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Shaling Cai
Yiann Chou
Ting Dai
Brandon Garcia
GuangQi Liu
Sandy Valenzuela
Mcleish
EWRT 2-10
18 June 2013
Exceptions
A false dilemma is when two possible results are presented in an argument, while
alternatives are ignored. Both of the given choices are not desirable to the people they are
being presented to. It reduces the options that could be considered to just two, which are often
opposed to each other and unfair to the people against whom the dilemma is posed. Usually,
the argument overlooks alternatives.
An example of a false dilemma is one that Ehrenreich quotes and disproves in the
chapter “The Years Of Magical Thinking”. She argues against J.P. Maroney’s claim that
“Negative People SUCK! That may sound harsh, but the fact is that negative people do suck.
They suck the energy out of positive people like you and me... Avoid them at all cost” (55).
Maroney’s presents a false dilemma here by ignoring the fact that people who say negative
things can actually have a positive effect at times. He presents two choices: A person can either
have negative people in their life that “suck”, or have no negative people and have better lives.
But negative people do not always “suck” and can be a positive influence on another’s life. For
example, someone might warn a driver that he could die in a crash without his or her seatbelt
on. They might even nag them about it, constantly reminding the driver to wear his or her
seatbelt. This is scary news and the nagging could be very annoying, but would help the driver
avoid serious injury if he or she took it seriously. There are many cases like this in which
supposedly negative people help guide others the right way. Because such exceptions are
easily recalled, it is fairly easy to disprove Maroney’s argument with counterexamples.
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Ehrenreich also argues against another false dilemma later in chapter eight, writing,
“...we have come to use the words ‘positive’ and ‘good’ almost interchangeably. In this moral
system, either you look on the bright side, constantly adjusting your attitude and revising your
perceptions-- or you go over to the dark side” (195). She is referring to the attitude of the USA
as a whole, which she goes on to refute. It is not true that positive means good and negative
means bad; someone is not bad just because they are not positive, and someone is not good
just because they are positive. The two options given are not the only ones, nor are they
absolute. If a child wanted to go out at night alone and unsupervised in an area with high rates
of crime, it would be incredibly irresponsible for the parent to consent to this. It might sound
more positive and make the child happy if the parent said, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t always
assume the worst will happen. We can take a chance once in a while. You can go out.” But this
positivity would actually be bad because the child could be seriously hurt. Likewise, it sounds
more negative to say, “No, it’s too dangerous. I don’t want to take the chance of losing you”.
However, being negative is good in this case, as it protects the child from the possibility of
physical harm. It is common for those who sound negative to have necessary and good
warnings, just as it is common for those who sound positive to be misleading to the point of
harm. Ehrenreich is correct, as such exceptions clearly demonstrate that being positive is not
the same as being good and being negative is not the same as being bad.
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