This is terrible argumentation. There is absolutely no reason to ever appeal to the slippery slope. It is unconvincing, ineffective, and to be frank, more than a little dishonest. The slippery slope isn't just the province of crusty old conservatives, however (though they do seem to be trying their best to stake the strongest claim on it). You might hear someone complaining about how if the government censors certain content, it's a done deal that they will begin censoring everything else until we're in a Ray Bradbury novel, or that if we allow a certain voice prominence, it is a done deal that they will end up running our society. It is, unfortunately, a concept that rears its hideous, tortured head in all walks of life, regardless of politics, religion, nationality, or (most unfortunately) education.
So what is it?
The "slippery slope" is primarily the idea of trying to take two distinct concepts and present them as being inextricably linked. If one happens, then it is inevitable that the other will happen as well, it's only a matter of time. If we tolerate homosexuality, then it is inevitable that we will one day tolerate pedophilia. If you accept Marxism, then it is only a matter of time until you embrace Leninism. If we allow religious displays in our government buildings, it is a foregone conclusion that we will become a theocratic state. The general idea is that taking even one step down the slope will lead to you losing your footing and sliding down all the way to the bottom without any way to get back up, regardless of your intentions.
So why is it bad?
1. It is fortune-telling.
One of the biggest issues with the slippery slope is that it is impossible to prove. It is one hundred percent conjecture. You are not presenting a logical or coherent argument, you are predicting the future. The slippery slope is rarely presented alongside evidence, and even when it is, it is nearly impossible for that evidence to be conclusive. In other words, the slippery slope argument rarely amounts to anything more than a gut feeling. Even if the prediction ends up being true, it is still an entirely unhelpful argument because, again, you cannot satisfactorily establish causality.
2. It is a false dichotomy.
The slippery slope is what we call a "continuum fallacy." The idea here is that you're taking two concepts and saying that it's either one or the other, and ignoring the possibility that there could be some middle ground. To take the examples above, the slippery slope states that it is impossible for someone to accept homosexuality but reject pedophilia or to accept Marxism but reject Leninism. More nuanced forms of the slippery slope (and I use the term "nuanced" liberally) might suggest that it is possible, but logically inconsistent. This is simply false. I haven't got the space to go into why here, but suffice it to say that most issues are not all-or-nothing. It is, in actual fact, quite possible to go partway down the slope, put your foot down, and stay there without going any further. Ideas aren't a package deal. Everything can and must be evaluated independently, on its own merits.
3. It is fear-mongering.
Plain and simple. The slippery slope is not an appeal to logic. It is not an appeal to reason. It is an appeal to emotion. It says: "X is bad, and you don't want X to happen, do you? Well then you can't support Y, because Y will lead to X!" Rational creatures would look at that and say "Well, how do you know that Y will lead to X?" but no matter what we like to think of ourselves, we as humans are not purely rational creatures and so we might initially react with "What? X? Hang on, I don't want X to happen! Well we'd better stop Y, then!" Practice with critical thinking can help mitigate this, but I don't believe that anyone is ever truly free of it. If you want to rile up a crowd or get some strong reactions, the slippery slope is a great tool. But if you want to communicate in a way that is thought-provoking, logical, and charitable - avoid at all costs.
4. It is historically ignorant.
Very few issues are recent, and even if they've taken on a new shape or focus in the past few decades, it is likely that the topic has been raised at some point in the past in one form or another. This means that in almost any given topic, if the slippery slope does exist, we're likely already on it. If we're already on the slope, then this means that either we are already sliding inexorably towards the bottom, in which case there's nothing we can do about it, or it's possible for us to stop partway down and start to go back up, in which case the slippery slope becomes self-refuting because it's not actually slippery at all. Either way, declaring something to be a slippery slope seems to be a pointless endeavour.
A Note About Logical Fallacies.
Perhaps the single most important thing to remember about logical fallacies is that just because an argument is fallacious doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. Cause and effect (probably) exists, and concepts and events do lead in to one another. It is, for example, entirely possible that someone will begin reading Marx and as a direct result of reading Marx will begin to read Lenin and embrace Lenin's ideology. Another example is that it is a ridiculous argument to say "It is a slippery slope from political assassination in the Balkans to Germans and British using flesh-eating gas on one another" and yet the former event definitively led to the latter happening. See, the point of this post isn't to say that everything is separate and nothing is linked, but rather to say that just because a link can be drawn between two things doesn't mean that it should, and to provide a reminder that ideas must be evaluated on their own merits.
Also, logical fallacies exist to help us sharpen our logical skills, clarify our thoughts, identify pitfalls, and communicate effectively. A pet peeve of mine is when logical fallacies are reduced to mere points in a verbal fencing match. Pointing out a logical fallacy someone has committed is rarely the same as refuting their point. If your primary concern is to point out the logical flaws in the arguments of others, rather than to listen to and consider what they have to say, then you have missed the entire purpose of arguing in the first place. Pointing out tangential fallacies (that is to say, fallacies that are made in passing or that are irrelevant to the argument the person is trying to make) is almost always bad form and usually only serves to make you seem extraordinarily petty.
A Note to Christians.
I confess that I've got a particular agenda in writing this post, and it's got nothing to do with gay marriage or Marxism or whichever other examples I happened to use above. This is actually a part of a loosely-connected series of posts I'm doing to address what I believe to be one of the biggest problems in evangelical Christianity today: Gatekeeping. Evangelical gatekeepers attempt to keep their flocks "pure" by ensuring that only certain ideas and teachings are allowed in or out. Personally I find this sort of heavy regulation to be incredibly detrimental to honest pursuit of God and faith, but that's a conversation for another time. The slippery slope is, in my experience, a favourite tactic of gatekeepers when they cannot (generally due to political reasons) dismiss something outright as heresy. A person, book, sermon, concept, or organization that they dislike might be described as not necessarily wrong, but something that places people on the path to things that are wrong. The problem with this, of course, is threefold: First, the understanding of "wrong" or "bad" theology hinges upon the gatekeeper's definition - hardly an authoritative source; second, it makes the untenable assumption that accepting one will lead to accepting the other; third, it is an attempt to use fear to ensure that their beliefs are upheld. Examples of this might be New Calvinist organizations today who link gender roles with the Gospel and say that egalitarian gender roles are the first step on a slippery slope to undermining the core of the Christian faith, or groups within the Southern Baptists who feel that embracing Calvinism will inevitably lead to apathy in missions. Perhaps the most well-known example is groups like Answers in Genesis, who assert that denying a literal six-day creation necessarily leads to denying all of Christianity.
So if you are a Christian, and especially if you are a Christian leader, my plea to you today is this: If you disagree with a doctrine or teaching, then do so on its own basis. Please do not base your arguments on where the doctrine could potentially lead. That is intellectually dishonest, it is fear-mongering, and it is categorically harmful to honest discussion. Guys. I'm not saying you have to agree with or tolerate every opinion out there. I'm not even saying you need to be respectful of everyone - I mean, it'd be nice, but I know how hard that can be. All I'm saying is, please, enough with the drama. Hearing about how every little doctrinal difference is getting blown out of proportion to be an attack on the Gospel is exhausting. Enough is enough.
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