Ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that parent company Unilever has silenced its attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees, and threatened to dismantle its board and sue its members over the issue.
The lawsuit is the latest sign of the long-simmering tensions between Ben & Jerry’s and consumer products maker Unilever. A rift erupted between the two in 2021 after Ben & Jerry’s said it would stop selling its products in the Israeli-occupied West Bank because it was inconsistent with its values, a move that led some to divest Unilever shares.
The ice cream maker then sued Unilever for selling its business in Israel to its licensee there, which allowed marketing in the West Bank and Israel to continue. That lawsuit was settled in 2022.
Let’s go back a few steps in the thread. The response was simply “Reducto ad absurdum” as if that explained it right there. Except, that’s not itself a fallacy. It might be used in a fallacious way, but simply stating “Reducto ad absurdum” does not point out any fallacy what so ever.
And that’s my whole point. People use the term in a muddy way that takes away from a tool.
So that’s where you want the goal posts now?
I specifically agreed that reducto ad absurdum isn’t inherently a fallacy in the first sentence of my first reply to you.
It is now that your original point that “there’s no such thing as a reducto ad absurdum fallacy” has been shot to pieces 🙄
That’s the case with almost every tool of every kind that people have access to.
Especially in the case of language, people are constantly using it wrong, and while I genuinely applaud your intention of projecting a useful tool from being dulled by misuse, the battle is an uphill one to begin with.
Don’t make it even worse by misstating your position and then defending that mistake like it’s the Korean border.
I said early on:
Yes, you can use reducto ad absurdum arguments in a fallacious way. That’s true of literally any kind of argument, so it’s pointless to say that. Point out the actual fallacy or don’t.
Reducto ad absurdum fallacy = reducto ad absurdum used fallaciously. That’s all.
I can explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.
But why call that out at all? Why not call out an actual fallacy built inside a reducto ad absurdum argument (assuming there is one)? The poster way up the stack did not clarify at all. They posted “reducto ad absurdum” as if that was the end of it.
Perhaps they were using that as a shorthand for “reducto ad absurdum fallacy” and, not unreasonably, expecting that people would infer ad much from context.
Either way, we have discussed this to death and you’re still beating the horse, if you will forgive the purposefully mixed metaphor.
Even if you won’t, it’s too late now, so we all must find a way to cope. Have a good day.