LoveisaFallacy.doc

1、1Love is a Fallacyby Max Shulman Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astuteI was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemists scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. Andthink of it!I am only eighteen.It is not often that one so young has such

2、 a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of r

3、eason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing itthis, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immedi

4、ately diagnosed appendicitis. “Dont move,” I said, “Dont take a laxative. Ill get a doctor.”“Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.“Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.“I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?”“I should h

5、ave known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known theyd come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I cant get a raccoon coat.”“Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?”“All the

6、Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Whereve you been?”“In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.2He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “Ive got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “Ive got to!”“Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are un

7、sanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much. Theyre unsightly. They”“You dont understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “Its the thing to do. Dont you want to be in the swim?”“No,” I said truthfully.“Well, I do,” he declared. “Id give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!” My brain, tha

8、t precision instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly.“Anything,” he affirmed in ringing tones.I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a t

9、runk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didnt have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was,

10、 to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in

11、furthering a lawyers career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would su

12、pply the lack. She already had the makings.Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialt

13、y of the housea sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkrautwithout even getting her fingers moist.Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was w

14、orth a try. 3It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.“Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”“I think shes a keen kid,” he replied, “but I dont know if youd call it love. Why?”“Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrang

15、ement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?”“No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”“Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”“Not that I know of. Why?”I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were out

16、 of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?”“I guess so. What are you getting at?”“Nothing , nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.“Where are you going?” asked Petey.“Home for weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag.“Listen,” he said, clutching my arm eage

17、rly, “while youre home, you couldnt get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?”“I may do better than that,” I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.“Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and

18、revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.“Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy Toledo!” he repeated fifteen or twenty times.“Would you like it?” I asked.“Oh yes!” he cried, clutching

19、 the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you want for it?”4“Your girl.” I said, mincing no words.“Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”“Thats right.”He flung the coat from him. “Never,” he said stoutly.I shrugged. “Okay. If you dont want to be in th

20、e swim, I guess its your business.”I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looke

21、d back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didnt turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.“It isnt as though I was i

22、n love with Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like that.”“Thats right,” I murmured.“Whats Polly to me, or me to Polly?”“Not a thing,” said I.“Its just been a casual kickjust a few laughs, thats all.”“Try on the coat,” said I.He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dr

23、opped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily.I rose from my chair. “Is it a deal?” I asked, extending my hand.He swallowed. “Its a deal,” he said and shook my hand.I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the

24、nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner. “Gee, that was a delish dinner,” she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to a movie. “Gee, that was a marvy movie,” she said as we left the t

25、heatre. And then I took her home. “Gee, I had a sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me good night.5I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girls lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information

26、. First she had to be taught to think. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to

27、make an effort.I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. “Poll,” I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, “tonight we are going over

28、to the Knoll and talk.”“Oo, terrif,” she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. “What are we going to talk about?” she asked.“Logic

29、.”She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said.“Logic,” I said, clearing my throat, “is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight.”“Wow-dow!” she cried, clap

30、ping her hands delightedly.I winced, but went bravely on. “First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.”“By all means,” she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.“Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody

31、should exercise.”“I agree,” said Polly earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything.”“Polly,” I said gently, “the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many p

32、eople are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?”6“No,” she confessed. “But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!”“It will be b

33、etter if you stop tugging at my sleeve,” I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. “Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You cant speak French. Petey Bellows cant speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak Fr

34、ench.”“Really?” said Polly, amazed. “Nobody?”I hid my exasperation. “Polly, its a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to support such a conclusion.”“Know any more fallacies?” she asked breathlessly. “This is more fun than dancing even.”I fought off a wave

35、of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Lets not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take him out with us, it rains.”“I know somebody just like that,” she exclaimed. “A girl bac

36、k homeEula Becker, her name is. It never fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic”“Polly,” I said sharply, “its a fallacy. Eula Becker doesnt cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker.”“Ill never do it again,” she promised contri

37、tely. “Are you mad at me?”I sighed. “No, Polly, Im not mad.”“Then tell me some more fallacies.”“All right. Lets try Contradictory Premises.”“Yes, lets,” she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.I frowned, but plunged ahead. “Heres an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He ma

38、ke a stone so heavy that He wont be able to lift it?”“Of course,” she replied promptly.“But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone,” I pointed out.“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, then I guess He cant make the stone.”7“But He can do anything,” I reminded her.She scratched her pretty, empt

39、y head. “Im all confused,” she admitted.“Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?”“Tel

40、l me more of this keen stuff,” she said eagerly.I consulted my watch. “I think wed better call it a night. Ill take you home now, and you go over all the things youve learned. Well have another session tomorrow night.”I deposited her at the girls dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a pe

41、rfectly terrif evening, and I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project was doomed to failure. The gi

42、rl simply had a logic-proof head.But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in the extinct crater of her mind a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope,

43、 but I decided to give it one more try.Seated under the oak the next evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.”She quivered with delight.“Listen closely,” I said. “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife

44、and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.”A tear rolled down each of Pollys pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed.“

45、Yes, its awful,” I agreed, “but its no argument. The man never answered the bosss question about his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the bosss sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?”“Have you got a handkerchief?” she blubbered.8I handed her a handkerchief a

46、nd tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a carefully controlled tone, “we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, l

47、awyers have briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then, shouldnt students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?”“There now,” she said enthusiastically, “is the most marvy idea Ive heard in years.”“Pol

48、ly,” I said testily, “the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters arent taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different, and you cant make an analogy between them.”“I still think its a good idea,” said Polly.“Nuts,” I muttere

49、d. Doggedly I pressed on. “Next well try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.”“Sounds yummy,” was Pollys reaction.“Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende, the world today would not know about radium.”“True, true,” said Polly, nodding her head “Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me.”“If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point out that statement is a f