Talk:Crab mentality/Archives/2015

Appeal to Envy

The second paragraph says the defence of claiming a criticism is crab mentality may be an "appeal to envy" (in some contexts).

The Ka Larry Pelayo reference says "accusers are said to be suffering from crab mentality" by the accused as a (red herring) defence but the reference does not even use the words "argumentum ad invidiam" or the words "appeal to envy" anywhere. The constitution.org reference gives a definition of "argumentum ad invidiam" and uses the words "appeal to envy" but does not refer to crab mentality anywhere. Neither author is saying the defence of claiming a criticism to be crab mentality is an "appeal to envy" and in fact, this does not fit the definition.

Going through the definitions on constitution.org and the Wikipedia fallacies page, a crab mentality attack may be an "appeal to envy" but a defence claiming a criticism is unwarranted because it is an appeal to envy would not itself be an "appeal to envy", it could however be an "appeal to motive".

The following rewording is suggested:

   Using crab mentality to appeal to the envy of others to have them accept erroneous statements is known as an argumentum ad invidiam which is one of the logical fallacies. However, the popularity of the phrase has made accusing opponents of crab mentality a common form of defense against criticism, whether the criticism is valid or not which, depending on the context, may be an example of the red herring logical fallacy of appeal to motive.

which better fits what the original article was talking about, keeps the original reference (available on Archive.org), correctly uses "appeal to envy" and correctly classifies the red herring defence. -- npcomp (talk) updated 22:05, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

References

• Do you mean it to say "using crab mentality" or "accusing crab mentality"? I don't like your change, it easier to read the way it is now. I don't see how Constitution Society is a reliable source. Not much to the site, and they keep asking for donations everywhere. I don't see any Google news results for "crab mentality" and "logical fallacy", but some book results appear.[1] I don't know if any of them are notable. Anyway, Constitution Society is the one that list anything about envy, and doesn't say it about this at all. The word "envy" isn't even used on the other reference. So I removed that bit. [2] Dream Focus 21:31, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

"Using crab mentality" is correct. Here's an example:

   A hates B for some reason
   B did well in his exams and discloses that
   A tells others that B's disclosure means that he thinks he is "better than them" to appeal to their envy and to pull down B

The reference to the Constitution Society is the original reference, not one I added. To my recollection, the "appeal to envy" fallacy was also listed on the logical fallacy Wikipedia page at some point, but may have been deleted in a (potentially erroneous) edit. At this point, the second paragraph says:

   The popularity of the phrase has made accusing opponents of crab mentality a common form of defense against criticism, whether the criticism is valid or not. Depending on the context, this tactic may fall under the logical fallacy known as argumentum ad invidiam, or appeal to envy.

which is simply incorrect as noted (the attack is an "appeal to envy" but the defence is an "appeal to motive"). You are welcome to suggest an alternate rewording and references. Alternatively you could suggest a deletion of this paragraph as it is arguably not needed as shown by the (related) tall poppy syndrome page.

-- npcomp (talk) 22:05, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

References

• Don't change your wording after someone has replied to what you originally said. [3] Also read about WP:Original Research and WP:SYNTH. We quote what the references say, not what you believe they mean. Dream Focus 00:42, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks for your notes on Wikipedia etiquette. Someone has updated the first sentence and deleted the second to correct the issue. npcomp 00:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Remove 'Tall Poppy Syndrome'

I propose removing the section about Tall Poppy Syndrome. I live in Australia and have heard the term 'tall poppy syndrome' plenty of times. I've not once heard it used to mean 'the tall poppy using his power to hold others down'. Every time I've heard it, the meaning has been the same as crab mentality.

There are two references meant to be supporting the idea that the two concepts are different. One is a paper about cyberbulling. It only compares and contrasts the two concepts in it's intro and it doesn't support the idea that the two concepts are different at all:

• "Crab mentality can be seen as a type of envy or hating and is sometimes referred to as tall poppy syndrome"
• "But whatever you call the phenomenon, the fact that it is well established and recognised (see for example Comfort, 1995, p. 599) means that: standing out through your achievements can cause you to be attacked in some countries."

The second reference is a blog post. It discusses which is more destructive; people below dragging down those above, or those above using their power to hold down those trying to climb up. In this blog post the author references published research that says the terms are synonymous: "So to Spacey and Kirkwood and Viitanen, the terms are synonymous and the common issue is envy and malice from the masses rather than patch protection and alpha dog behaviour from above. This is clearly at odds, at least to me..."

The author pontificates a bit about whether the terms mean the same thing or not. I'm not actually clear about what the author's conclusion is (too many metaphors and colloquial terms for me). Regardless, it is just a personal opinion. And heck, even the author states his opinion is in opposition to the common usage.

Using these two references to claim that tall poppy syndrome is different from crab mentality is just plain wrong. I'm sure if I just remove the section though that it will get re-added so I thought I'd better add a discussion note first.

My opinion is to remove the section entirely. There's already a link to Tall Poppy Syndrom in the 'See also' section and I think that's appropriate.

Thoughts?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gechurch (talk • contribs) 01:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• I agree. There is no reason for that to be there. Dream Focus 01:37, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

--

While I am OK with the deletion, here are some thoughts:

1. the etymology section of the tall poppy syndrome page shows that the term technically means something very different from crab mentality. Johnson is raising this point as stated in the (now deleted) section and Spacey refers to the tall poppy syndrome etymology highlighting that in some countries the term "crab mentality" is referred to as "tall poppy syndrome" despite the different etymologies.
2. the section did not say that crab mentality refers to a tall poppy holding people down. The section said the technical meaning of tall poppy syndrome is a tall poppy holding down potential competitors because of jealousy as per the etymology. In saying this the section highlighted that the term was being (technically) misused in Australia and New Zealand where they use it to mean people of (possibly) lower achievement trying to pull back others because of envy which is called crab mentality in other countries
3. the (now deleted) section served as a disambiguation for international readers highlighting that Australia and New Zealand prefer to use the term tall poppy syndrome instead of crab mentality as you confirm

also, while I write, Spacey's paper is not "about cyberbullying". I believe he only focuses on cyberbullying in his intro where he says it is a natural consequence of "crab mentality" given modern social media.

Finally, for international readers trying to understand why Australia and New Zealand would prefer the term tall poppy syndrome over crab mentality, it may be interesting to note that it is well established that Australians and New Zealanders generally support the concept of "crab mentality" (see for example and the Tall Poppy Syndrome page) and that, where the term "crab mentality" brings with it negative connotations, "poppies" have a special place in Australian and New Zealand culture being used in Anzac/Remembrance Day which is generally associated with the righteous fight of many individuals against an oppressive well equipped force.

-- npcomp (talk) Updated 19:43, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

References