No True Scotsman fallacy - is it flawed?

[Culicarius]

I was reminded of this thought earlier when someone mentioned the fallacy in a thread I'm participating in. For awhile now something has bugged me about the No True Scotsman fallacy and I've wanted to discuss it with people.

I've had it come up often in political arguments I've partook in and observed in other forums on the internet. It's been used by people who do not share the same ideology as me (such as feminism). An example: Anti-feminists have told me things like that feminists hate men or that feminism doesn't care about men's issues. I'll tell them that they're not actual feminists and point them towards feminist literature or inform them of the ideology and that feminism at its core is aimed at deconstructing gender norms and benefits every person regardless of gender identity. Their response, usually, is to invoke No True Scotsman on me, and it's usually in conjunction with some sort of "well on tumblr there are a lot of feminists who hate men."

Other examples I've thought of include religion. By accepting that No True Scotsman is without flaws, must we then say that the Westboro Baptist Church are Christians just as much as anyone other Christian? That extremist Islamic groups are just as Islamic as anyone else? Or if we step into the realm of politics that Stalin is as much a communist as anyone else, or if someone claims to be an anarchist but expresses unsavory views (like being against homosexuality, or insinuating that men are superior to women) would they also be considered as much a part of anarchy as anyone else?

My problem is that it feels as thought people use the fallacy as a cop-out to debating when they already have their minds made up. Someone who is Islamophobic probably doesn't want to change their mind and it's easy to say "Well you have ISIS and they're Muslim too." Or to take that with any other group and run with it (like radfems who are transphobic must be considered just as feminist as anyone else).

Unless people have been using the fallacy wrong, it seems to me that there are cases where it's invoked to stifle intellectual growth or to defend one's hatred of a group or an ideology. How does one argue that feminists do not hate all men if one can invoke the fallacy and point to some people who call themselves feminists and hold that view? Or that the USSR was not a communist country but because it considered itself as such then we have to acknowledge it?

I may be understanding the fallacy wrong, and if so, please correct me! Otherwise I'm wondering if the fallacy can sometimes be problematic as in the aforementioned examples and if the fallacy itself cannot be a universal rule.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The "No True Scotsman" fallacy is an informal fallacy, which is to say, it's not a fallacy at all. It is, however, unpersuasive in most cases. (I would say that the fact that these, well, unpersuasive inferences are called "informal fallacies" just shows that many in the humanities are obsessed with the form of syllogism.)

The problem is that many people on the Internet, particularly those that are obsessed with "political debate" (which in my experience, is more like a cage full of monkeys screaming at another cage full of monkeys), abuse the hell out of the notion. They think they have "won" the debate if any time they see the words "real" or "true" they shout "No True Scotsman! No True Scotsman! Cthulhu fthagn!" or something to that effect.

Words have meanings; these meanings are established by the way we use words. If someone says that cats are bright yellow and made of metal because CAT excavators are, you can point out that, no, CAT excavators are not real cats.

At the same time, again, words have meanings, and you can't simply ignore those parts of the meaning you find unpleasant. For example, "feminism" as it is generally used in the relevant social group does include transphobic, homophobic figures.

[Redistribute the Rep]

As I understand it, it's a No True Scotsman fallacy if there's no reference to an objective rule that excludes said Scotsman. If someone said he was atheist and believed in Allah, it would not be fallacious to say that he's not a true atheist, as one could easily reference the widely accepted, objective definition of atheist. It becomes a No True Scotsman fallacy when the definition of Scotsman is altered from a commonly understood one to one that excludes (usually undesirable) individuals that would otherwise be known as Scotsman. You're right though, it is used to shut down debate quite often

[RedKobra]

A lot of this nonsense can be avoided if we agree, first, on the definition, and then we decide whether said object conforms.

Its also important to explain that we can't be boxed in by people self-describing themselves. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has the word Democratic in it right? Well, then it must be democratic. QED or its no true scotsman fallacy, right? No.

The whole feminism-man-hating thing is a just a massive red herring that bigots use to derail conversations about sexism. There are small groups of feminists that have incorporated misandry into their politics but incorporated is the operative word.

Its also a mistake to confuse explosions of anger at sexism, with theoretical misandry, they are completely different. Most of the time mild bigots, the sort of lilly-livered patriarchists that bring up this argument have in mind images of a woman totally pissed off about a man being a total arsehole, her being unable to hold her tongue and the guy interprets this is as misandry.

[Rafiq]

There is a some merit, however, in the accusations of the fallacy against certain intellectuals. Not only does one have to create a point of reference for what constitutes a Scotsman, this point of reference must have valid foundations. Communism as a mere word interchangeable with the desire for a "classless, stateless society" has its basis in erroneous foundations - it assumes that we can substitute what was a real historic force with an idea which we can refine and shape to our liking. Something cannot be constituted as "true" or not based on whether it conforms to an abstracted idea. The pathology which articulates feminism as man-hating itself is the what ought to be attacked - not the counter-assertion that this is not "true" feminism. Likewise, why people associate feminism with "man-hating" is what one must concern themselves with.

What presents itself as ideology cannot be approached by concerning oneself with the empirical validity of the language wrought out from it but the pathology, the paradigm of thought to which it was derived. To do so would assume that ideology itself is derived from an innocent, neutral observation of the world which may or may not be true by merit of epistemological legitimacy - but this is far from the case. Ideology is socially, therefore pathologically necessary whether or not it is actually true, whether or not the subject 'actually' consciously believes in it is only a secondary question. It is true insofar as it serves a rational purpose - is real and therefore rational.

You can say, for example, that conceptualizing feminism in terms of a battle of the sexes already inherently assumes that sexual, gender relations as they exist are eternal problems of nature rather than of our present condition. This assumption has a basis not reducible to mere ignorance but to the fact that we are predisposed to it (while ignorant) as a result of the systemic necessity of perpetuating conditions of sexual oppression. The problem thus cannot be solved with crypto political correctness but by attacking and opposing the foundations of its very necessity - our present condition.

[Dean]

The problem is that you are both arguing into a void when you argue about "the true nature of X ideology" or its adherents. They conceptualize an association between an idea and an ideology that you specifically disassociate from that ideology as it exists in your mind. They will consistently conceive of adherents you refuse to admit exist, and you will always conceive of a pure ideology they refuse to acknowledge.

There may or may not be legitimate examples that prove their case - that is besides the point. Did you know that there is a Christian / Episcopalian line of thought known as Anti-Supernaturalism? And it means precisely that - a refusal to believe in things which are not of the natural world. Nonetheless, it is rational and expected to say "if you only believe in nature, you can't believe in God or Christianity." You have to be specifically describing anti-supernaturalism for it to be relevant.

The exact same thing is true in your case, of a communist or a feminist proclaiming viewpoints that may run counter to what you know of those ideologies. It is not a conversation - it is 2 people justifying their own chosen prejudices. Most people don't understand your ideology to the extent you do and they have little stake in internalizing your own nuances. You will not prove to someone that they should cease to categorize people as feminists just because what those people have said runs contrary to your own understanding of the term. They don't have a stake in the term to cleanse it of man-haters - in fact, if they are bringing the example up, they have a stake in associating all kinds of clowns with feminism and by extension holding their ground on the issue.

You will not cleanse the name of the "true Scotsman" in the course of such arguments. In fact, the best response is to say, "you're right, man-hating is absurd" and proceed to make specific systemic analyses and policy proposals that address issues of feminism. You are debating a person who specifically chooses not to identify as feminist and it is likely that the strongest reason for that are friend/family pressures which would affect them a lot more than they would be affected by seeing feminists attacking men unfairly. On the other hand, if you talk about specific issues using normal language (not ideological jargon) you can often get those who would traditionally be seen as the strongest opponents of communism to agree that labor is exploited by capitalists, for example.