Some folks eventually cease to amuse me.

I was following yet another argument in a comments section somewhere when it devolved into the following form:

Commenter A: You chose chocolate, I chose vanilla.  Can’t we live and let live?

Commenter B: No, because your choice of vanilla impacts the availability of my chocolate and how people look at chocolate, which is grossly unfair because chocolate really is better and people should have to eat it, unlike that nasty vanilla that you’re trying to force on the world by lying about how good it is.

This argument always cracks me up, because it never occurs to B that one would be able to switch the flavors around and it would be every bit as devastating, if the argument had any force outside of B’s perception of persecution.  The assumption that A’s actions can negatively impact B’s range of available choices but that B’s actions have no effect on A’s range of available choices is a bad one.  And funny if not a little pathetic in practice, because more often than not B is seeking to remove the ability to choose altogether, so long as the prescribed flavor turns out to be chocolate.  This usually leads B into wild statements of non-fact, such as the assertion that people who are allergic to chocolate are an urban myth invented by the vanilla lobby because they hate chocolate lovers.

Of course, the whole thing is generally based on the (faulty) premise that there’s a fixed amount of ice cream in the world.  And since the ice cream in these scenarios usually comes from the government, there is a perception that this incorrect premise is actually correct.  Government is not famous for its nimbleness of response to shifting flavor demands or its unwillingness to try to just eat all the ice cream itself.  Non-governmental dairies could easily account for varying flavor preferences, but it never even occurs to B that this is a possibility; hence the I need to steal yours before you can steal mine routine.  That strategy actually makes sense when the government controls all the ice cream.

Where it always falls apart, though, is with B’s declaration of the righteousness of chocolate.  Because I’m right doesn’t qualify as an argument, no matter how much B wants it to be true.  Reality doesn’t give a good goddamn what flavor ice cream your neighbors eat.  The entire ice cream dichotomy is a false one, an artificial structure created and reinforced by that part of human nature that just can’t stay out of other people’s business.  Good of the tribe and all that, and I’m sure the trait has served us well over the millennia on a species level, but it causes a boatload of trouble in these (supposedly) more civilized times.  The ironic bit is that B--the party desperate to force a particular vision of righteousness on the other members of the tribe--is generally also the party who is trying to accomplish something that will work against the welfare of the tribe as a whole.

Well, above and apart from the harm that the use of force inflicts in and of itself, anyway.

It’s not news that absurd premises lead to absurd conclusions, but it’s sad that so many argue utter absurdities and don’t even know they’re doing it because the helplessness is so ingrained that it never even occurs to them that there might be some way to get chocolate that doesn’t involve banning vanilla.

And you all wonder why I’ve gone off political blogs.

1. Great argument for Neapolitan, if you ask me.

   Posted by CGHill  on  09/21  at  06:41 PM  from  Deepest Oklahoma

2. Totally ignoring the fact that most chocolate ice cream is the bland stuff that might as well be vanilla and you have to go to the expensive brands to get anything with any bitter to the flavor now that Aldi has dropped the Grandessa Chocolate Fudge ice cream.

   Posted by triticale  on  09/24  at  09:46 PM  from  the you know house
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