Tuesday 11 September 2007

Martin Amis - spot the logical fallacy

I like Martin Amis and his novels... except for Yellow Dog; that was so badly written as to be incomprehensible.

Today's cover of the Times 2 has this Amis quote:

Given the choice between George Bush and Osama Bin Laden, the liberal relativist is obliged to plump for the Saudi, becoming an appeaser of an armed doctrine that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, totalitarian, inquisitional, imperialist and genocidal.


He seems to be suggesting that if I am forced to choose between two things that I find abhorrent, then that implies that I support the one I have chosen.

He may be an interesting author, but he wouldn't get out of the starting blocks as a philosopher or logician.

The whole proposition is silly. It's hypothetical for a start, and if someone did ask me to choose, I would choose neither.

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