1 Boring Old Man

di·chot·o·my

1. Division into two usually contradictory parts or opinions: “the dichotomy of the one and the many”

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

false dichotomy

Wikipedia

I suppose one of the strongest features of the human mind is its ability to simplify things into schema that make logical sense, to make general rules. Isaac Asimov’s great science fiction classic, I Robot, both parodies and glorifies this aspect of human mental life. The Robots have three rules, guaranteeing that they will not harm humans. The story then hinges on loopholes, logical fallacies that allow the Robots to escape from their logical restraints. The famous Hal from 2001: A Space Oddessy is a similar parody of a human logic gone awry.

The ancient Greeks worshipped human logic. They explored and formalized its rules and catagorized its abuse – fallacies or false uses of logical arguments. But there’s more to the human mind than the search for truth. We want things, so the tendency to start with a conclusion then wrap the logic into place later is also a universal quality of human mental life. Thus, our rules are open to interpretation, and our legal professions and political institutions spend their full energies in the netherworld of the spaces between the rules.

We’re all actutely aware of certain logical fallacies [particularly when we’re on the other side of them]. For example, the Ad Hominem Agrument. When there are attacks on the military records of John Kerry, Jack Murtha, Max Cleland, the critics are guilty of this logical fallacy. Jack Murtha says, "Get out of Iraq." His critics say, "Jack Murtha is no war hero." That’s a classical misuse of logic. The critics avoid his assertion, and attack him instead. He then has to defend his own military record, not his thoughts about the war. I found it infuriating, as did most of you who might be reading what I have to say. But if you read my last two posts, both are examples of this kind of logical fallacy. "Pat Robertson is a charlatan." "Bush is a liar." So, I guess I’m guilty as charged…

Another recently popular logical fallacy is the Straw Man argument. Here’s an example:

But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be” to “use moderation and restraint in responding to the… terrorist attacks against the United States.” I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble. Moderation and restraint is not what I felt – and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will – and to brandish steel. MoveOn.Org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.

Karl Rove’s speech to the
New York Conservative Party
June 22, 2005

The position of the fictionalized Liberals is distorted to absurdity, then dismissed as insanity and something close to treason. Rove has honed these two fallacies into an exact science, and uses them effectively. The [we] liberal political bloggers pick up the gauntlet and begin to use the same techniques in response. I’m sure I’ll continue to do it, but there ought to be an occasion to break out of that frame.

In fact, the biggest logical fallacy of them all is the false dichotomy [see above]. Liberal versus Conservative.  It’s the biggest one because it creates an insoluable gulf between people. It includes all the others. If I say you are "just a Conservative," I’m free to discount you in any way I want. I can turn you into a Straw Man in a blue second. I can attack you rather than what you say [Ad Hominem]. After all, you’re one of those "Conservatives" – by definition, wrong, wrong, wrong. The false dichotomy is simply a created bigotry, the bane of human experience. For the Bigot, All Men Are NOT Created Equal. It’s a justification for contempt, an emotion that cannot resolve.