Dead Cats And Monkey Business

Charles Smith-Jones ponders the rhetorical devices and distractive tactics employed by those with an agenda

- Charles Smith-Jones

Imagine that you are in a pub or at a dinner party and the conversation has turned to politics. You find yourself holding a position that is becoming increasingly difficult to defend; the facts, it turns out, are against you, and you are losing the argument badly. Everyone else present is starting to disagree with you and it is becoming obvious that you will have to throw in the towel.

There is only one thing left to do – you chuck a dead cat on the table. Everyone else is so shocked by this turn of events that the argument is forgotten as you all agree how disgusting the sight is. You have successfully changed the subject and suddenly everyone is talking about this new topic instead of concentrating on you. You have retained your honour, and life can move on.

Strategy

This is the dead cat strategy, or ‘deadcatting’, so beloved of politicians. It implies introducing a topic so horrifying, dramatic or insulting that it distracts attention from something far more damaging. A similar tactic is the ‘Chewbacca defence’, intended to distract or mislead and named after a farcical courtroom scene in television’s South Park, in which a lawyer uses the Star Wars character to make an irrelevant point that so confuses the jury that he wins the case.