I have an odd fascination with illogic. There's something about watching a human brain, or collection of them, malfunction which is both sad and interesting — both, because the brain in question can't see it happening.

I was never a huge Charles Johnson fan. Back when everyone in the rightosphere was saying, "Oh, you've gotta read LGF!", I somehow just never saw the same thing in his website. I don't know where the disconnect was (what I was somehow missing, I assume) but quite a number seemed entranced by LGF.

That said, I was never particularly a critic either. In recent years, his site seemed obsessed with creationism, as if there's some sort of parallel threat from (a) extremists who want to blow up buildings and force me to convert to their religion, and (b) a Baptist who attends a church potluck dinner where most those attending think the earth is several billion years younger than it really is. That's an odd sort of myopia (paranoia even, perhaps?) I see among a certain breed of New Atheist, but, well, each to their own. I don't care too much, as long as he doesn't go as far as Sam Harris (or Richard Dawkins), and recommend the extermination (or mere criminalization) of those with whom he disagrees.

I mention him because I'd heard rumors that Charles had sort of "melted down", and was curious what his reasons were. Reading his own charges, and responses from those he seems to have attacked, I'd suspected such criticism had merit. The latest correspondence (if you can call it that) between radio talk show host Dennis Prager, and Johnson's subsequent response, I think, illustrates perfectly what's gone wrong.

I won't do a blow-by-blow, but the pattern is the the same each time. Johnson attacks by accusing "the right" of (for example):

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, etc.).

Prager responds by saying: "Uh, who are these people?", and:

Associating the American right with fascism is done only by leftist ideologues and propagandists, not by serious critics. It is akin to calling everyone on the left a Communist.

And Johnson replies:

Dennis is familiar enough with the principles of logic and debate that I know he'll understand when I say that this is the first of many straw men that he throws up to make light of what I wrote. This straw man argument — that I've accused everyone on the right of the things I wrote in that post — is completely false, and if you read carefully, it's obvious that I deliberately wrote the entire post to avoid making such blanket accusations.

The odd thing about all this is that Johnson continually appeals to logic while invoking clear fallacies. You can read for yourself that Prager only characterized Johnon as "associating the American right with facism", which Johnson clearly has done. Yet Johnson then tries to turn Prager's response into a claim that Johnson has said "everyone on the right" has said or done X, when Prager has said no such thing.

This is very weird to watch, because Charles is repeatedly accusing Dennis of invoking a straw man argument, while, in fact, doing exactly that. And, as I noted above, he apparently can't see he's doing it.

As I said, I won't bore you with the rest of it; it follows the same pattern:

1. Johnson characterizes "the right", by and large, as doing X (that is, after all, what saying "the right" means — not that it's true of every member of the set, but that it's a fair characterization of a dominant trend within the group)

2. Prager responds by questioning how Johnson's specific examples can be applied broadly to the right in the US. ("I looked them up... The BNP is the British National Party, a racist group that in the last U.K. general election received 0.7 percent of the popular vote. So what?") [I'd also note the BNP is actually leftist, not rightist, as is commonly asserted.]

3. Johnson accuses Prager of a straw man, wrongly claiming Prager said Johnson said every member of "the right" must have done X. Johnson also blames bloggers for the content of their comments section, or says they once "supported" (as in, apparently, once stood near, or talked with) some group he dislikes.

One of the first things I see "going", that is, malfunctioning, in the society around me is a selective inability to handle simple generalizations. Someone will say, for example: "Democrats support a larger government", and an irate Democrat will respond with: "That's not true! I'm personally against it!" Of course, the PARTY does indeed have beliefs and preferences, and certainly a larger state is a big part of their program. The fact that certain supporters sometimes disagree, but vote for them anyway, doesn't negate that.

These people behave (at moments) as if we're supposed to refrain from all generalizations, and never say things like "Dogs have four legs" (when, of course, some dogs have lost a leg, or were born without one), "Ice cream is cold" (because, of course, some of it, somewhere, has melted), "Democrats want big government" (because some people call themselves "Democrats" while wanting smaller government), etc. Yet they, themselves don't refrain from such generalizations, and seem to understand how to correctly parse them as long as the subject isn't their particular "hot button" issue.

Second, concerning guilt-by-association: My rather-small workplace produced no less than three representatives to the Democratic National Convention. I also would hope that my own efforts there have contributed to the bottom line, thus helping, at least in part, pay the salary of these three individuals. And I have certainly eaten with them, and spoken sociably with them. If they posted here, I'd let their comments stand. (These are the sort of links Johnson is drawing to assert people "lent support to" fascists.) So did I thus "lend support" to the election of Barack Obama? Using the standards Johnson seems to be applying, I'd apparently be guilty of such.

Um, whatever. If such a standard can produce the result that I "lent support to" Obama's presidential campaign, then said litmus test produces nearly meaningless results. In short, another fallacy.

As usual, my follow-up question is: what causes a mind to go wrong in such a way? Often, I suspect it's something to do with deeply-held religious-like beliefs; perhaps in Johnson's case it has something to do with his atheism and fixation upon American Christians. Note, again, I'm not saying all atheists are subject to such, nor that Christians are immune from such illogic either: just that I'd guess that his obsession against creationism and sudden illogical turn against the right aren't utterly disconnected.

Is Johnson concerned about support for fascism? He should learn a bit about its historical manifestations, if so. As I see it, European fascism involved an obsession with blaming "bankers" and "capitalism", a cult of personality, relentless demands for change, a desire for socialist benefits and health-related regulations, and deep sensitivity for the environment. As Goldberg documented, it was a "middle way" between extreme socialism and capitalism, which co-opted corporations for state goals rather than outlawing them directly.

Good thing nothing even remotely like that is happening in the US right now.

Except with, um, Ann Coulter.