Examining the relationship of understanding with the particular and the general, we face the Fallacy of Casuistry, a mistake that consists of rejecting a general rule or a true universal law alleging the existence of strange or anomalous exceptions. Human attention, mediated by frontoparietal alert networks, exhibits a notable propensity to be captivated by the extraordinary or pathological event; The demagogue exploits this inclination by blurring the moral or social rule that governs the rectitude of an institution and obsessively focusing the cameras on a handful of aberrant cases, pretending that half a dozen crooked trees prove the nonexistence of the forest. Even if dozens of anomalies are enumerated, a general truth is not refuted by the mere exhibition of the singular pathology; Trying to abrogate the natural dignity of the family institution or the legal order by pointing out individual abuses constitutes an intellectual fraud of enormous gravity.

In the vast territory of causality, our judgment is constantly stalked by the large family of the Fallacy of False Cause, known in scholastic philosophy under the label of non causa pro causa, consisting of attributing causal responsibility for a phenomenon to a factor that does not possess it. The first variant of this aberration lies in confusing a necessary condition with a sufficient condition, assigning the total production of an effect to what represents only one prerequisite among many; Whoever fulfills a partial mandate and attempts to demand the reward promised for full compliance incurs a logical childishness that distorts equity. The second and most ubiquitous variant is the Post Hoc fallacy, vel cum hoc, vel sinae hoc, ergo propter hoc, which irresponsibly confuses temporal succession or spatial coexistence with the link of causality. Hebb's neurological law demonstrates that neurons that fire simultaneously reinforce their connections, inducing the undisciplined understanding to assume that everything that occurs in temporal coincidence obeys a causal mandate; deducing that a particular concoction cures an ailment when the cure comes from a broad environmental factor, or blaming the institutions of order for the ills caused by moral indiscipline, represents the very root of postmodern superstitions.

Causality also suffers from the alteration of the inversion of the cause, where the observer mistakes the direction of the temporal vector and attributes the role of effect to the primordial cause; Arguing that a medical or sports institution is harmful to health by contemplating the suffering condition of those who come to it for healing denotes a profound analytical blindness, identical to that of the ruler who attributes social desperation to a supposed intolerance of the people instead of recognizing economic oppression as the true cause of popular impatience. Similarly, forgetting a common cause produces illusory correlations by hiding a third underlying factor that generates both phenomena in parallel, as happens when intellectual or physical virtues are attributed to secondary circumstances without observing the socio-educational status or biological development that truly explains the facts. Added to this is the forgetfulness of the intermediary, which simplifies complex processes in a cartoonish way, omitting the intermediate ethical and institutional variables that turn a legitimate activity into a social catastrophe when unregulated greed and contempt for natural law intervene.