Logical Fallacies in an excerpt from “The Lottery”

“They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.”

                Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Use to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody.”

                “Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said.

                “Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools.”

“Pack of crazy fools” and “Pack of young fools”

            Old Man Warner is using ad hominem to attack the character traits of the young people from the other towns rather than providing an argument about their point of view. This could also be interpreted as a circular argument, because instead of actually proving his argument that the young people are crazy, he just restates it.

“Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them”

            Old Man Warner is basing his argument that discontinuing the lottery is bad, simply because the idea originated with the young people. This is an example of a genetic fallacy. He is judging if something is good or bad solely on where (or whom) it comes from. This is also a straw man fallacy, because he oversimplifies the young peoples’ viewpoint to being that “nothing is good enough for them”, when their argument for stopping their lotteries is probably much deeper than that. Old Man Warner’s argument is also a post hoc fallacy. He believes that because the young people are snobby, the lottery was stopped. But there is no actual proof that the young people are the only ones who brought about the end of the lottery.

“Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while”

            This statement applies to many logical fallacies. The first being a slippery slope fallacy: he is saying that if we don’t want to go back to living like cavemen, we cannot let the lottery be discontinued. This could also be an either/or fallacy: there are only two options presented, either live like cavemen or live normally. This could also be a red herring, because he does not directly address the argument of canceling the lottery, but instead brings up ridiculous claims in order to divert the conversation in another direction.

‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon’

            Old Man Warner uses an anecdotal fallacy here by using an isolated example of a somewhat valid argument in order to dismiss the statistics of the towns who are canceling lotteries.

“There’s always been a lottery”

            Old Man Warner is trying to appeal to tradition by claiming that since there has always been a lottery, continuing with the lottery is the only valid option.

“Some places have already quit lotteries”

            Mrs. Adams tries to counter-argue Old Man Warner with a bandwagon fallacy. She is trying to appeal to the fact that since the idea of canceling the lottery is popular in some towns, that it must have some validity.

“Nothing but trouble in that”

            Old Man Warner comes back with a hasty generalization. He does not have sufficient evidence to prove that there is “nothing but trouble” if the lottery is discontinued, but he still rushes to this conclusion without proper factual evidence.