Just Say No to "One-Sentencing"

One of the services I enjoy performing for my society is spreading allergies -- to certain kinds of writing. I enjoy helping people become allergic to, for example: (a) the strawman fallacy, (b) the fallacy of the excluded middle, (c) what-aboutism, (d) the technique of pretending that one invariably has found the "golden mean" when all one has found is a position, and (e) the attitude that a person can be writing about political-economic matters with the perpetual certitude of a mathematician ("isn't it funny that I'm always right and my political opponents are always wrong?").

So today, I would like to coin a term for a phenomenon to which I hope you will become allergic: to "one-sentence." Let me give two examples of this unfortunate type of pseudo-persuasive writing. Example 1: "I'd like to begin by saying that I found President Clinton's conduct with Ms. Lewinsky to be deplorable and in no way, shape or form do I condone it. [But allow me now to spend the next 10 minutes attacking President Clinton's political enemies and by implication supporting him.]" Example 2: "I have spent countless time working for a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians and have seen it as the ideal way of resolving this conflict. [But allow me now to give you that ten or fifteen reasons why I think the one-state solution is a terrific solution, is the only viable solution, and is the only solution at this point that is consistent with the basic principles of morality. And allow me in fact to bury the two-state solution 5,000 feet underground and then spit on its coffin.]"

Honestly, whenever you see someone starting an argument with a single sentence that is supposed to show that they are NOT a one-sided, unsubtle thinker but are rather sympathetic to the other side ... they are either insulting your intelligence or they really are a one-sided, unsubtle thinker. Because if someone, to return to the Clinton example, really did find his conduct to be deplorable, they wouldn't have taken precisely 1% of their speech criticizing it.

So there you have "one-sentencing." Next time someone tries to "one-sentence" you, protect yourself. Don't be "had" by that kind of rhetoric.

1Steve Curless