Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [132]
The main problem with Example I is the writer’s failure to qualify his ideas, a problem that causes him to generalize to the point of oversimplification. Note the writer’s habit of stating his claims absolutely (we have italicized the words that make these claims unqualified):
“there is no need for censorship”
“no network is going to show violence without”
“obviously for financial reasons”
“what must be remembered”
“the majority will see”
Such broad, pronouncement-like claims cannot be supported. The solution is to more carefully limit the claims, especially the key premise about public approval. The assertion that a commercial television industry will, for financial reasons, give the public “what it wants” is true to an extent (our key phrase for reformulating either/ ors)—but it is not true as globally as the writer wishes us to believe.
Couldn’t it also be argued, for example, that given the power of television to shape people’s tastes and opinions, the public sees not just what it wants but what it has been taught to want? This complication of the writer’s argument about public approval undermines the credibility of his global assertion that “there is no need for censorship.”
Example II would appear to be more qualified than Example I because it acknowledges the existence of more than one point of view. Rather than broadly asserting that the show is positive and accurate, she tempers these claims (as italics show): “I feel that The Simpsons has a more positive effect than a negative one”; “Marge and Homer’s marriage is pretty accurate.” These qualifications, however, are superficial.
Before she could convince us to approve of The Simpsons for its accuracy in depicting marriage, she would have to convince us that accuracy is a reasonable criterion for evaluating TV shows (especially cartoons) rather than assuming the unquestioned value of accuracy. Would an accurate depiction of the life of a serial killer, for example, necessarily make for a “positive” show? Similarly, if a fantasy show has no interest in accuracy, is it necessarily “negative” and without moral value?
When writers present a debatable premise as if it were self-evidently true, the conclusions built upon it cannot stand. At the least, the writer of Example II needs to recognize her debatable premise, articulate it, and make an argument in support of it. She might also precede her judgment about the show with more analysis. Before deciding that the show is “more positive than negative” and thus does not promote “wrong morals and values for our society,” she could analyze what the show says about marriage and how it goes about saying it.
Likewise, if the writer of Example I had further examined his own claims before rushing to argue an absolute position on censorship, he would have noticed how much of the thinking that underlies them remains unarticulated and thus unexamined. It would also allow him to sort out the logical contradiction with his opening claim that “there are many things shown on TV that are damaging for people to see.” If television networks will only broadcast what the public approves of, then apparently the public must approve of being damaged or fail to notice that it is being damaged. If the public either fails to notice it is being damaged or approves of it, aren’t these credible arguments for rather than against censorship?
FIGURATIVE LOGIC: REASONING WITH METAPHORS
To understand reasoning only in terms of propositional logic is to ignore how much of our day-to-day thinking is conducted indirectly, not in the form of explicit claims but in metaphors. Many people assume that figurative thinking—the kind conducted in metaphors