Love is a Fallacy

Max Shulman

Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute --- I was all
of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as a chemist's scales, as
penetrating as a scalpel. And - think of it! - I was only eighteen. It is not
often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey
Burch my roommate at the University of Minnesota. Same age, same
background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand,
but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of
all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be wept
up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just
because everybody else is doing it - this to me, is the acme of
mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.

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." "Raccoon," he
mumbled thickly. "Raccoon?" I said, pausing in my flight. "I want a raccon
coat," he wailed. I perceived that his trouble was not physical but mental.
"Why do you want a raccoon coat?" "I should have known it," he cried,
pounding hie temples. "I should have known it they'd come back when the
Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbook, and
now I can't get a raccoon coat." "Can you mean," I said incredulously,"
that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?" "All the Big Men on
Campus are wearing them. Where've you been?" "In the library," I said,
naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus. He leaped from the
bed and paced the room. "I've got to have a raccoon coat," he said
passionately. "I've got to!" "Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon
coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much.
They're unsightly. They..." "You don't understand," he interrupted,
impatiently. "It's the thing to do. Don't you want to be in the swim?" "No,"
I said truthfully "Well, I do," he declared. "I'd give anything for a raccoon
coat. Anything!" My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high
gear. "Anything?" I asked, looking at him narrowly. "Anything," he
affirmed in ringing tones. I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened
that I knew where to get 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.
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. 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. Beautiful she was.
She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the
lack. She already had the makings. 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.
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.

"Petey," I said, "are you in love with Polly Espy?" "I think she's a keen kid,"
he replied, "but I don't know if you call it love. Why?" "Do you," I asked,
"have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going
steady or anything like that?" "No. We see each other quite a bit, but we
both have other dates. Why?" "Is there," I asked, "any other man for
whom she has a particular fondness?" "Not that I know of. Why?" I
nodded with satisfaction. "In other words, if you were out of the picture,
the field would be open. Is that right?" I guess so. What are you getting
at?" "Nothing , nothing," I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the
closet. "Where are you going?" asked Petey. "Home for weekend." I threw
a few things into the bag. "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?" "I may do better
than that," I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.
"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. "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. "Would you like it?" I asked. "Oh yes!"
he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his
eyes. "What do you want for it?" Your girl" I said, mincing no words.

2
"Polly?" he said in a horrified whisper. "You want Polly?" That's right." He
shook his head. I shrugged. "Okay. If you don't want to be in the swim, I
guess it's your business. 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 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. "It isn't as though I
was in love with Polly," he said thickly. "Or going steady or anything like
that." "That's right," I murmured. "What's Polly to me, or me to Polly?"
"Not a thing," said I. "It's just been a casual kick - just a few laughs, that's
all." "Try on the coat," said I. He compiled. 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 said happily. I rose from my chair.
"Is it a deal?" I asked, extending my hand. He swallowed. "It's a deal," he
said and shook my hand. 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 get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her
first to dinner. "Gee, that was a delish dinner," she said as we left the
restaurant. And then I took her home. "Gee, I had a sensaysh time," she
said as she bade me good night. 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. 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
fingertips. "Polly,: I said in to Her when I picked her up on our next date,
tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk. "Oo, terrif," she replied.
One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so
agreeable. 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. "Logic." She thought this over for a
minute and decided she liked it. "Magnif," she said. 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." "Wow-dow!" she cried, clapping her hands delightedly. I

3
winced, but went bravely on. "First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto
Simpliciter." "By all means," she urged, batting her lashes eagerly. "Dicto
Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization.
For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should exercise."
"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. Therefore exercise is bad, not good. Many people are
ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the
generalization. You must sayxercise is usually good, or exercise is good for
most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you
see?" "No," she confessed. "But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!" "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. Petey Burch can't
speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of
Minnesota can speak French." "Really?" said Polly, amazed. "Nobody?" I
hid my exasperation. "Polly, it's a fallacy. The generalization is reached too
hastily. There are too few instance to support such a conclusion." Know
any more fallacies?" she asked breathlessly. "This is more fun than
dancing, even."

I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting no where with this girl,
absolutely no where. Still, I am nothing, if not persistent. I continued.
"Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let's not take Bill on our picnic.
Every time we take it out with us, it rains." "I know somebody just like
that," she exclaimed. "A girl back home - Eula Becker, her name is. It never
fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic..." "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." "I'll
never do it again," she promised contritely. "Are you mad at me?" I sighed
deeply. "No, Polly, I'm not mad." "Then tell me some more fallacies." "All
right. Let's try Contradictory Premises." "Yes, let's," she chirped, blinking
her eyes happily.

I frowned, but plunged ahead. "Here's an example of Contradictory

Premises: If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He
won't be able to lift it?" "Of course," she replied promptly. "But if He can
do anything, He can lift the stone," I pointed out. "Yeah," she said
thoughtfully. "Well, then I guess He can't make the stone." "But He can do
anything," I reminded her. She scratched her pretty, empty head. "I'm all
confused," she admitted. "Of course you are. Because when the premises
of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is

4
an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an
immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?" "Tell me
more of this keen stuff," she said eagerly. I consulted my watch. "I 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." I deposited her at the girls'
dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a "perfectly" evening,
and I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in 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. 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 members 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.

Seated under the oak the next evening I said, "Our first fallacy tonight is
called Ad Misericordiam." She quivered with delight. "Listen closely," I
said. "A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his
qualifications are, 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." A tear rolled down each of Polly's pink cheeks.
"Oh, this is awful, awful," she sobbed. "Yes, it's awful," I agreed, "but it's
no argument. The man never answered the boss's question about his
qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss's sympathy. He committed
the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?" "Have you got a
handkerchief?" she blubbered. 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 examination.
After all, surgeons have X rays 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
examination?" "There now," she said enthusiastically, "is the most marvy
idea I've heard in years." "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." "I still think it's a good idea,"
said Polly. "Nuts," I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. "Next we'll try

5
Hypothesis Contrary to Fact." "Sounds yummy," was Polly's reaction.
"Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate
in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende, the world today would not know
about radium." "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." "If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment," I
said coldly, "I would like to point out that 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." "They ought to put
Walter Pidgeon in more pictures," said Polly, "I hardly ever see him any
more." 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." "How cute!" she gurgled. "Two men are having a debate. The first
one gets up and says, 'My opponent is a notorious liar. You can't believe a
word that he is going to say.' ... Now, Polly, think hard. What's wrong?" I
watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration.
Suddenly a glimmer 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?" "Right!" I cried exultantly. "One hundred per cent
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." "Pshaws," she murmured, blushing with
pleasure.

"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." "Fire away," she said with an airy wave of her hand.
Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, 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 letup. 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 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. Five grueling nights with this book
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 many mansions, a suitable mother for my well-heeled
children. It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite

6
the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved mine. I determined to acquaint her
with feelings at our very next meeting. The time had come to change our
relationship from academic to romantic.

"Polly," I said when next we sat beneath our oak, "tonight we will not
discuss fallacies." "Aw, gee," she said, disappointed. "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." "Hasty
Generalization," said Polly brightly. "I beg your pardon," said I. "Hasty
Generalization," she repeated. "How can you say that we are well matched
on the basis of only five dates?" 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 that it's good." "False Analogy," said Polly promptly. "I'm not a
cake. I'm a girl."

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 word. Then I began:
"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. I will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a
shambling, hollow-eyed hulk." There, I thought, folding my arms, that
ought to do it. "Ad Misericordiam," said Polly. I ground my teeth. I was
not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my 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. "Well, Polly," I said, forcing a smile, "you certainly have
learned your fallacies." "You're darn right," she said with a vigorous nod.
"And who taught them to you, Polly?" "You did." "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." "Hypothesis Contrary to Fact," she
said instantly. 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." "Dicto Simpliciter," she said, wagging her finger at me
playfully. That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. "Will you or
will you not go steady with me?" "I will not," she replied. "Why not?" I
demanded. "Because this afternoon I promised Petey Burch that I would
go steady with him." I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it. After

7
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." "Poisoning the Well ," said Polly, "and
stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too." 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 steady with Petey Burch?" "I certainly can," declared
Polly. "He's got a raccoon coat."

Compiled by:

Maria Belen SE Hinacay Marionito L. Hinacay

MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology Liceo de Cagayan University