False Dichotomies

A common trope of inter-generational discourse is for the older generation to dismiss the views of younger interlocutors as naïve or idealistic. This is a conversation stopper: to properly assess the claim we would need to fast forward twenty years to see if the accused still held the same opinions. Despite this obvious flaw, it’s still regularly deployed in discussion, and I wasn’t overly surprised to see IsraeliNurse and PetraMB use it against me following my ‘If I had been Binyamin Netanyahu’ piece. This time, however, the trope was combined with a new factor: my status as an immigrant Israeli of less than three years standing, as opposed to my antagonists, who have presumably been in the country for much longer, which of course means they know better. Read more