early days of the Info.-Tainment industrial complex.
As a layman logician, I found the book very hard to read and enjoy, as it's written in a rather dry seminar style; in fact, in spots I found myself defering to Mr. Rush, in the sense that: how is anyone supposed to cut a 100% fresh and lucid live show practically every day of the week in the toughest market in the world? Can anyone weigh their words to make perfect sense even part of the time?
The problem is that a from-the-hip statement can be frivolous and reasonable and thought-provoking at the same time. So the Radio Host is doing his job, keeping his show on the road while anchored to that supposed golden microphone in the green apple.
The book is replete with absurd non-sequitors and shakey analogies taken from actual Rush broadcasts, covering subjects like sex education, drug programs, North American infants' effects on the earth's environment.
An example of the twisted up position a reader can get into, on the other hand, is with the issue of AIDS. Limbaugh is saying that there is a striking, shocking incidence of condom failure which can lead to AIDS, and so abstinence is the only safe way for an unmarried to go (the cheating spouse issue is not addressed....). He is right, unless a person is negligent about wearing gloves or applying bandages while caring for an infected person whose blood penetrates an open, wet cut of the caregiver. The author counters this by saying that even if the "protection" fails, there's a very remote mathematical chance of transmission. Both are right,
A fun companion to "Rush - The Way Things Aren't".

Taken as a work of humor rather than the work of a serious logician, this book is worth a laugh or two. Perkins is right on the money when he points out Limbaugh's logical errors, but Limbaugh is just too easy a target to form the basis of a serious introduction to the subject of logic. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that Limbaugh's ad hominem statements are fallacious and lack intellecutal reasoning.

Hmm, but then given the lock-step mentality of Limbaugh's dittoheads, maybe it does take a rocket scientist.

Buy the book! Read it, enjoy it! You won't be sorry.