IL
You know, I used to think that this page was very reasonable... right up until I read the "Real Life" entry about the Charlottesville rally in 2017. How ironic it is that this page condemns people who assume that objectivity means always being neutral and never taking sides, even when one side is right and the other is wrong... and then does just that here. This is the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment taken to its illogical conclusion; trying so hard to come across as inoffensive that you end up being extremely offensive by implying that a neutral viewpoint is the correct one to take regarding Nazis. Let's start with the first half of the entry, shall we? "President Donald Trump's response to the August 2017 melee in Charlottesville, Virginia was widely seen as this in which he condemned "Both sides" of the violence. This response was widely condemned by left-of-center Americans, as it was seen as as ignoring the radically different ideologies of the two sides of the rally with clearly definable "good guys" (counter-protesters) and "bad guys" (white supremacists), and insensitive to the fact that the violence culminated in a vehicular terrorist attack committed by one of the "white supremacists" that killed a peaceful counter-protester, pointing to evidence that it was taken as a tacit sign of approval by several notorious white supremacists, like David Duke and Richard Spencer." This entry would have been fine if you just stopped there, although there are a few things I would add (like the fact that Trump said there were "very fine people" marching alongside the Nazis, and the fact that when a reporter explicitly asked him if he wanted to condemn the Nazis, Trump responded by walking away silently) and things I would subtract (the sarcastic quote marks around the phrase "white supremacists", which just smacks of denialism.) Then the second half of the entry ruined it - basically the very essence of the Golden Mean Fallacy, engaging in he said/she said without saying which side is right. "Those on the right who did not identify with the white supremacists mostly approved of Trump's remarks, pointing to violent tactics used by left-wing protestors and radical groups (namely Antifa) in response to the rally" That's called Whataboutism - in short, trying to distract from the issue at hand and instead shifting focus toward someone else's wrongdoing, aka the very thing Trump was condemned for doing in the first place. The fact of the matter is, as John Oliver pointed out, heavily-armed Neo-Nazis rioting and attacking people is so horrible that a comparatively smaller number of club-wielding counter-protestors have to wait their turn to be judged. Bringing up Antifa only muddies the issue further. Antifa, while regrettably extreme in their methods, are too small and loosely organized to be of any real threat to the people at large (and at least Antifa didn't kill 7 million Jews in gas chambers.) "Antifa are just as bad as Nazis" is an argument you could only make if your only problem with Nazis is that they're too gosh-darn loud. And then there's this delightful little quote: "and the exclusive media focus on the right wing violence." In other words, "It's the media's fault that people think Nazis are bad!" Bottom line: this section of the article is atrocious and needs to be heavily re-written.
The Real Life section ought to be split out into its own page, then divided into at least a few categories, purely for practical reasons, because it is, to use a technical term, totally long-ass.
I suggest 5 to start with: Recent Politics USA, Recent Politics Not USA, Historical Politics USA and Not USA, and Not Politics.
Temporarily pulled this.
- Pontius Pilate's attempts not to execute Jesus but also not to incite a riot. He failed. (The real Pilate showed no qualms about doing things which provoked riots, and likely would have just slaughtered them. He'd killed people just for peacefully protesting taxes before, and was actually recalled for provoking revolt by this).
It implies the Bible is fake, and should be rewritten with the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment in mind.
Edited by RogueJedi
A lot of the entries in the "real life" section seem needlessly controversial, but one of them runs more afoul of the Rule of Cautious Editing:
It is also undermined because such a position...
under the section on atheism/agnosticism and the other doesn't apply unless you feel privileged to offer a political judgement one way or the other:
The trend towards centrism and the major focus on making Conscription equal...
At the risk of being accused of making the mistake the page warns of, I would like to suggest these be deleted.
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The part about teaching both creationism and evolution in schools isn't actually a Golden Mean Fallacy, and it is also incredibly provoking and controversial. I would suggest an edit or removal of that entry.
^ It's not, religion has it's place in churches not in science lesions
Edited by jormis29
I think it should be omitted, not because it's not an example (it is) but because it is more about politics than fiction.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Needs More Popcorn
Would Martian Successor Nadesico really count as an example of a False Dichotomy?
The crew couldn't negotiate with the Earth alliance because the Earth alliance didn't want to admit to having left a colony of humans to die.
The Jovians were so loyal to their ideals that they, too were incapable of compromise.
They didn't take the Cube because they figured both sides were right, they took it because there was no other way to stop the senseless war. It was the only thing they could do to stop the two sides from fighting, even if only for a little while. The crew never really examined the ideological matters between the two sides, they were just trying to find a solution that didn't involve more bloodshed.
In video games: "The portrayal of prosecutors and defense attorneys in the Ace Attorney series is this. Prosecutors such as Manfred von Karma or pre-Character Development Miles Edgeworth are shown as being ruthless people who look down on the defendants as scum who are guilty until proven innocent and deserve to be locked up forever. Defense attorneys such as Robert Hammond and Kristoph Gavin are selfish and don't truly believe in the innocence of their client, only interested in benefiting themselves. Meanwhile, attorneys like Mia Fey, Phoenix Wright, Gregory Edgeworth or prosecutors Klavier Gavin, Byrne Faraday, and post-Character Development Miles Edgeworth are only interested in figuring out the truth, and are willing to make sacrifices and go the extra mile to find it out (in the case of Edgeworth and Klavier, this even means collaborating with their rival defense attorneys). The idea a case is "won" or "lost" doesn't matter when it's the truth and justice at stake."
I honestly don't see how this is an example of this trope. I love the Ace Attorney series, but this really seems like a case of Square Peg Round Trope
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The first part of the example is talking about both sides being bad, but "figuring out the truth" is usually not "The mean" since it's a binary yes/no question usually. So yeah, pull that entry.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
is All Elite
So, either all disputes between two sides will end with someone invoking the Golden Mean Fallacy, or someone invoking a False Dichotomy.
You know, maybe it's better to have a False Dichotomy than this.
"Stealing is a crime and drugs is a crime too BUT if you steal drugs the two crimes cancel out and it’s like basically doing a good."
The two examples in the "in real life" section regarding carbon and health care are actually examples of false dichotomy and have nothing to do with the Golden Mean Fallacy. At best, the notations themselves are an example of the Overton Window.
It is appropriate to just wipe them per the tips worksheet rather than noting this?
Edited by TheBlackWizard
Would this trope still apply when the best solution has no relation to the two sides? Such as an debate over which color to paint all sheep in the nation - while sides would debate what color, the best solution is arguably to simply not paint the beasts.
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Kang: Abortions for all! Crowd: Booo! Kang: All right, then. No abortions for anyone! Crowd: Booo! Kang: Hmm... Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others! Crowd: Yaaay! —The Simpsons
I don't understand how this is an example. "Keep abortions legal but discourage them in other ways" is a legitimate moderate position.
That's clearly not the reasoning behind the Simpsons example, which process is plainly evident in the dialogue.
With the sheep-painting example, a "true" Golden Mean would try its best to incorporate elements of painting both colors, eg, paint half the sheep's bodies one way and half the other, or mix the two colors and paint all the sheep with the result, etc. In real life situations, the truth may well lie between or outside two positions, though often one side or the other will be a little closer to the truth (at least if we're talking about something objectively determinable, eg, the age of the Earth).
The fundamentally fallacious thing about the Golden Mean is that it seeks correct answers in terms of what the existing positions are, rather than in terms of the facts on the ground (or whatever). The argument from popularity and the argument from authority make similar mistakes. It's also possible to invert the fllacy, eg, to argue that we shouldn't paint any sheep because "both sides" should be made to feel unhappy. In fact, a good rule of thumb is that the phrase "both sides" heralds a potential Golden Mean coming. (saying "Both sides have their points" usually doesn't add to the conversation, and is rarely followed up by "but one side is righter".)
Edited by Lenoxus
Is there a difference between The Golden Mean Fallacy, and just a regular compromise?
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This is late, but anyway… the difference is that you usually compromise out of the principle that if you want X, well, a little X is better than no X at all. The Golden Mean fallacy, conversely, holds that if the X and Y positions are such extremes, the middle position Z must be best because it is in the middle. The conclusion may be the same but the process is different.
Notice how this is also distinct from plain political moderation. One might happen to support position Z on its own merits, and this is different from believing that Z is great because it pleases everyone equally, and/or it pisses everyone off equally. The Klang and Kodos example is a good one in that it shows the process of a Golden Mean in the making, in contrast to a formation of a moderate view on its own merits.
Edited by Lenoxus
I'm not sure the "Bart Gets an Elephant" example is this trope. It would be if it suggested a third party between the Democrats and Republicans, but it doesn't. It just makes fun of both parties, and it doesn't even do so in a way that suggests one is "too much" and the other is "too little".
Seems like the "Real Life" section should have citations and proofs, as well as some serious monitoring. It is very easy to abuse real life examples without some kind of citation or to declare anything as an example of this. For one thing, are there any citations demonstrating such universal rejection of the concept of a population-based house and a two-per-state senate? I mean, it argues that it's a bad idea because it gives low-population states as much power as high-population states, which is the entire point. Minorities are minorities, even geographical minorities. There are differences to the needs and drives in different states and regions, and many of them can have a strong correlation to population size. Declaring that the decisions should be based entirely on how large or small the population of a state is severely diminishes the ability of people in low-population states to have their own opinions and unique needs considered. So again, cases like this need citations, citations that don't just demonstrate that there are people within any particular body or media source that felt that it was a "bad plan", but that it is viewed near-universally as faulty on all sides.
I'd say the real life section should definitely be placed in a separate page and carefully monitored. This trope is very political in nature, and as such it is far too easy for real life examples to be made based more on political bias than any real, definitive fallacy. Frankly, I might even go so far as to suggest that compromises that continue to remain in practice either be excluded or given exceptional scrutiny, no matter what it is.