[Buddha-l] Fallacy of division (Why neo-conservatives are not welcome on buddha-l)

[R. P. Hayes]

It seems appropriate that in a country as politically divided as ours,
the fallacy of choice would be the fallacy of division. Just to remind
you, this is the fallacy that consists in assuming that whatever
properties a whole has must be shared by each of its parts. For example,
an ocean is really big. A water molecule is part of an ocean, so a water
molecule must be really big. You get the idea.

Kenneth Tomlinson, the neo-conservative ideologue who has been given
control of the government-funded radio and television networks known as
NPR and PBS argues that our society as a whole is one in which all views
are given an fair airing. True enough (or at least, a pious fiction that
we might wish were true.) By employing the fallacy of division,
Tomlinson concludes that every radio and television program on the air
should also present all views on every issue presented. So Amy Goodman
should spend as much time mindlessly praising the Bush administration
and she spends exposing carefully exposing its weaknesses. (And, by
parity of bad reasoning, Bill O'Reilly should devote as much time to
carefully exposing the fallacies in George W. Bush's speeches as he
devotes to the irresponsible slandering of people he perceives to be
liberals. But wait a minute. O'Reilly is on Fox news, which is owned and
controlled by a bigoted billionaire, and Tomlinson's principle applies
only to organizations that openly receive government funding, not to
organizations that accept it clandestinely.)

This morning I went to a Unitarian church and heard a sermon with which
I profoundly disagreed. The conclusion of the sermon was that Unitarians
ought to welcome political conservatives to their churches. The reason
given was that Unitarians favor religious and political diversity and
would therefore be hypocritical not to welcome people who disagree with
everything Unitarians stand for. Another splendid example of the fallacy
of division. 

What Tomlinson and the Unitarian minister say is like saying that a
rainbow is a multicolored object, and therefore every band in the
rainbow must also be multicolored. What this reasoning ignores, of
course, is that a rainbow can be a rainbow only if every band has a
distinct color and is NOT multicolored. Similarly, I would argue, a
pluralistic society can be pluralistic only if there really are a
plurality of views that can be distinguished from each other. If we let
O'Reilly be O'Reilly and Amy Goodman be Amy Goodman, and if we do not
make it illegal for anyone to choose whether they listen to O'Reilly or
Goodman or both or neither, then we have just exactly the kind of
pluralistic society most Americans want. Make O'Reilly and Goodman
indistinguishable from each other, and we no longer have pluralism. All
we have is mediocrity.

My own view is that religious conservatives SHOULD be made to feel
uncomfortable and unwanted in a Unitarian church. Let them go elsewhere
to be with their own kind. There are plenty of evangelical outfits to go
around. 

And, by the same token, I would argue that people who support American
imperialism, illegal wars, xenophobia and systematic destruction of the
environment should be made to feel uncomfortable and unwelcome on
BUDDHA-L. Let such people go to the news groups and into the neo-
conservative blogosphere. Let them go anywhere, just so long as they do
not stay here. Let the denizens of BUDDHA-L continue to be as we have
been for the past fourteen years.

It is not hypocritical to be a Buddhist and to shun neo-conservatives.
What would be hypocritical would be to pretend to welcome them as they
are. (Of course, if they were ever to wake up to compassion and clarity
of mind, they would be most welcome here.)

I'd like to dedicate this sermon to Ken Tomlinson and to the Unitarian
minister who got me all fired up.

-- 
Richard Hayes