How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic (2006)

172 How to Win Every Argument

The fallacy is very often used to reject changes to the status

quo, even though the status quo itself might not be perfect.

We must ban the new heart drug because it has been occasionally

associated with neurological disorders.

(This looks all right, but what if there are presently 15,000 patients

dying each year of heart disease who could be saved by the new

drug? Neither is the status quo perfect.)

Television documentaries and public affairs programmes are

excellent source material for the unobtainable perfection fallacy.

Any new proposal of government, any government, will be

subjected to detailed analysis of its imperfections. Frail widows

and struggling mothers will relate to cameras the hardships

which will be caused, and the audience will be left with the

uneasy feeling that the government is being too hasty. Exactly

the same treatment could be given to the present situation.

The fallacy haunts the polished halls of committee meetings.

On every committee is one person, usually a long-serving

member, whose mission in life is to hold back the tide of anarchy

and destruction which change represents. He castigates every

new proposal with its own imperfections.

/ don't think banning cars from Park Street will prevent old people being

hurt. There will still be children on roller-blades and bicycles, and

shopping trolleys and baby carriages.

(The question is not 'is it perfect?' The issue is whether the new pro-

posal will cut down accidents as the status quo cuts down old people.)

While you can use the general version of this fallacy to
undermine any proposals you disapprove of, it will also repay
you if you take the time and trouble to learn two specialist and
very clever versions of it. The first of these calls for a particular