Poisoning The Well: indirectly denigrating a position by pre-
emptively ridiculing, discrediting or insulting its source. This
is a very common form of rhetoric. One way of poisoning the well
is to begin a sentence with ‘No one could possibly believe
that…’, or ‘Only a fool would argue that…’ or ‘Naïve people
believe…’ or a similar phrase. Here’s a specific example.
Imagine a speaker who declares: ‘Only a racist would be opposed
to large scale immigration to Britain’ By pre-emptively
labelling anyone opposed to large scale immigration a racist,
the speaker here leaves very little room for his or her opponent
to manoeuvre without appearing to be a racist. Poisoning the
well makes it very difficult for anyone to come back and endorse
the view that has been put down in this way. It also insults
anyone who holds a different opinion. Add to this that most
people prefacing their statements with such phrases know very
well that the people they are addressing are inclined to endorse
the discredited view, and you can s