Black and White Thinking is Ruining the Human Experience
When Your Racist Neighbor Over Pays His Mexican Lawn Guy
Tribalism has now breached the gates. It first took our cable news stations. Then our political parties. Now it’s come for logic and reasoning itself.
Everyone now has a “side.” Yours vs mine. Us vs them. Good vs bad.
The spectrum of truth is exclusively black or white now. Nothing in between. No room for nuance.
How did we get here?
When the Ego Takes over
The ego is the thing that keeps us alive as children: it propels us forward, makes us aware of the environment. When we are “conditioned,” it’s the ego doing this conditioning work.
The ego is built to keep us alive. Survival is the name of its game.
But we’re no longer in the jungle, defending ourselves from lions, and tigers. We’re in our homes with our families, safe places with people who love us.
The survival tricks that worked in childhood often stop working into adulthood.
But these little egos can’t help but continue the pattern. They paint in very stark categories to help our bodies navigate our surroundings. When we lived on the Serengeti, this was a huge help.
LION = BAD.
WATER = GOOD.
But as we mature, so does our nuance. Not all water is good. Ever been to Mexico? Or India? You have to grow up with that water for it to not leave you in the fetal position for a good thirty-six hours.
We learn to make distinctions. We qualify our experiences, because few are totally bad.
Some are degrees of good or bad (mostly good, kinda ish). But we learn to understand the distinctions. It’s rare for something to be categorically bad, especially when it comes to things of insurmountable worth…
Our Present Moment
Our modern politics is a great starting point. We didn’t always paint matters with such massive brushstrokes. It was just who’d be better at this moment. Swing voters are an exemplar of this, because they will vote for whoever is the best person on the issues, not based on political party.
The country used to be much less black and white in their thinking, and it was so common, that as recent as George H.W. Bush, about a third of the country was open to vote for either party.
But by the time his own son George W. Bush, ran for office, swing voters dwindled dramatically. By 2004, something like 3-4% were true “swing voters” who would willingly vote for either side.
And as our pool swing voters disappeared, our political discourse dissolved with it. The Right often used words like “commie” or “socialist” to describe ANY position a Democrat takes. The Left often uses “racist” or “facist” even when it makes no sense.
And to be fair, some of these words are accurate, but they are not accurate all the time, for every position, for every elected official. But the problem is, we tend to think exclusively in categories now, this box or that box..
Nuance is dead.
All that’s left is an Either-Or fallacy. There’s never a third option.
In our 64 Crayola pack, we only reach for Black or White. Never another shade. Nor any other color on the spectrum.
We Miss the Person
