When I recently accepted Jack Pattie's invitation to appear on his "9 to 10 Show" and discuss one of my recent Business Lexington columns, one of Lexington's most influential citizens asked me if I don't worry that talk radio will rot my brain and make me write bad columns, and he asked me why serious people legitimize and dignify talk radio by appearing as guests. Well, as you can see, I have a lot of explaining to do, so I choose to do it here in my column where the talk radio discussion began, because I do worry that talk radio may be "dumbing down" our discussion of complex issues and diminishing our ability to detect logical fallacies or distinguish ad populum nonsense from cogent, critical thought.
The problem is that many talk radio shows are built around and dependent upon a logical fallacy called "the false dichotomy." The false dichotomy fallacy occurs when an issue with more than two "sides" is framed as if there are only two ways to look at it. There aren't, as the saying goes, "two sides to every issue." Some issues have 3 sides or 17 sides, but on talk radio you will hear two - and only two - points of view. This is because many talk show hosts have reduced themselves to little more than fight promoters and the format to a formulaic codification of the false dichotomy fallacy where the goal is to present two sides of an argument and get people to argue about those two sides.
And no matter how many times the talk show host uses the word "debate," talk radio is not a debate. If talk radio were a real debate, there would be rules and impartial judges who would penalize combatants who play to the gallery and make the kind of illogical arguments that talk show hosts let people get away with on the radio. For example, during any talk show discussion of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, somebody will say "we have to fight 'em there unless we want to fight 'em here." This common expression commits at least four logical fallacies: the false dichotomy, false cause, suppression of evidence and equivocation, but I've yet to hear any talk show host expose this argument for its logical fallacies. The above argument is often accompanied by an argument that Al Qaeda's failure to commit another major attack on U.S. soil is proof that fighting "them" there is keeping "them" from fighting us here. This is an example of the cum hoc, ergo propter hoc (with this, therefore because of this) fallacy. If talk radio were a real debate, any talker who made this argument would lose the debate every time. Each time I hear a talk show host let a caller or guest get away with making a fallacious, illogical argument, I wonder if the host - who presumably took a college logic class - can't detect a logical fallacy when he hears one or if he let the speaker get away with it because he agrees with the speaker's conclusion. Either way, I worry that when a talk show host lets illogical arguments go by without exposing them, the talk show host is missing a chance to elevate the discussion and teaching people to be lazy thinkers.
I believe in free speech and I even believe in a person's right to make dumb arguments if he wants to, but as a public service to listeners, I want talk show hosts to start pointing it out when callers or guests make the kind of bonehead arguments that would get them kicked off the high school debate team or earn them an "F" on a high school speech.
Thanks to Jack Pattie - who treated me with kindness and respect, by the way - I have a colorful name for the kind of talk show format that actually depends for its very existence upon the false dichotomy fallacy. Jack calls it "Hold the cat and call the dog." Incidentally, Jack is living proof that you can have a big radio audience and pretty good radio career without being a fight promoter who holds the cat and calls the dog.
I was once "the cat" on one of those "let's you and him fight" shows after I wrote an article about the church growth movement and megachurches. Unbeknownst to me, the talk show host had cast a local pastor in the role of "the dog" and was absolutely panic-stricken when instead of mauling me, he agreed with me and the two of us tried to have, heaven forefend, a civil discussion about the ideas I expressed in my article.
Reducing every discussion to two and only two sides, and allowing callers and guests to insult each other (ad hominem) and make unchallenged, fallacious arguments, does not represent balance, and I worry that "hold the cat and call the dog" radio personalities are diminishing our ability for critical thinking.
Reason with Joseph Higginbotham at JosephHigginbotham@GMail.com.