{"id":5160,"date":"2017-03-16T15:54:57","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T20:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5160"},"modified":"2017-03-16T15:54:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T20:54:57","slug":"reductio-mad-libitum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5160","title":{"rendered":"Reductio mad libitum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Mad Libs<\/em><\/a> is a kids game, where a familiar story has a number of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and proper names taken out, and players provide their own without knowing the story.\u00c2\u00a0 It makes for great game time, and when you allow the kids liberal use of some naughty terms, things get pretty hilarious.\u00c2\u00a0 (Pro tip: ‘diaper’ and ‘butt’ are always an excellent nouns to use if you’re in a pinch. But only one per story, else you’ve overplayed your hand.)<\/p>\n

Folks use a Mad Libs <\/em>strategy sometimes when making an argument by analogy.\u00c2\u00a0 And so when one criticizes someone for saying something that sounds racist, you might say, “Replace all those times you said ‘Romanian’ with ‘blacks,’ and see how that sounds…”<\/p>\n

The crucial thing for all the cases, of course, is that the replacement instances are of roughly the same type.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why it’s an argument by analogy — if the two things aren’t analogous, then the exercise is pointless.<\/p>\n

George Will’s new column at NRO<\/a> is a defense of the Trump plan to gut and\/or eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts.\u00c2\u00a0 Will does make a few sensible points along the way — especially that the NEA is a regressive wealth distributor (most of the folks who get the support are already with money).\u00c2\u00a0 And, of course he leads with the old kulturkampf <\/em>line about the government shouldn’t be using taxpayer money to fund things like the Piss Christ, Mapelthorpe’s photos, <\/em>and other objectionable messes.\u00c2\u00a0 These, of course, are more arguments against how the NEA has been run, and less arguments against the NEA.\u00c2\u00a0 He closes, after conceding that art, for the most part, is a good thing, with the following:<\/p>\n

\n

Distilled to its essence, the argument for the NEA is: Art is a Good Thing, therefore a government subsidy for it is a Good Deed. To appreciate the non sequitur, substitute \u00e2\u20ac\u0153macaroni and cheese\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153art.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Holy moly!\u00c2\u00a0 OK.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll limit myself to three things.<\/p>\n

#1:\u00c2\u00a0 The argument overyields.\u00c2\u00a0 Now replace “art” with “national defense” or “law enforcement.”\u00c2\u00a0 Once the line is put that way, NO government program is defensible.\u00c2\u00a0 (Don’t tell small government Republicans!)<\/p>\n

#2: We do<\/em> have government subsidies for macaroni and cheese.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s called\u00c2\u00a0 the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 So many boxes of mac’n’cheese have been purchased with government help.\u00c2\u00a0 (Moreover, don’t forget the government support for the farming and manufacturing sectors that produced it!)<\/p>\n

#3:\u00c2\u00a0 I smell some straw on that opponent.\u00c2\u00a0 With ‘GOOD DEED’, Will has conflated a good thing to do<\/em> with a thing that is good for the populace<\/em>, or is in the interest of the state<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Contributing to the common good, even if it is indirectly, is what this is about.\u00c2\u00a0 Calling it a ‘good deed’ is a mis- description of what the supporters of the NEH see the agency out to do.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not a distillation of essence, but rather a snifter of nonsense.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mad Libs is a kids game, where a familiar story has a number of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and proper names taken out, and players provide their own without knowing the story.\u00c2\u00a0 It makes for great game time, and when you allow the kids liberal use of some naughty terms, things get pretty hilarious.\u00c2\u00a0 (Pro tip: … Continue reading Reductio mad libitum<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,204,12,23],"tags":[732,129,2143,2142,1964],"class_list":["post-5160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-will","category-specious-allegations-of-fallacy","category-straw-man","category-weak-analogy","tag-argument-by-analogy","tag-george-will","tag-mad-libs","tag-nea","tag-straw-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5162,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160\/revisions\/5162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}