Golden Mean Fallacy: Difference between revisions

'''DOCTOR'''. [''Examining his cheque.''] Very. But this is rather curious. He has also given £50 to the league for opposing the new public-house. }}

* In ''[[Dilbert|The Dilbert Principle]]'', the chapter "How to Get Your Way" suggests using the "Final Suggestion Maneuver" to get the last word in business meetings. The technique involves staying uninvolved throughout the entire meeting as conflicting suggestions are made, then chiming in at the last minute by disguising your suggestion as a composite of everyone else's. The theory behind this maneuver is that everyone will be so desperate to leave that they'll rush to accept your suggestion without questioning it.

** From a political standpoint her position is blatantly obvious, though, her language being extremely middle-class conservative.

** In the third book, Lupin tells an anecdote about a [[I Know What You Fear|boggart]] that came across two people at once; one was most afraid of flesh-eating slugs and the other was most afraid of headless corpses. The boggart, possibly attempting to combine "slug" and "headless", turned into half a slug, which, as Lupin points out, is not nearly as scary.

* ''[[Bruno the Bandit]]''. More about religion than politics, but the principle is the same. Atheists are pig-headed, verbally abusive, and so [[Straw Vulcan|fanatically devoted to "reason"]] that there is no amount of evidence that would convince them to change their minds, [[Flat Earth Atheist|not even a god making an appearance right in front of their eyes]]. The church is dogmatic, inflexible, and more interested in [[Corrupt Church|hoarding wealth to glorify itself]] than in practicing any of the charity it keeps preaching. Yes, thank heavens for the existence of liberal Catholi... ahem, ''[[Crystal Dragon Jesus|Ailixism]]''!

** Of course, [[Failure Is the Only Option|is anyone at all ever portrayed in a positive light in that webcomic?]]

** It also unintentionally illustrates how the Golden Mean Fallacy is frequently abused by people who are too lazy or cowardly to defend their own ideas. Say, for example, if you can just make everyone think that "their" beliefs are inherently wrong (like, say, [[Deliberately Bad Example|equating an opposing viewpoint to blending kittens]]), you don't have to explain why ''yours'' are right.

* Also parodied in [http://xkcd.com/690/ this] ''[[Xkcd]]'' cartoon. And directly called out in [http://xkcd.com/774/ this] one.

* Parodied in a ''Scientific American'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20131030083220/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=okay-we-give-up April Fool's joke]:

{{quote|''Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts.''}}

 

== Western Animation ==