Vocabulary of Logic: The False Dilemma Fallacy

A quick explanation plus examples from everyday life - build your logic vocabulary to strengthen your critical thinking skills!

The false dilemma fallacy is everywhere you look, and if you pay close enough attention, you'll probably find it invading your own thought processes sometimes as well.

The false dilemma fallacy misleads by presenting two complex issues in terms that imply that they are exist as naturally opposite or diametrically opposed sides.

"If you're not with us, you're against us," is a classic example.

Being "with us" exists on a spectrum of enthusiasm and willingness to act versus just agree - this false dilemma implies that anything other than total unequivocal being "with us" is at least a move toward being "against us."

If you let a false dilemma trap you into choosing only between two extreme opposites, you won't be considering different compromise solutions, like "If you're not with us, maybe you could be if we changed one of our tactics but still kept the same goal."

What about the possibility of a third option, or fourth? Very few concepts actually exist in perfect zero-sum pairs. In this case, what about being neutral? Buying into this fallacy makes it feel like we can't even discuss the possibility of other options.

What about an even more complicated possibility, which is that you're "against us" in the short term because you know that we're about to make a mistake and you want to stop us from making that mistake because in the long term you actually are "with us."

Other Examples:

People in abusive relationships often hear versions of this fallacy that sound like, "You have to either support me/defend me/lie for me/do what I say, or you don't love me." This type of logical fallacy is so effective in manipulating people, you hear it constantly in most matters of grave consequence to humanity. "You're either pro-life or you're pro-abortion," or "You either love Jesus or you have been corrupted by the devil," or "You either act and dress a certain way or you're not a real man/woman." or "You're either pro-gay marriage or you hate gay people," or "You either love freedom or you're a communist." Can you describe the false dilemma fallacy in each of those statements?

Over the next few days, practice finding examples of False Dilemmas in the news you hear, the memes you read, and the thoughts inside your own head. The world is a complicated and difficult place, and getting rid of false dilemmas in our personal lives and in society means that we'll have to start grappling with those complexities more, even when they feel overwhelming or force us to admit that we don't yet have all the answers. But I for one would rather deal with the uncomfortableness that complexity brings than continue living in a world of filled with false dilemma fallacies.

Maybe someday, if we all continue to work on building more critical thinking skills, people will be EMBARASSED to accidentally frame a complex idea in terms of a false dilemma fallacy, or use any other logical fallacies that are common and sometimes even celebrated and repeated as slogans by people today. Wouldn't that be wonderful?