False Compromise Fallacy

By Yiler Huang

The False Compromise Fallacy is a fallacy that can be observed in many different situations. It describes the situation in which a person thinks the “right” answer to a discussion between two opposite topics are always in the middle. It is often the case that the middle of two extremes seem like the most logical option, because we would think that it satisfies people on both sides of the extreme, whereas in reality, choosing the middle ground option might not satisfy either party since no one is convinced that the other side is correct.

One example of this is that my mother would often tell me to make a compromise applying to universities I want to and the ones I don't and find a middle ground between them, but it is really hard, or even impossible, to find such a middle ground and it might not necessarily be helpful even if it exists. This is because you -probably- can only study in one university at a time, and it is impossible to compromise if you only have one choice. Another example is a historical event that happened in the music scene during the mid 20th century. During that time, the two most popular genre of music are jazz and classical music. At that time, people created a new genre called the “third stream”, which is a combination of jazz and classical music. People originally thought it was going to be successful since it combined both of the most popular kinds of music during that time. In the end, however, people who liked jazz thought it was not “jazzy” enough, and people who liked classical music thought it was not “classical” enough. Therefore the third stream music did not gain much success. In this example, people tried to find the middle ground between jazz and classical music to appeal fans of these two genres, but in the end neither party were satisfied.

It is bad to mindlessly accept a compromise between two opposites, because it often tricks us into thinking it meets the requirements of both extremes, but in reality they don't satisfy anyone and can even make things troublesome. In controversial arguments such as “should we take care of climate change?”, “should death penalty be banned” etc., choosing a middle ground is often just not an option. We can't save half of the planet, and we also can't kill half of a person.