Inclusive/Exclusive

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.”