Hello, I’m Pang Ying. Welcome to Episode 11 of Think Like a Debater.

A debate asked whether the saying “half an entertainer’s income pays for being abused” is right.

Guo Degang originally said:

The claim is intriguing.

The affirmative said entertainers perform not only professional but important “emotional labor.”

What does that mean? Providing fans and the public with“emotional freedom.”Insults are superficial. Entertainment lets people relax, suspend rationality, and express emotion. A population of billions includes every kind of person; serving the public inevitably brings incomprehensible malice. Must entertainment serve a clean niche, or accept every creature in the vast public forest?

The opposition answered that this argument commits a false dilemma.

What is a false dilemma? That is today’s topic.

What Is a False Dilemma?

The dilemma is illusory, like forcing black or white when many colors lie between. Logically, it presents alternatives

as mutually exclusive and exhaustive when they are actually only twodisjunctsamong many possibilities.Some simple examples.

“Be thin or die.”

“Compete relentlessly or perish.”

“If you oppose 996, why not resign?”

“Which matters more, pets or people?”

“Will you marry or die lonely?”

“If you cannot change the world’s rules, accept them.”