Editor,

I wanted to call out the logical fallacy printed in Shirley Connuck’s letter to the editor published online on 1/18/21 as a classic example of the fallacy of relative privation. Just because someone else somewhere else has it worse (in this case 30 cents per bag vs our 5 cents per bag) doesn’t mean that the problem at hand is not a problem. Would she say the same thing about a much more serious issue such as clean water for example? “Where I lived in country xyz we had to drink bottled water and couldn’t use tap so people in Flint, MI should just stop complaining.”

Julie Bertoia
Falls Church