54 How to Win Every Argument
some of the prestige attached to the group or class to which he
belongs.
The French are tops at rugby; Marcel is French; obviously he must be tops
at rugby.
(But, since the French produce a lot of low-fat milk, Marcel probably
has some other strange qualities.)California is a very wealthy state, so if he comes from there he must be
worth quite a bit.We often commit the fallacy unconsciously, typecasting
people according to the groups from which they emanate. This
can work to their advantage: The teaching at Edinburgh Uni-
versity is brilliant; Johnson lectures there, so he must be really
first-class, or to their disadvantage: Switzerland is a very passive
nation, so I don't think we can expect too much initiative from
our Swiss directors.
An entertaining version of the fallacy is called the fallacy of
complex division, and assumes that subclasses of the whole share
the same properties as the entire class. In this version, we meet
the average British couple with their 2.2 children, out walking
their 0.7 of a cat with a quarter of a dog. They have 1.15 cars,
which they somehow manage to fit into only a third of a garage.
In the world of complex division, an expectant couple with
two children are very nervous, because they know that every
third child born is Chinese. In the real world, of course, it is
different subclasses which produce the overall figures for the
class as a whole. (Test-pilots occasionally get killed, so I imagine
that Flight-Lieutenant Robinson will get killed now and again
himself.')
Division can be used to bring unearned credit upon yourself
by virtue of your membership of meritorious classes: