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It seems that there are rhetorical fallacies in every corner of public life in the United States—politics, television, corporations, families—everywhere, everyone is misinterpreting everything. That there was a fallacy of generalization. People do it all the time. Half the people in the US have below-average regard for the way they use generalizations when speaking. Isn’t that incredible? It also happens to be a 100% true statement, and on a subject I have no clue about. A statistical fallacy. It’s all in the way you word it. You can make anything sound any way you want it. How often do you think the media or the government (on all sides of the political spectrum) does this? I see it all the time.

I’ve been very disturbed with a new fallacy I’ve seen used all over the place recently. I call it the Fallacy of Potential. Simply put, it is the misinterpretation of a potential for something to exist as the loss of that thing. I’m sure it’s been well documented before, but I just want to point out a few blatant examples of its continuing rise in public media, politics and beliefs, and the effect it’s having on the country.

The fallacy of potential is actually just a special name for a special kind of fallacy of analogy—it compares the potential for existence to a lack of existence, which seems valid, and a lack of existence to a loss, which might also seem okay. However, this sort of comparison is rarely valid. Regardless of whether or not there is a possibility for something to exist now, it is not generally a loss. They’re just not the same thing.

Let me start with a simple example: Safeway, or Vons, if you live in Southern California, or whatever other supermarket you go to. When they get done ringing up your groceries, you get the reciept, and it says “You saved $24.13 today by being a Safeway club member!” Every time I see that, I think, “No I didn’t. I spent a hundred bucks. If I had saved $24.13, you would have given me my groceries for free and put $24.13 into my savings account!” But hey, it makes a great advertisement, and a great rhetorical argument. If they wanted to really push their club membership, they could put “You lost $24.13 by not being a club member, you fool.” on the reciepts of non-members.

This, of course, is a fallacy of potential. But it’s also not the best example. The potential gain or loss is actually valuable to us in planning our finances. We might decide to shop at Safeway, and be a club member, because their prices are good. Thus, by my argument, the entire idea of saving money is a fallacy of potential. Not true. Recognize that “saving” actually refers to potential—no one’s trying to mislead you at Safeway. You might actually save money by shopping there. It becomes a fallacy when that savings is referred to as “gaining money,” because it’s not. Even worse is when the lack of savings is referred to as a “loss” of money, which it’s definately not. It may be a fine distinction, but it matters a lot.

Abortion is a much better example. Some people believe that aborting an embryo is a loss of a life, and will say that as if it’s directly true, instead of as the simple comparison that it actually is. The loss of life they’re referring to is, of course, the potential for everything that embryo could become. Even without taking sides in this argument, this is a perfect example of a fallacy of potential. It completely misconstrues the potential for a life as the loss of a life. They are not the same thing, regardless of your beliefs. Most people who argue this probably mean that abortion is the loss of a potential for life, and that’s great as long as they understand the difference. A life is a concrete, absolute-valued thing. A potential for life is an abstract thing of completely subjective value. Very different.

The fallacy is also often used in the corporate world, especially in exaggerated-cost stories like “Spam Costs U.S. Companies $22B Annually“, or a more pertinent example, “Record labels count cost of music piracy“. The US recording industry uses the same kind of “cost analysis” all the time, and it seems that it’s all an effort to mislead both the public and the politicians by using this believable fallacy—making it seem like the uncircumstantial potential for the income from piracy to exist is actually a loss. This goes in line with all their other rhetorical fallacies, wonderfully outlined in “The Music Piracy Myth” by Tim O’Reilly and George Zimmerman.

My point is not that potential should be rhetorically ignored, but just that it should not directly be given concrete value, either monetary or otherwise, instead of the potential value it actually has. I’m not calling for everyone to be politically correct and always say “The potential for loss…” et al, but people need to start understanding the difference so they can spot the fallacy in play and not be misled. It is a very fine philosophical line, which is why it’s such an effective rhetorical tool. You actually have to think: is that potential for value really the same as a real value? Perhaps that’s why it’s so effective on the American people. We like our thinking done for us.