In which Wolf opens day 21's door... Watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/INXEN39YguI
Welcome to the Beware of Wolf Advent Calendar of Bad Thinking. To celebrate the holidays, I'm counting down the days until Christmas with a common type of bad thinking each day, described in 60 seconds. This holiday season, give the gift of good thinking by sharing these videos with your friends!
Today is 21: "The Middle Ground Fallacy"
"Everything in moderation," right? Well, not so fast.
Many black-and-white blanket statements like, "All drugs are bad," and "All drugs are good," are easily shown to be false, and it's much more reasonable to say that "some drugs are good under some circumstances."
But compromise can also be used as a deceptive tactic. "Since moderation and compromise are good things," they say, "the truth lies somewhere between the two specific positions."
The problem is that even a middle-ground position must be supported by reason and evidence. And this "middle ground fallacy" is often used to distract from a position that has little or no good reasons or evidence to support it.
Sometimes there are huge problems with the middle ground, like when children of divorce, without due consideration for their welfare, get bounced back and forth between distant locations by the parents.
And radical ideologues will often use the middle ground fallacy as a way of "ratcheting" public discourse towards a more and more extreme position by repeatedly making extreme assertions and then allowing "compromise" between their extreme and the status quo.
Always strive for win-win, and compromises are rarely that. Make sure you understand what you believe and why, and don't try to keep the peace by compromise, or you will find yourself on the short end of the stick.
Happy holidays!