My Issue With All or None

[unspeakablehorror]

One thing that always bothers me is any kind of universalizing statement like 'this group never does this' or 'that group always does that' or (especially) 'of course everyone is like this'.  The thing about statements like these is that they are very difficult to prove, and tend to be very easy to disprove.  A single counterexample disproves any of these statements, and there tends to be quite a bit more than the minimum necessary available to disprove such things.  Furthermore, many times it's not remotely possible to know every member of a group, so people simply don't even have the theoretical ability to prove this.  It just bothers me a lot. 

And it's also just not necessary to say that every member of a group is a certain way to make some point about group dynamics.  It's really only necessary to show that something happens with reasonable frequency or has widespread effects to show that it's worth discussing as a group dynamic.

Comments

[osteophage]

This is why the word "disproportionate" can be much more useful.

[unspeakablehorror]

Indeed, that can be a more useful way to phrase things. In general I think it's good to acknowledge that societal issues aren't about things like 'all of group X is like this' through language. I don't like to get on anyone's case too much about it, because I do realize people often aren't trying to speak precisely, but I think if someone's making statements they intend to be taken seriously, that this kind of thing needs to be given more importance. People shouldn't be formulating calls to action based on statements that are fundamentally incorrect.