Logic was once a cornerstone of education. Before the 20th century, students studied logic as a standalone subject—a rigorous discipline that honed their ability to reason, spot contradictions, and dissect arguments. In early America, logic held a prominent place in the curriculum. Northern colleges like Harvard prioritized it, with figures like Benjamin Franklin authoring logic primers for youth. And Southern institutions wove logic into rhetoric. Yet today, logic as a dedicated subject has all but vanished from schools, relegated to fleeting mentions in math or writing classes. This retreat from logic education is a grave mistake, and its consequences are evident in the emotional, fallacy-ridden state of modern public discourse.
The decline of logic in schools stems from a confluence of factors. The Progressive Education Movement, aiming to make schooling more accessible, simplified curricula and sidelined subjects deemed too esoteric, including logic. Anti-scholastic sentiment further dismissed logic as overly technical, irrelevant to practical life. Meanwhile, the fragmentation of education into specialized niches—math here, literature there—pushed logic out of the general classroom. (Read the National Association of Scholars’s “The Dissolution of General Education.”) Whatever the precise cause, the result is clear: we’ve raised generations of citizens ill-equipped to reason rigorously, leaving them vulnerable to emotional manipulation and logical errors.
Nathaniel Urban, a colleague and keen observer of cultural trends, argues that this lack of logic training has fueled a hyper-emotional approach to thinking. “The state of public discourse is that it is based on feelings and, in turn, is filled with logical fallacies,” he says.
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Consider a viral Instagram video that encapsulates this problem: a man calmly presents a pro-life argument, only for a woman to retort that he’s giving didn’t go to college vibes. When he reveals he holds advanced degrees—more than she does—and points out that her response is a personal attack rather than a substantive rebuttal, the exchange lays bare a common tactic: the ad hominem fallacy, sidestepping the argument by targeting the speaker’s perceived credibility. She also implicitly leans on an appeal to authority, suggesting only certain credentials qualify someone to speak on the issue.
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Urban sees this pattern everywhere. On abortion, for instance, he notes the common claim: “men cannot weigh in on abortion because they are not women.” This is an appeal to authority—only women have the right perspective—and a weak authority at that, Urban says. “If a man says he is pro-choice because he is not a woman then that is both an appeal to authority and a weak authority figure, a double whammy logical fallacy.”
Similarly, in discussions of race, Urban notes that statements like “white people cannot criticize Black Lives Matter because they don’t understand what it means to be black” deflect substantive critiques with emotional appeals. As a white man, I can still point out—logically—that much was wrong with the organization and movement: its leaders misused donated funds to buy lavish homes, and available data shows police do not disproportionately target black individuals.
The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed our collective reasoning deficits. “Listen to the experts” became a mantra, often wielded as an appeal to authority to silence dissent. “You didn’t go to med school, so who are you to question lockdowns?” was a frequent refrain, as if expertise guaranteed infallibility. Many accepted school closures or other measures not because they weighed the evidence, but because “experts said so.” This blind deference stems from a broader failure of citizens—once students—who lack the ability to question authority logically, a skill that robust logic training in schools could rebuild.
The Lindsey Wilson College Writing Center identifies 21 common logical fallacies, including ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to fear, false dilemma, and straw man, among others. These errors aren’t just academic—they shape everyday arguments, from social media spats to political campaigns. (I recently wrote about viral posts that falsely claimed America was founded on the separation of church and state.)
I believe logic training in high school or college could counter this, teaching students to balance emotion with reason. But Urban fears we may be too far gone.
Decades of cultural shifts—overprotective parenting, social media echo chambers, pop culture’s celebration of “authenticity” over rigor, and the rise of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)—have entrenched emotional reasoning, Urban explains. SEL can foster empathy, but too often it prioritizes feelings over critical thought, leaving students unprepared for complex issues. (Read Peter Wood’s “Is It Time to Retire Social and Emotional Learning?”). At the same time, universities—eager to market education as career training for the masses—are gutting liberal arts and humanities programs, the traditional strongholds of formal logic instruction. STEM fields may teach deductive reasoning through mathematics, but this is no substitute for a comprehensive grounding in logic. Whatever remains of logic education in the humanities, thus, is further fading.
The results are glaring. One of education’s central purposes—alongside career preparation and personal growth—is to equip students for active citizenship in a democracy. That requires the ability to evaluate arguments, question authority, and debate rationally. By sidelining logic, we have pushed too many toward emotional reasoning, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation. American politics now often turns on emotional appeals—fear, outrage, or sympathy—rather than substantive debate. Voters swayed by soundbites or viral memes often lack the tools to test what they’re told. This is not merely a cultural loss—it’s a direct threat to the health of democratic citizenship, which our schools and universities are supposed to defend.
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Urban, though skeptical we can reclaim logic, offers a path forward, drawing inspiration from The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. They argue for making students “antifragile”—capable of thriving amid challenge, not crumbling under disagreement. Logic training is a key step. It equips students to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, and resist emotional manipulation. Urban rejects maxims like “do what feels right” or “speak from the heart,” which prioritize emotion over reason. Classical wisdom, from Aristotle to the Stoics, emphasized the brain’s role in mediating the desires of the heart. Schools must revive this principle, teaching students to think critically rather than feel impulsively.
To restore logic, we should reintroduce it as a core subject in high schools and colleges, not as an afterthought in math or writing. A dedicated logic curriculum would cover formal reasoning and common fallacies, even using examples from politics, media, and everyday life. Teachers could draw on viral moments—like the Instagram clip—to show students how to spot fallacies in action. Universities should also bolster liberal arts programs and make logic a pillar of those programs. For the broader public, workshops or online courses could make logic accessible; in fact, Stanford has a free course.
A society that can’t reason is easily swayed—by demagogues, misinformation, or fleeting emotions. Bringing logic back to schools isn’t just about better arguments; it’s about better citizens. Logic doesn’t just clarify thought; it safeguards freedom.
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Image: “No violence no hate speech” by John S. Quarterman on Flickr
