2024年4月8日发(作者:)
Love is a Fallacy
Max Shulman
1 Charles Lamb, as merry and enterprising a fellow as you will meet in a month
of Sundays, unfettered the informal essay with his memorable Old China and
Dream's Children. There follows an informal essay that ventures even beyond
Lamb's frontier, indeed, "informal" may not be quite the right word to describe this
essay; "limp" or " flaccid" or possibly "spongy" are perhaps more appropriate.
2 Vague though its category, it is without doubt an essay. It develops an
argument; it cites instances; it reaches a conclusion. Could Carlyle do more? Could
Ruskin ?
3 Read, then, the following essay which undertakes to demonstrate that logic,
far from being a dry, pedantic discipline, is a living, breathing thing, full of beauty,
passion, and trauma --Author's Note
4 Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute--I
was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemist's
scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And--think of it! --I was only eighteen.
5 It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example,
Petey Butch, my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same
background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough young fellow, you understand, but
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nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist.
Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze
that comes along, to surrender yourself to idiocy just because everybody else is
doing it--this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
6 One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such
distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. "Don't move," I said.
"Don't take a laxative. I'll get a doctor."
7 "Raccoon," he mumbled thickly.
8 "Raccoon?" I said, pausing in my flight.
9 "1 want a raccoon coat," he wailed.
10 I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. "Why do you want
a raccoon coat?"
11 "1 should have known it," he cried, pounding his temples. "1 should have
known they'd come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my
money for textbooks, and now I can't get a raccoon coat."
12 "Can you mean." I said incredulously, "that people are actually wearing
raccoon coats again?"
13 "All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where've you been?"
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14 "In the library," I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on
Campus
15 He leaped from the bed and paced the room, "I've got to have a raccoon
coat," he said passionately. "I've got to!"
16 "Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed.
They smell bad. They weight too much. They're unsightly. They--"
17 " You don't understand," he interrupted impatiently. "It's the thing to do.
Don't you want to be in the swim?"
18 "No," I said truthfully.
19 "Well, I do," he declared. "I'd give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!"
20 My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. "Anything?" I
asked, looking at him narrowly.
21 "Anything," he affirmed in ringing tones.
22 I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to set my
hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay
now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I
wanted. He didn't have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his
girl, Polly Espy.
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23 I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this
young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited
the emotions but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a
shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.
24 I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I
was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer's
career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception,
married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted
these specifications perfectly.
25 Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions but I felt sure that
time would supply the lack She already had the makings.
26 Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of
carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding, At
table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating
the specialty of the house--a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy,
chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut--without even getting her fingers moist.
27 Intelligent she was not. in fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I
believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a
try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly
smart girl beautiful.
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28 "Petey," I said, "are you in love with Polly Espy?"
29 "1 think she's a keen kid," he replied, "but I don't know if you'd call it love.
Why?"
30 "Do you," I asked, "have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean
are you going steady or anything like that?"
31 "No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?"
32 "Is there," I asked, "any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?"
33 "Not that I know of. Why?"
34 I nodded with satisfaction. "In other words, if you were out of the picture,
the field would be open. Is that right?"
35 "1 guess so. What are you getting at?"
36 "Nothing, nothing," I said innocently, and took my suitcase out of the
closet.
37 "Where are you going?" asked Petey.
38 "Home for the weekend." I threw a few things into the bag.
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39 "Listen," he said, clutching my arm eagerly, "while you're home, you
couldn't get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can
buy a raccoon coat?"
40 "1 may do better than that," I said with a mysterious wink and closed my
bag and left.
41 "Look," I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the
suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his
Stutz Bearcat in 1925.
42 " Holy Toledo!" said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the
raccoon coat and then his face. "Holy Toledo!" he repeated fifteen or twenty times.
43 "Would you like it?" I asked.
44 "Oh yes!" he cried, clutching the greasy peltto him. Then a canny look came
into his eyes. "What do you want for it?"
45 "Your girl," I said, mincing no words.
46 "Polly?" he said in a horrified whisper. "You want Polly?"
47 "That's right."
48 He flung the coat from him. "Never," he said stoutly.
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49 I shrugged. "Okay. If you don't want to be in the swim, I guess it's your
business."
50 I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of
my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with
the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw
resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face.
Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his
head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning . Finally he didn't turn away at all;
he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.
51 "It isn't as though I was in love with Polly," he said thickly. "Or going steady
or anything like that."
52 "That's right," I murmured.
53 "What's Polly to me, or me to Polly?"
54 "Not a thing," said I.
55 "It's just been a casual kick --just a few laughs, that's all."
56 "Try on the coat," said I.
57 He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way
down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. "Fits fine," he
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said happily.
58 I rose from my chair. "Is it a deal?" I asked, extending my hand.
59 He swallowed. "It's a deal," he said and shook my hand.
60 I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature
of a survey; I wanted to find out just how much work I had to do to get her mind
up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner. "Gee, that was a delish
(=delicious) dinner," she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to a
movie. "Gee, that was a marvy (=marvelous) movie," she said as we left the theater.
And then I took her home. "Gee, I had a sensaysh (=sensational) time," she said as
she bade me good night.
61 I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated
the size of my task. This girl's lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be
enough merely to supply her with information First she had to be taught to think.
This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give
her back to Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms
and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork,
and I decided to make an effort.
62 I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It
happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all
the facts at my finger tips. "Polly," I said to her when I picked her up on our next
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date, "tonight we are going over to the Knolland talk."
63 "0o, terrif (=terrific)," she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would
go far to find another so agreeable.
64 We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an
old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. "What are we going to talk about?" she
asked.
65 "Logic."
66 She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. "Magnif
(=magnificent)," she said.
67 "Logic," I said, clearing my throat, "is the science of thinking. Before we can
think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic.
These we will take up tonight."
68 " Wow-dow!" she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
69 I winced, but went bravely on. "First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto
Simpliciter."
70 "By all means," she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.
71, "Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified
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generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should
exercise."
72 "1 agree," said Polly earnestly. "1 mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it
builds the body and everything."
73 "Polly," I said gently, "the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an
unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad,
not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must
qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is
good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you
see?"74 "No, " she confessed. "But this is marvy. Do more! Do morel"
75 "It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve," I told her, and when she
desisted, I continued: "Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen
carefully: You can't speak French. I can't speak French. Petey Burch can't speak
French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can
speak French."
76 "Really?" said Polly, amazed. "Nobody?"
77 I hid my exasperation. "Polly, it's a fallacy. The generalization is reached too
hastily. There are too few instances to support such a conclusion."
78 " Know any more fallacies?" she asked breathlessly. "This is more fun than
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dancing even."
79 I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl
absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I continued.
80 "Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let's not take Bill on our picnic. Every
time we take him out with us, it rains."
81 "1 know somebody like that," she exclaimed. "A girl back home--Eula
Becker, her name is, it never falls. Every single time we take her on a picnic--"
82 "Polly," I said sharply, "it's a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn't cause the rain. She
has no connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula
Becker."
83 "I'11 never do that again," she promised contritely." Are you mad at me?"
84 I sighed deeply. "No, Polly, I'm not mad."
85 "Then tell me some more fallacies."
86 "All right. Let's try Contradictory Premises."
87 "Yes, let's," she chirped, blinking" her eyes happily.
88 I frowned, but plunged ahead. "Here's an example of Contradictory
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Premises: If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He won't be
able to lift it?"
89 "Of course," she replied promptly.
90 "But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone," I pointed out.
91 "Yeah," she said thoughtfully. "Well, then I guess He can't make the stone."
92 "But He can do anything," I reminded her.
93 She scratched her pretty, empty head. "I'm all confused," she admitted.
94 "Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict
each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be
no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible
force. Get it?"
95 "Tell me some more of this keen stuff," she said eagerly.
96 I consulted my watch. "1 think we'd better call it a night. I'll take you home
now, and you go over all the things you've learned. We'll have another session
tomorrow night."
97 I deposited her at the girls' dormitory, where she assured me that she had
had a perfectly terrif evening, and I went glumly to my room. Petey lay snoring in
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his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment
I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed
clear that my project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof
head.
98 But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening: I might as well waste
another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in the extinct crater of her mind, a few
embers still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly it
was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try.
99 Seated under the oak the next evening I said, "Our first fallacy tonight is
called Ad Misericordiam."
100 She quivered with delight.
101 "Listen closely," I said. "A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him
what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home,
the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear,
no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and
winter is coming."
102 A tear rolled down each of Polly's pink cheeks. "Oh, this is awful, awful,"
she sobbed.
103 "Yes, it's awful," I agreed, "but it's no argument. The man never answered
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the boss's questions about his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss's
sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?"
104 "Have you got a handkerchief?" she blubbered.
105 I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she
wiped her eyes. "Next," I said in a carefully controlled tone, "we will discuss False
Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks
during examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an
operation, lawyers have briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have
blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then, shouldn't
students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?"
106 "There now," she said enthusiastically, "is the most marvy idea I've heard
in years."
107 "Polly," I said testily, "the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and
carpenters aren't taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students
are. The situations are altogether different, and you can't make an analogy
between them."
108 "1 still think it's a good idea," said Polly.
109 "Nuts," I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. "Next we'll try Hypothesis
Contrary to Fact."
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110 "Sounds yummy," was Polly's reaction.
111 "Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate
in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende (n.沥青油矿), the world today would not
know about radium ."
112 "True, true," said Polly, nodding her head. "Did you see the movie? Oh, it
just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me."
113 "If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment," I said coldly, "I would like to
point out that the statement is a fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have
discovered radium at some later date. Maybe somebody else would have
discovered it. Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can't start
with a hypothesis that is not true and then draw any supportable conclusions from
it."
114 "They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures," said Polly. "I hardly
ever see him any more.
115 One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what
flesh and blood can bear. "The next fallacy is called Poisoning the Well."
116 "How cute!" she gurgled.
117 "Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, ‘My
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opponent is a notorious liar. You can't believe a word that he is going to say. '...
Now, Polly, think. Think hard. What's wrong?"
118 I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration.
Suddenly, a g1immer of intelligence—the first I had seen--came into her eyes. "It's
not fair," she said with indignation. "It's not a bit fair. What chance has the second
man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?"
119 "Right!" I cried exultantly. "One hundred percent right. It's not fair. The first
man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung
his opponent before he could even start. … Polly, I’m proud of you."
120 " Pshaw" she murmured, blushing with pleasure.
121 "You see, my dear, these things aren't so hard All you have to do is
concentrate. Think--examine—evaluate. Come now, let's review everything we
have learned.”
122 "Fire away," she said with an airy wave of her hand.
123 Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin , I
began a long, patient review of all I had told her. Over and over and over again I
cited instances pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without let-up. It was like
digging a tunnel. At first everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea
when I would reach the light, or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and
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clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the
chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.
124 Five grueling nights this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician
out of Polly; I had taught her to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me at
last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a suitable
mother for my well-heeled children.
125 It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the
contrary, Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved
mine. I determined to acquaint her with my feeling at our very next meeting. The
time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.
126 "Polly," I said when next we sat beneath our oak, "tonight we will not
discuss fallacies."
127 "Aw, gee," she said, disappointed.
128 "My dear," I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five
evenings together. We have gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well
matched.”
129 “Hasty Generalization,” said Polly brightly.
130 “I beg your pardon,” said I.
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131 “Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say that we are
well matched on the basis of only five dates?”
132 I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well.
"My dear," I Said, Patting her hand in a tolerant manner, "five dates is plenty. After
all, you don't have to eat a whole cake to know it's good."
133 "False Analogy”, said Polly promptly. "I'm not a cake. I'm a girl.”
134 I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her
lessons perhaps too well. I decided to change tactics. Obviously the best approach
was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment while my
massive brain chose the proper words. Then I began:
135 "Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, and the moon and the
stars and the constellations of outer space. Please, my darling, say that you will go
steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish (vi.憔悴). I
will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling (摇摇晃晃地走),
hollow-eyed hulk." shambling
136 There, I thought, folding my arms, that ought to do it.
137 "Ad Misericordiam,” Said Polly.
138 I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my
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monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging
through me. At all costs I had to keep cool.
139 "Well, Polly," I said, forcing a smile, "you certainly have learned your
fallacies."
140 "You’re darn right," she said with a vigorous nod.
141 "And who taught them to you, Polly?"
142 "You did."
143 "That's right. So you do owe me something, don't you, my dear? If I hadn't
come along you never would have learned about fallacies."
144 "Hypothesis Contrary to Fact," she said instantly.
145 I dashed perspiration from my brow. "Polly," I croaked, "you mustn't take
all these things so literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the
things you learn in school don't have anything to do with life."
146 "Dicto Simpliciter," she said, wagging her finger at me playfully.
147 That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. "Will you or will you
not go steady with me?"
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148 "I will not," she replied.
149 "Why not?" I demanded.
150 "Because this afternoon I promised Petey Burch that I would go steady
with him."
151 I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it. After he promised, after he
made a deal, after he shook my hand! " The rat! I shrieked, kicking up great chunks
of turf . "You can't go with him, Polly. He's a liar. He's a cheat. He's a rat."
152 "Poisoning the Well," said Polly, "and stop shouting. I think shouting must
be a fallacy too."
153 With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. "All right," I said.
"You're a logician. Let's look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey
Burch over me? Look at me--a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man
with an assured future. Look at Petey--a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who'll never
know where his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one logical reason why
you should go stead with Petey Burch?"
154 "I certainly can," declared Polly. "He's got a raccoon coat."
(from Rhetoric in a Modern Modeby James K. Bell and Adrian A. Cohn)
knot head
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NOTES
1
. Max Shulman (1919-- ): one of America's best-known humorists. Max
Shulman is a writer of many talents. He has written novels, stories, Broadway plays,
movie scenarios, and television scripts. He is the author of Barefoot Boy with
Cheek, The Feather Merchant, and Rally Round the Flag, Boys as well as of the TV
series Dobie Gillis.
Men on Campus: important and popular people in the university
Bearcat: name of an automobile
Toledo: an interjectional compound (like holy cow! holy smoke! ) to
express astonishment, emphasis, etc.
's Polly to me, or me to Polly? : perhaps a parody of "What's Hecuba to
him or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her?" from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act
Ⅱ, scene 2
6. delish, marvy, sensaysh, terrif, magnif: clipped, vulgar forms for delicious,
marvelous, sensational, terrific and magnificent
7. Dicto Simpliciter: clipped form of "a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum
quid", a Latin phrase meaning "from a saying (taken too) simply to a saying
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according to what (it really is)"; i.e. according to its truth as holding under special
provisos
8. Post Hoc: clipped form of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, a Latin phrase
meaning "after this, therefore because of this"; a fallacy in logic of thinking that a
happening which follows another must be its result
9. Ad Misericordiam: a Latin phrase meaning "to pity"; a fallacy in logic of
appealing to pity or compassion
10. Walter Pidgeon: a Hollywood film actor
11. fracture: American slang meaning" to evoke a strong reaction in someone;
to cause to react with enthusiasm"
12. Pygmalion: (Greek mythology) a king of Cyprus, and a sculptor, who fell in
love with his own statue of Galatea, later brought to life by the goddess of love,
Aphrodite, at his prayer
13. Frankenstein: the title character in a novel (1818) by Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley: he is a young medical student who creates a monster that destroys Him
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