Jed Pressgrove is a graduate student in sociology. He can be contacted at [email protected].Three days ago a fairly respectable journalist was called a “loser” because his show didn’t outrank everything ratings-wise.
“Dan Rather’s a loser. Dan Rather had low ratings for years.”
As I read these words that came from the mouth of businessman Donald Trump, it wasn’t surprising.
Trump receives a lot of publicity after he fires off public insults, whether they’re directed at Rosie O’ Donnell or not. However, Trump undoubtedly believes what he says.
Defending Rather’s abilities as a journalist is pointless in this situation.
Trump, like many other Americans, is so enamored with the capitalist ideology that he wouldn’t know quality if he saw it – especially if the product in question didn’t suck in the cash.
True, Trump didn’t say, “Dan Rather doesn’t have a lot of money; therefore, he’s a loser.” But ratings are directly tied to profit, so the aforementioned implication arrives.
Using Trump’s logic, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh was a loser his entire life even though he produced brilliant work.
What’s even sadder is that this mentality doesn’t belong to a small group of people.
The idea that dollar signs indicate quality has pervaded the American mindset for decades – perhaps even a century or two – and millions still adopt and cling to the philosophy.
This line of thinking often produces arguments like “That movie wasn’t any good. Nobody saw it in theaters. If it were any good, people would have seen it, and the film would have made money.”
The above argument rarely comes in the form of those exact words. If you listen closely, though, the argument takes on a number of similar forms.
Many administrative officials will tout a particular idea if money follows the idea.
For instance, why do you think Aramark was chosen to run this university’s dining services instead of a more obscure company? Because Aramark is present – and making money – on many campuses across the United States.
Therefore, the company must do a good job; otherwise, universities wouldn’t employ its services, and Aramark wouldn’t be in business.
This fallacious reasoning is hard to label in terms of well-known logical fallacies.
It frequently correlates with appeal to popularity, the idea that something is true just because it’s popular.
The idea may also correlate with appeal to common practice, the idea that a common action is reasonable just because it’s common.
After searching for a fallacy that describes this flawed logic, I found a term that isn’t mentioned as often as other fallacies like ad hominem (attacking the person instead of the idea).
The fallacy is argumentum ad crumenam, which translates to “an argument to the purse.”
A prevalent interpretation of argumentum ad crumenam is that someone with money is right because he or she is rich.
Although this is very close to what I have described, it doesn’t address an important detail: One may argue that a product, such as a book, is inferior because the product didn’t make money. But the person who formulates such an argument isn’t necessarily rich like Donald Trump.
Still, some have said that argumentum ad crumenam may cover that exception because “an argument to the purse” is open to interpretation.
The point is that it’s better to have a specific term than a vague one when discussing logic.
We should create a new term for this American way of thinking, and that term should be “appeal to consumption.”
A few guidelines should exist for an argument to be characterized as appeal to consumption.
First, it doesn’t matter whether the debater making the claim is rich or poor. This fallacy deals specifically with the idea of intrinsic quality, not the credibility of the speaker.
Second, the claim must imply that a product has low quality because it hasn’t made enough money. A “product” in this case may refer to nonliving matter like a painting by Vincent van Gogh, or it may refer to an actual person like Vincent van Gogh.
Finally, if someone praises the quality of a product that has sold well, the argument hasn’t fallen to appeal to consumption.
Just as it doesn’t make any sense to say a product has low quality because of low sales, it makes even less sense to say a product has low quality because of high sales, especially if you accept the primary condition that quality doesn’t necessarily correlate with sales or lack thereof.
To conclude, I hope appeal to consumption is accepted by many professors of logic and that I end up writing a bestselling book on the subject.
Otherwise, the idea won’t be worth a damn.