Writing Tip #10

Either/or: the false dilemma

Writing Tips #10

Avoid the False Dilemma Logical Fallacy

As I write in my book, When Once Destroyed, the proponents of the project that destroyed Somerset, Indiana sold their idea to the wider Wabash, Miami, and Huntington County communities by relying heavily on a false dilemma. In that instance authorities proposed a simple choice between the Upper Wabash Valley Flood Control Project and floods. It was a false dilemma because there were alternatives to the “big dam” plan beyond flooding.

Truth be told, possible solutions for solving a flooding problem along the Wabash River were not limited to the Army Corps of Engineers project that was supported by the state of Indiana. Four other flood control methods were discarded without the public even knowing they existed. Keeping those hidden and presenting the solution as a simple either/or choice worked. Candidates from the two major political parties only disputed who supported the Army project more.

Around the same time, American leaders from both political parties portrayed the Vietnam War as a false dilemma choice between a communist takeover of Southeast Asia and war.

I remember another false dilemma example, the phrase “Love it or leave it,” from that time. You may have heard a version of that lately.

Are the two American political parties an institutionalized form of a false dilemma?

Also, I wonder if there has been an increase in the prevalence of the false dilemma argument as it appears in social media discourse since its advent as accompanied by the use of the binary language of computers.

If the country is “hopelessly divided,” as some say, I wonder if the simplistic “0” or “1” choice has had something to do with that. It does seem like we’ve lost the nuance of middle ground and compromise.

That’s a danger of the false dilemma. In writing, in reading, and in listening, beware.

Sid Shroyer is the author of When Once Destroyed, A Historical Memoir of the Life and Death of a Small Town