A Stupid Choice classic from my youth!
Fox News is determined to show that America hates the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and keeps devising polls increasingly rigged to make their case. This morning Roger Ailes’ culture warriors unveiled a new one, so intellectually dishonest, so devoid of survey legitimacy, that it made me do a Danny Thomas spit-take that soaked my Washington Post with coffee. The question (Note: This is from memory; as of this writing, I cannot find the exact phrasing posted anywhere. When I have it, I’ll use it. This is a fair approximation, however.): “What would you want your child to do when he or she grows up?” The options: 1. Working on Wall Street 2. Occupying Wall Street 3. Neither.
The “surprising results,” as one of Fox’s cloned blond bimbo news-readers bubbled:
44% chose Wall Street
28% chose Occupy Wall Street
18% chose “Neither”
Fox financial commentator Stuart Varney was shocked that 28% would choose the protesters “who want to redistribute income!” over Wall Street. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but that is un-American.”
Oh, cool your jets, Stuart. The poll is un-American; the 28% are fine, given the dishonest, false choice presented by Fox’s poll.
The question as constructed is misleading, manipulative and dishonest, bring the fallacy of the false choice to a new low. It’s primary options are not, in fact, alternatives: Wall Street represents an occupation, Occupy Wall Street is political advocacy. “Would you rather have your child grow up to be a porn star, or an NRA member?” “Would you rather have your child grow up to be an astronaut, or a vegan?” Let’s play the Stupid Choices Game!
What really makes the question both useless and dishonest is the third choice, which implies a false equivalency between the first two. If the idea of choosing between Wall Street and Occupy Wall Street is to express one’s philosophical preference, given only those choices, “neither” should mean “I feel that they are equal,” meaning “equally bad” or “equally good”—there is no way to tell which. However, many, perhaps most, choose the third option to express the view, “none of the above: a pox on both their houses”, or perhaps, “I have no idea what the hell you are getting at.” In this poll, there is no coherent answer, only bad ones.
And here’s the proof: given those three choices, I’d pick 2) Occupy Wall Street, in a heartbeat—that is, if I didn’t hang up the phone on the pollster in disgust, which is what I would do. Sure, I think the protest is foolish, a waste of time and resources, incoherent, illogical, co-opted, confused and dangerous. But I would be more proud of my son acting proactively for vague social and political reform than see him be absorbed into the corrupt and venal culture of Wall Street, which has mutated from an engine of American progress into an irresponsible shell game in which the objectives are personal enrichment, finding loop-holes in regulations, and gambling with the assets of others.
Polls are supposed to inform, not distort. The news media is supposed to use polls to help explain what the public thinks and believes, not bolster what the media wants it to believe. I have never seen a poll so simultaneously incompetent, misleading, and simple-minded.
Yet there are benefits even to this piece of opinion research excrement—two of them, in fact. It is the best example I have yet seen of the ways misleading polling data is manufactured by pollsters. And the Stupid Choices Game it suggests is fun. I’ve been concocting dumb either/or questions all morning.
Send in your favorite, and I’ll announce a winner tomorrow!
Ethics Alarms 
Would you rather your child to grow up to be a lawyer or happy?
STRONG first entry!
Gets a vote from me!
Would you rather live by ethical teachings, or teach ethics for a living?
You’re dead.
Jack,
You’re not wrong about the unfairness of the poll in general, however, the counter-examples you provided don’t fit the framework. After all, in their example, the political position is diametrically opposed to the career choice, making the two seemingly incompatible (though there’s nothing that says one can’t work for a job they find deplorable, either). A better example would have been “Would you rather your child work at a slaughterhouse or be a vegan?”
The unfair part (as you mentioned) is that options 1 and 3 could both be counted by the pollsters as being “against” the Wall Street protesters as there’s no middle-ground left for someone to hate Wall Street and also hate the protesters. Then again, what does one expect from any network sponsored poll?
-Neil
I never suggested that the counter examples were exact equivalents, except in two respects: the two options are not true alternatives, and the questions containing them are stupid. Other than the fact that one can’t work for a living while one is goofing off participating in a poor excuse fore a protest, there is no “either/or” features to a short-term demonstration, whatever it is about, and working on Wall Street or anywhere else.
The whole dumb premise is based on the assumption that where one works necessarily implies a political attitude—not true: Wall Street firms are giving lots of money to the Obama Campaign; plenty of Pentagon workers oppose various wars. Occupy Wall Street is NOT an occupation or a source of income or a fill-time, long term pursuit,, unlike working on Wall Street. In fact, I’d be shocked if a majority of the OWS crowd, if offered a job on Wall Street, wouldn’t snap it up in a second,
The answer to your last question: better than THIS. When you can’t come up to a standard that is already below sea level, it’s pretty pathetic.
You forgot your entry.
Jack,
Again, your hostility confuses me as:
1) I didn’t argue with the premise of your article (“You’re not wrong about the unfairness of the poll in general ..”) nor was my tone antagonistic.
2) Your other point is simply a restatement of what I already said: “.. there’s nothing that says one can’t work for a job they find deplorable ..”
3) What entry am I forgetting?
-Neil
There are two reasons for my hostility, as you term it, regarding your comment, one minor, and one major:
1. Minor—It’s nitpicking. My tolerance for nitpicking varies depending on how much of it I have had to deal with lately.
2. Major: The last time you visited, you threw a tantrum because I didn’t sufficiently condemn Prohibition for your taste, offending your doctrinaire absolutist libertarian belief-system, and despite the fact that I have entertained and engaged your various comments over a long period of time, announced that:
“Ethics alarms and I apparently have irreconcilable differences and I must therefore end the union. Best.”
To which I replied:
“All differences are irreconcilable if you don’t have the fortitude to work them out.
Your conduct was the blog equivalent of hanging up on someone mid-phone conversation: it was rude, and an insult to the open dialogue and wide range of opinions I entertain and try to foster here. The usual way to come crawling back after an exit like that is called an apology, not “nitpicking.” I haven’t read one yet.
I apologize for the nit-picking and truly meant no disrespect. I agree my comment was entirely trivial but it wasn’t intended as a challenge, simply as an observation for you to disregard or not at your leisure. I won’t deny having over-reacted and even having thrown a bit of a tantrum. This being the internet and us being little more than strangers, I assumed the prohibition argument was as ephemeral as so many that had proceeded it and honestly didn’t think you’d given it more than a second thought. For that, I also apologize.
As for the rest, I’m not really sure my behavior was so severe as to warrant having to “crawl back.” I’ve been a loyal reader and commentor for some years and hoped I’d earned a little bit of credit in the forgiveness bank. In fact, the incident in question was so uncharacteristic of my usual discourse here that it could be explained away under the “fluke” rule as I’m not the first human being to fly off the handle over something silly.
What I did was not at all akin to hanging up the phone mid-conversation as I did hear you out by reading your response, I only felt that any further comment on my part would only serve to breed more animosity. Moreover, to do my arguments justice would have taken a comment far longer than manners would dictate appropriate and that my own disinterest would have made impossible. I’m fundamentally lazy at heart and don’t generally foster debate if I don’t think I have a fair chance of making a convincing point.
My arguments were absurd only because I thought yours were equally so although, in hindsight, I regret having been so vociferous in that respect.
Does any of that count for anything?
If you are going to write things like “At times like these I thank the gods you’re a blogger and not a legislator, else I might have to defend Rick Perry as being “not so bad.” and refuse to defend such an insult because you have “disinterest” is bad manners and doubly offensive. My time is valuable.I don’t do this for my health. If you expect me to take a comment seriously, then you are accountable for it. Throwing bombs and refusing to take responsibility is hit-and-run tactics. Neil, you are welcome to post as you please, but my attitude toward commenters is determined by the respect with which they treat the topics, the blogs, and my time.