Forbidden U-Turn Fallacy

Bad reasoning rarely announces itself. Forbidden U-Turn Fallacy walks in dressed as good sense and leaves with your wallet.

Once you can name this fallacy, you will hear it everywhere — in advertisements, in debates, in your own head at 2 a.m. Do not despair. Hearing it is the beginning of escaping it.

Ask any student of classical music. Ten years of scales before the first real improvisation. The shortcut generation finds this offensive; the tanpura is unmoved.

Learning is the one wealth that survives every partition of fortune. The idea has done its job if, the next time it happens to you, you smile before you react.