I found that the section about “False dilemmas” in Chapter 6 was very interesting. We indirectly use false dilemmas all the time, especially when it comes to ending an argument. In the book, it states that a false dilemma is “a bad use of excluding possibilities where the “or” claim is false or implausible.”
Usually, these claims are taken to the extreme in order for people to choose “which side.” As I’m typing this, I’m watching the newest episode of Glee. It got to a scene where Kurt, who is running for class president, runs into Brittany, the dumb blonde cheerleader who is running against him. She says to Rachel, who is with Kurt at the time, something along the lines of “You either vote for this guy, who will plummet the school down even more, or you can vote for me, who can run this school even better.” Brittany is basically making Rachel choose between Kurt or her in this presidential race of their high school.
Yay weekend!!! :D
Hey there! I wrote about false dilemmas as well, so I thought it was interesting looking at all the minor differences in our explanations. I thought an area where your explanation was stronger than mine was your explanation that these claims are often taken to an extreme, this is an important part of this concept that I seemed to miss. I also enjoyed your example and subsequent evaluation, it's nice to be able to see the concept put to use in a real world situation and I thought you did an excellent job explaining why the example was a false dilemma.
ReplyDeleteYay weekend indeed! lol.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting about false dilemma. I was confused about the topic for a couple minutes, but your post helped me understand it. Props for using Glee as an example for the topic. My roommates watch Glee all the time, so I can see why it would be used for an example. haha. There are a lot of conversations about false dilemmas in tv shows like Glee. I enjoyed how you elaborated more into the example. At the end of the post, you clarified how Brittany was trying to make herself look like a better person.