Refuting Arguments with Ridicule

Ridicule is often used to refute bad arguments. Generally, ridiculing a bad argument would most likely be offensive, and may even be considered humorous, depending on the sense of humor of the individual of the opponent or the target audience. Ridiculing a bad argument occurs quite frequently in the work place. For example, while working in the Information Technology department and dealing with a virus infected computer, Person A might claim that they have a fix for the virus by completely wiping out the system and starting over. Person B would then refute and discredit Person A by pointing out that formatting the computer would result in the user having the possibility of losing important data. Person A might then retort by saying, “well if I start the entire PC image over again, then the virus would be guaranteed to be cleaned.” While the statement is true, Person A is trying to ridicule Person B by saying that the problem will be resolved – regardless of whether or not the customer is happy or content with the possibility of data loss. Instead of going this route, Person A should find another work around to clean the system of any infected software.