Foolacy vs. Fallacy

Children tend to blame someone else and avoid responsibility starting at a young age, and often this manifests as Victim Mentality later in life. And Victim Politics and Scapegoating have always been a part of politics.

Surprisingly there is no direct corresponding fallacy. (Philosophers may have dismissed it as too elementary.) The closest is Appeal to Pity, which usually means trying to get pity for others, but can also mean for pity for yourself, which is the part that overlaps here. Since playing the victim is so common, starting at a young age, and so much like all other Appeals to Emotion, it deserves its own foolacy.

This is a cognitive distortion, and like all other Appeals to Emotion, it is a fallacy only if you fail to give logical supporting reasons.

Appeal to Pity is also partially covered by the Guilt Trip foolacy. I don’t have a foolacy for the remaining portion of Appeal to Pity, like charity ads, appealing to jurors, and asking for government aid. They certainly qualify as Emotional Manipulation, but they are easy to spot and come up in only limited contexts, so they did not make the top list of foolacies.