Once again, listening to the radio during my commute this morning
initiated this blog post. There was a
roundtable discussion on WAMC that concerned the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy
issues. Apparently the idea has been put
forth that the city should sell its publicly held art collections (such as
those in museums) in order to help pay its debts, most notably the pensions of
public employees (such as teachers).
Alan Chartok immediately defended this as an obvious step to be taken, whereas
other panelists adamantly disagreed. Not
only did they argue that this would be degrading to the art pieces, but also
that the money brought in would be entirely disproportionate to the problem. Chartok responded, saying it was a question
of whether you see the art as more important than the teachers’ pensions, or
vice versa. He then interestingly
described the problem in the form of this disjunction:
Either you sell the art collections, or you decide that the
teachers won’t get their pensions.
I found this interesting because it seemed as though Chartok
intended this disjunction in the exclusive sense. However, the other panelists immediately
responded that this was an unfair characterization, as it could well be the
case that the art is sold and the teachers still don’t get their pensions. Clearly Chartok’s disjunction is a ridiculous
false choice. But it also helps to show
the importance of distinguishing between the inclusive and the exclusive “or.”
