162 How to Win Every Argument
unbelievably tedious and commonplace name which will make the child
seem like a faceless conformist.The fallacy is easy to use because it preys upon an instinct
which would rather hear ill than good about people. After all,
gossips don't go round praising people for their righteous
actions. To use it effectively, you should pour scorn on some
proposed action, predicting an adverse outcome. You then
introduce an alternative consequence with the words 'And even
if ...' This allows you to predict more dire consequences. Your
audience will never spot that you have, like the fallacy, covered
every conceivable case. If you think this too obvious, reflect that
for over a century the followers of Marxism predicted disaster for
capitalism, whatever outcomes it produced.
Trivial objections
The problem with trivial objections is that they leave the central
thesis largely untouched. It is fallacious to oppose a contention
on the basis of minor and incidental aspects, rather than giving
an answer to the main claim which it makes.
/ am totally opposed to the new road around the town. It will make all of
our town maps out of date.
(It is rare for the fate of a new road to be decided on the basis of what
it does to the maps. That said, however, one cannot help noticing
that the maps show that towns reach very strange decisions on such
matters.)The fallacy is akin to that of the straw man. Instead of facing
the main opponent, in this case it is only a few aspects of it which
are confronted. The trivial objections are possibly valid; the point
is that they are also trivial, and not adequate to the work of