Great read from Jon Henke:
A little background: a generalization is “a statement about a class based on an examination of some of its members”. So far, so good. Greenwald has certainly noted enough partisanship among bloggers on the right. But that’s not all there is to it, because while it is “based on a finite set of observations and experiences”, it also “claims to hold true for the larger set”. “Insufficient or nonrepresentative evidence often leads to a hasty generalization.” And hasty generalization is a logical fallacy “committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough”.
Not only is Greenwald’s sample size of bloggers not large enough to draw generalizations about, e.g., “authoritarian cultists”, he must ignore the instances in which those bloggers do criticize the administration in order to assign them a psychological profile.
Unfortunately, the result is a subset of generalizations. Stereotype: “A generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.”
One of those common sense things you instinctively know, but don’t fully understand until it’s explained. Great post.