Contradiction

CONTRADICTION, a set of in­com­pat­i­ble premis­es. Try­ing to rec­on­cile such a set may re­sult in two or more parts can­cel­ing each oth­er out of ex­is­tence (if prop­er­ly ar­ranged), in­ter­act­ing with de­struc­tive force, join­ing to cre­ate one or more com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent en­ti­ties, or any of these re­sults in com­bi­na­tion.

An ex­am­ple of a con­tra­dic­tion is Broad­way Butch­ery, a play about New York Ci­ty's Meat­pack­ing District, com­posed by Raylenette Young of Boise, Ida­ho and con­sid­ered by many to be a mas­ter­piece of dis­in­for­ma­tion. Based on a dream which was in­spired by a help-want­ed post­ing in the Ida­ho States­man, it is con­sid­ered both the worst and best the­atre play ev­er writ­ten, with both the short­est and longest runs in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. The pub­lic de­but was can­celed af­ter one per­for­mance due to the dis­rup­tive protests of an­i­mal-rights groups, who were con­vinced that cru­el­ty was some­how in­volved al­though no liv­ing be­ings took part in the show. How­ev­er, it re­mains an un­der­ground fa­vorite to the present day, with many re­peat at­ten­dees form­ing dis­cus­sion groups ded­i­cat­ed to sort­ing out the play's main premise.

Anal­y­ses of ex­tradi­men­sion­al and oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties for Broad­way Butch­ery's al­ter­nate view of ge­og­ra­phy are reg­u­lar­ly writ­ten as a study ex­er­cise in city plan­ning cours­es. Th­ese oc­ca­sion­al­ly make their way in­to of­fi­cial doc­u­ments, caus­ing some con­struc­tion projects to have to be de­mol­ished and restart­ed mul­ti­ple times af­ter im­pos­si­bil­i­ties are at­tempt­ed.