"Man-who" syndrome: a final note

A previous post noted that the "man-who" syndrome" - placing undo emphasis on vivid, concrete stories - is one of the cognitive biases affecting the interpretation of intelligence data, and more generally influencing our perception of the world.

This is NOT to say that using concrete, vivid examples is never valid.
Specifically, both classical & contemporary rhetoric - the theory & practice of argumentation - suggest that using vivid, concrete examples is a powerful persuasion technique.

As informed consumers of persuasive presentations, our job is to critically determine whether the vivid, concrete story in fact supports more valid, broader, more 'theoretical' data and arguments, or whether the vivid, concrete story is an anomaly that most other data sources contradict.
This is not easy - but, as informed consumers of propaganda (whether political or commercial - e.g., tv ads), we owe it to ourselves to make the effort.

Note: the original post criticized Tom Friedman for basing his entire analysis on a single picture. I note that Tom Friedman's writings suggest he relies heavily on the vivid, concrete instance to shape his worldview, not just to present persuasive arguments.