What does "The Grand Fallon" mean in anthropology?

Answer 1

In his 1963 novel, "Cat's Cradle", Kurt Vonnegut coined the term, "granfalloon". In this novel, a "granfalloon" was a false "karass". A karass is a group of people synergetically, and unknowingly, doing God's work, or aligning forces towards some higher purpose; so a granfalloon is a group of people who believe that they have a special connection and who believe they are helping to bring about a greater plan, but are actually not.

Since the novel, the term has popped up here and there in pop culture to describe random conglomerations of people who feel as though they exist in a special connection to one another, but are actually just imagining the whole thing. Like . . . a rave might be a granfalloon: everyone there believes that they are in the middle of something that is both communal and important, but they're all actually just experiencing the euphoria of drugs on an individual level, and a temporary sense of inclusiveness.

Just so you know, this is not a standard term in anthropology. But I can certainly see how it could be deployed to make a theoretical point. Answerer one has offered you an example of someone deploying Vonnegut's word to make a theoretical point, but don't confuse this with what the word means in the broader context.

edit: Wikipedia says that when Vonnegut was an anthropology graduate student at U of Chicago, the faculty accepted "Cat's Cradle" in lieu of his MA thesis! So, there you have it!

Answer 2

Jens Elmelund Kjeldsen
This is not to the point, Anne! or: Reflections on dishonesty and unfairness as strategy in political television debates
The dominant part of the somewhat limited Scandinavian media research on political debate tends to ignore a most crucial element in political television debates, namely the argumentation itself. With examples from televised Norwegian debates on EU membership and from a rhetorical point of view, the article discusses some strategies in political television debates that lack objectivity or are dishonest or unfair. The four main areas of strategies are: 1) ambiguity and vagueness, 2) unfair presupposition and the straw-man fallacy, 3) the grand-fallon-technique and finally 4) personal attack and ad hominem argumentation. On the basis of rhetorical theory the author concludes that in televised debates where the viewer is not supposed to choose a political representative or party, but to make a decision about an issue - so-called issue debates - these nonobjective, dishonest or unfair strategies cannot be expected to form an effective debate weapon.