The Five-Paragraph Monster: The Fallacy of Trifurcation

            You know the drill: Say what you’re going to say.  Divide your subject into three. Say what you just said. Predictable. Boring. Wrong.

During Aristotle’s lifetime, 384-322 BCE, communication was predominantly in-person and oral.  Writing, up until that time, was limited to what was depicted on walls, etched into stone and coins, inked onto scrolls. For entertainment, the communities met in outdoor theatres, sports arenas, and fair grounds.  A popular form of entertainment was the debate. 

To provide some parameters and criteria for these debates, the structure that came to infiltrate classrooms was born: introduction, three points, conclusion.  It made sense.  These debates were oral, there had to be time-limits for fairness, and the point was to judge the content.  The structure curtailed grand-standing and bullying.  The five-point structure was a game that resulted in laurels and prizes.  Because the game was oral and not written, there had to be a structure that judges and the fans could keep clearly in mind when the contestants were done with their declamations. 

In our contemporary world, this structure has come to be a monster in the classroom—yet another arbitrary form into which students are required to squeeze themselves.  It puts their minds into neat, controllable rows so that their thoughts can be controlled and digitally boxed up for assessment.  It hearkens us back to the idea that writing is a contest and that laurels and prizes (grades) are what count.

Let’s dispense with the first and fifth paragraphs: The five-paragraph intro and ending are invitations to fluffing and filling up the paper.  We will consider better ways to start and end your pieces of writing than boring thesis state and the summary.  There are better ways to respect the reader and inspire her to reread what you wrote above; read further into your subject; write, herself; or launch into action. 

Now, about the middle paragraphs. It’s bad enough that the five-paragraph monster nips at students’ heels and tightens their mental and emotional muscles as they recoil from the teacher’s bite: “Wrong.” But, worst of all, writers come to believe that the world is necessarily divided, in all its myriad of aspects, into threes.  I call this “the fallacy of trifurcation"—dividing experience into threes—a close cousin of “the fallacy of bifurcation”—dividing experience into twos—claiming that “there are always two sides to an issue.”  The two words derive from "furcate," which means 'branching like a fork.'  The "tri" suffix means 'three'; the "bi," 'two'.  

The expression “there are always two sides to the story” is usually used when someone is voicing a complaint, you disagree with him, and you want to take another person’s side. It’s an expression that diminishes or outright dismisses the plaintiff’s experience and claim.  It’s insulting—but in a passive-aggressive way, so the plaintiff is also silenced.

And, yes, there are many ways to interpret a situation, but it’s rarely limited to “two sides.”  (1) Every one of us is a mix of multiple feelings and thoughts—so one person might have three “sides,” himself, in a particular case; the other, ten. And that can change over time, too. To limit sides arbitrarily to two, invites shutting down at the first, apparent thought. It arbitrarily cuts off depth of understanding. Better to consider more possibilities. (2) At some point, as, for example, in a rape, someone is responsible. To claim that both the victim and “the other side”—the rapist—have equal culpability is flat out inhuman.

And so, as the fallacy of bifurcation misleads, so, too, does the fallacy of trifurcation.  Get to three, and you’re done. Not! And, while we’re considering it, the fallacy of pentfurcation misleads, too—get to five paragraphs, and you’re done. Life and thought are far more complex, inspiring, protean, worthy of time than that. Don't get furcated!  Don't get stuck! Don't get forked! 

What is your experience with the fallacy of bifurcation? The fallacy of trifurcation?  The Five-Paragraph Monster?

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Cover Art: Sandra Boynton