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What is it about dichotomies that make people cling to them so? Is it just the odds? If you can have a 50/50 chance of being right, you're willing to ignore that the odds may actually be, like, 10/20/25/45?
I personally only care for one dichotomy: GOOD VS EVIL. And even that is way more nuanced than a simple dichotomy can show. And most of the time, it seems like people try to apply that dichotomy to every other dichotomy they see: if light vs dark is a dichotomy, then light must be "good" and dark must be "evil." Or, for most people I know, "my political party is good, therefore the OTHER political party is EVIL." And there's a reason I didn't specify any particular political party in that statement: because YOU BOTH DO IT. ALL THE TIME.
Politically I claim to be an independent, and I stand by that. My mother-in-law claims I am not as independent as I think I am, primarily because I agree with her about some things (agreeing about some things must therefore = not being AGAINST me so therefore = being WITH me). It's not that I can't decide. It's that I HAVE decided about many things, and neither Side of the false dichotomy that is bipartisan politics speaks for all or even MOST of the things I have decided! Why CAN'T I be FOR gay marriage and AGAINST abortion? Why can't I be FOR giving troops adequate supplies and AGAINST going to war in the first place? Why can't I be FOR the separation of church and state and AGAINST the suppression of religious expression? Why can't I be FOR everyone getting health care and AGAINST government bureaucracy? Why can't I put my faith in God AND science? Why can't I love the Beatles AND the Stones? And most of all, why can't the people on the two sides of any argument SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO EACH OTHER for a change!
I like playing devil's advocate, especially when talking to people who are clearly taking sides. This is why my husband calls me a liberal hippie freak and yet I'm one of the lone voices of conservatism in the comments of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vovat's posts. I like to stand back and see what everyone's saying, what everyone's thinking, what everyone's true motivations are. I've realized, doing this, that everyone agrees much more often than they think they do. Everyone wants financial freedom, it's just one side thinks freedom means No Government Interference and the other side thinks freedom means Cracking Down on Corporate Exploitation. So suddenly the OTHER side are Communists or Greedy Rich Tyrants. So suddenly, even though everyone has the same GOAL, now they are fighting against each other, Good vs Evil! and everyone has no doubt that they are on the side of Good.
The funniest-sad (saddest-funny) thing I see, as a librarian, is that both Sides are convinced that the Other Side is most responsible for Censorship and the stifling of the Freedom of Speech. And let us not restrict those "sides" to political matters. Whatever the topic, everyone feels Their Voice is underrepresented --or even suppressed-- because of the influence of The Other. EVERYONE. ALL SIDES. Recently, a hot topic in a blog post and a hot topic on the SCBWI boards claimed the exact opposite things about the representation of sex in YA novels and how that related to the experiences of real life teens. On one side, teens having sex weren't represented enough. On the other, teens NOT having sex weren't represented enough. The real ironic thing is, in BOTH conversations, the original poster got very huffy and upset and accused commenters of Trying to Change the Subject whenever someone disagreed with them!
False dichotomies are everywhere. Why do people think they are either a Reading Person or a Math Person? Even though I am good at math, I decided in about 6th grade that I must be a Reading Person and not a Math Person because I hated math CLASS (not to mention the whole Bookworm Thing). It took me until college to realize that I actually DO like math, I just don't like some of the ways it is taught. People talk about the Lack of Girls in Science, never realizing this may be a result of forcing people to choose between Words and Numbers. Why can't you have both? Think of one of the most famous and groundbreaking female minds in science history, Rachel Carson. How did she change the world? By WRITING about science. Turning numbers into words. Combining the two supposed Sides.
I could give example after example of the false dichotomies I see, but the individual issues are not my point. My point is the utter conviction people have that Their Side is Blameless and Those Other People are at fault. Every side is quick to point out the idiotic things the other side does. Except that, in most cases, both sides are doing the Exact Same Things.
The Other Side is ALWAYS full of hypocrites.
I personally only care for one dichotomy: GOOD VS EVIL. And even that is way more nuanced than a simple dichotomy can show. And most of the time, it seems like people try to apply that dichotomy to every other dichotomy they see: if light vs dark is a dichotomy, then light must be "good" and dark must be "evil." Or, for most people I know, "my political party is good, therefore the OTHER political party is EVIL." And there's a reason I didn't specify any particular political party in that statement: because YOU BOTH DO IT. ALL THE TIME.
Politically I claim to be an independent, and I stand by that. My mother-in-law claims I am not as independent as I think I am, primarily because I agree with her about some things (agreeing about some things must therefore = not being AGAINST me so therefore = being WITH me). It's not that I can't decide. It's that I HAVE decided about many things, and neither Side of the false dichotomy that is bipartisan politics speaks for all or even MOST of the things I have decided! Why CAN'T I be FOR gay marriage and AGAINST abortion? Why can't I be FOR giving troops adequate supplies and AGAINST going to war in the first place? Why can't I be FOR the separation of church and state and AGAINST the suppression of religious expression? Why can't I be FOR everyone getting health care and AGAINST government bureaucracy? Why can't I put my faith in God AND science? Why can't I love the Beatles AND the Stones? And most of all, why can't the people on the two sides of any argument SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO EACH OTHER for a change!
I like playing devil's advocate, especially when talking to people who are clearly taking sides. This is why my husband calls me a liberal hippie freak and yet I'm one of the lone voices of conservatism in the comments of
vovat's posts. I like to stand back and see what everyone's saying, what everyone's thinking, what everyone's true motivations are. I've realized, doing this, that everyone agrees much more often than they think they do. Everyone wants financial freedom, it's just one side thinks freedom means No Government Interference and the other side thinks freedom means Cracking Down on Corporate Exploitation. So suddenly the OTHER side are Communists or Greedy Rich Tyrants. So suddenly, even though everyone has the same GOAL, now they are fighting against each other, Good vs Evil! and everyone has no doubt that they are on the side of Good. The funniest-sad (saddest-funny) thing I see, as a librarian, is that both Sides are convinced that the Other Side is most responsible for Censorship and the stifling of the Freedom of Speech. And let us not restrict those "sides" to political matters. Whatever the topic, everyone feels Their Voice is underrepresented --or even suppressed-- because of the influence of The Other. EVERYONE. ALL SIDES. Recently, a hot topic in a blog post and a hot topic on the SCBWI boards claimed the exact opposite things about the representation of sex in YA novels and how that related to the experiences of real life teens. On one side, teens having sex weren't represented enough. On the other, teens NOT having sex weren't represented enough. The real ironic thing is, in BOTH conversations, the original poster got very huffy and upset and accused commenters of Trying to Change the Subject whenever someone disagreed with them!
False dichotomies are everywhere. Why do people think they are either a Reading Person or a Math Person? Even though I am good at math, I decided in about 6th grade that I must be a Reading Person and not a Math Person because I hated math CLASS (not to mention the whole Bookworm Thing). It took me until college to realize that I actually DO like math, I just don't like some of the ways it is taught. People talk about the Lack of Girls in Science, never realizing this may be a result of forcing people to choose between Words and Numbers. Why can't you have both? Think of one of the most famous and groundbreaking female minds in science history, Rachel Carson. How did she change the world? By WRITING about science. Turning numbers into words. Combining the two supposed Sides.
I could give example after example of the false dichotomies I see, but the individual issues are not my point. My point is the utter conviction people have that Their Side is Blameless and Those Other People are at fault. Every side is quick to point out the idiotic things the other side does. Except that, in most cases, both sides are doing the Exact Same Things.
The Other Side is ALWAYS full of hypocrites.
