Recently, I was debating a hot topic with a brother of mine and he responded with that classic line: “Yeah, that sounds great, but that’ll never happen, so what do you really think?”

He was accusing me of using this informal fallacy often called “wishful thinking” or “the Nirvana fallacy.” I was raging against the good with the perfect. People use this phrase to call foul all of the time, but I would like to quote some Emerson today in response:

“We never make much account of objections which merely respect the actual state of the world at this moment, but which admit the general expediency and permanent excellence of the project. What is the best must be the true; and what is true…must at last prevail over all obstruction and all opposition. There is no good now enjoyed by society that was not once as problematical and visionary as this [current good]. It is the tendency of the true interest of man to become his desire and steadfast aim.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, from “War” 1885

Emerson believed that we enjoy no current good that was not at one point unrealistic, visionary and problematic. At one point, there were African-Americans who said about their future right to vote, “Yeah, but that’ll never happen, so…” At one point, there were French peasants who said about their future revolution, “Yeah, but that’ll never happen, so…” At one point, there were Galilean Jews who said about the coming of the Messiah, “Yeah, but that’ll never happen, so…”

At every intersection, in every debate, we try to find truth. Whatever is perfect–this is the true. Therefore to argue the perfect over the merely good is not wishful thinking or a Nirvana fallacy.

It’s simply true.