On the slippery slope?

Reader question:

Please explain “slippery slope” in this sentence: The idea of accepting editing photos can be a slippery slope, meaning if you accept all edits then you can end up with a false image.

My comments:

Good question. I’ve written about the slippery slope argument before. Don’t mind doing it one more time.

What they mean to say is they don’t accept to editing photos because they think it’s a bad idea, a dangerous idea, as a matter of fact.

First, the concept of the slippery slope. Imagine you’re walking down the hill on a rainy day. The slope is steep and slippery. Suppose you’re in a hurry as well… Yes, you understand how dangerous it is to negotiate your way down the slippery hill. Down that slope, you easily slip.

And hurt yourself.

Hence, the slippery argument contends that any small problem if not properly contained and effectively dealt with at the beginning of its development will, eventually, lead to disaster.

The logic being, one thing leads to another and the original problem will lead to something bad and out of control. Therefore, you need to nip the problem in the bud.

Oh, another example, a good one. I’ve been reading, one more time, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. In this great novel on the duality of human nature, Mr Enfield explains to his kinsman Mr Utterson, the lawyer why he never ask too much questions regarding strangers – saying starting a question is like “starting a stone” down a slippery slope:

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly: “And you don’t know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?”

“A likely place, isn’t it?” returned Mr. Enfield. “But I happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other.”

“And you never asked about the--place with the door?” said Mr. Utterson.

“No, sir: I had a delicacy,” was the reply. “I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to change their name. No sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.”

“A very good rule, too,” said the lawyer.

That’s the slippery slope argument, okay?

OK. Now, it is easier to explain why some people deem it a bad idea to allow photos to be edited. Once you allow photos to be edited, according to this line of thinking, people will edit them even if they don’t really have to, first in a small degree, then to a large extent. Eventually a picture is so altered that it doesn’t look like the original photograph taken at all.

This is why, for example, many photo competitions accept only RAW files (photos sort of in their original state, like the old films) – not JPG files for these can easily be doctored via software such as the Adobe Photoshop.

That’s it, end of the slippery slope, for the second time, from me.

Now, you may not agree with all of them, but people do make slippery slope arguments all the time, in one way or another.

Here are a few examples:

1. Consumers have been warned that overspending can be a “slippery slope” to bankruptcy.

Personal finance writer Cliff D’Arcy stated that people who do not attempt to curb their expenditure will simply build up credit card bills and accumulate interest, fees and fines.

“When you start seeing your credit card limit as a target, that’s another problem,” he said. “Eventually you spiral to the situation where you are forking out a major part of your income each month, just on servicing debt.”