Frivolous literary note

[Meg Larson]

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| From: MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu
| To: pynchon-l at waste.org
| Subject: Re: Frivolous literary note
| Date: Thursday, May 15, 1997 10:44 PM
| 
| Just to make things more slippery:
| 
OK--I wasn't gonna get into this--I just spent four months in the Rhet
Theory class from HELL!--but I offer this brief definition and y'all can
see if it fits w/what everyone has sed, or if it just adds more confusion. 
If it takes our minds off of the current inanities of life on this list,
then I accept your thanks.  If it doesn't then this list is hopeless beyond
comprehension (ha ha ha ha ha ha).

>From _A Preface to Philosophy_, by Mark B. Woodhouse (1994):

"Slippery slope arguments . . . falsely claim that adopting a particular
view or course of action will result in certain inevitable and undesirable
consequences.  Thus, a bank official opposed to a 1 percent increase in
interest on customers' deposits might argue that such an increase would
lead to an even greater increase next year, and an even greater one the
year after that, and so forth . . . [n]otice that the fallacy of slippery
slope occurs when someone falsely claims that a proposal will lead to
undesirable consequences.  If someone can show that in fact a proposal will
have a bad result, then there is no fallacy."

Getting out from behind the lectern now,
Meg