Logical Fallacy #24 - Middle Ground

  

This is the big one, kids.  We get this one every day in every way.  This is what gives us the bullshit of "Both Sides" that we see and hear from the Press Poodles all the time.

It doesn't mean nobody should ever compromise on anything.  It just means that some things are in fact black or white, right or wrong, up or down, true or false.  And we have to be well-informed enough to be able to spot the Fallacy when it pops up.

Argument to moderation (Latin: argumentum ad temperantiam; also known as [argument from] middle ground, false compromise, gray fallacy and the golden mean fallacy)[1] is an informal fallacy which asserts that the truth can be found as a compromise between two opposite positions. This fallacy's opposite is the false dilemma

An individual operating within the false compromise fallacy believes that the positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground is always correct.[1] This is not always the case. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy can create the rather illogical situation that the middle ground reached in the previous compromise now becomes the new extreme in the continuum of opinions; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. In politics, this is part of the basis behind Overton window theory.