Beneficial Opposition v. Polarization

Why is polarization so bad? I mean, I like what I like. And what I dislike, I don’t want any part of it. There are people who like pineapple on pizza and there are those who are right. You either hate pineapple on pizza or you’re wrong! There are only two options. So far, polarization sounds pretty good. There is group polarization. This type of polarization is when there is a group of people that consistently reinforce previously held beliefs or opinions. The more the group opinions are discussed, the more extreme they become. To understand the impact, we must break it down a bit. Binary thinking and beneficial opposition are two good places to start.

Binary thinking is the process of thinking in terms of two. It is either this way or that way. There are no other ways. This has roots as old as time. But as it pertains to the U.S., we can go to the Revolutionary War. It is us, the new British, against them, the old British. It is the unrepresented against the negligent representatives. It is the oppressed against the oppressor. Karl Marx capitalized (ironic word to use here) on this weakness of the mind when he wrote the Communist Manifesto. He highlighted the oppressor (Bourgeois) and the oppressed (proletariat). Marx realized that if he could accomplish the task of everyone thinking in terms of two, then get the two at total odds with each other, this would open the door for someone to come in and “save the day.” This is how you take control of a group or country. As a result, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao attempted just that. Even Hitler knew to get people within Germany at odds with themselves. He also set out to divide the country into groups so that they fought with each other, allowing him to do whatever he pleased because they were so preoccupied with the fight at hand.

So what does binary thinking have to do with polarization? When we are in a binary mode of thinking, one against the other, it turns the argument into being polarized one way or the other. If we could get our thinking out of binary and into multivariate thinking, it would begin to eliminate polarization because there are many different ways of viewing something or someone. For instance, politics is the easiest mechanism to use for this conversation. People often think we are either republicans or democrats. But what if we’re neither? We feel ostracized. What if I believe in liberal ideals in some areas and conservative ideals in other areas? What if there aren’t only two ways of viewing a problem or a solution? If we open our eyes, we will see that there are many reasons why someone would want the government out of their business. There are many different ways to view a problem and even more ways to view a solution. If you limit your thinking to bi-directional, you miss out on so many other vantage points that are very plausible

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Another part of the problem with this polarized way of thinking is that it only stokes existing fires and begins to remove anything beneficial to you coming from such sources. For example, you believe orange man is bad for our country. So everything you will see on social media and everyone you talk to will echo this sentiment. You will never be able to digest him doing something good. Polarization exacerbates negative emotion… “Get your pitchforks and your torches!” they said, when they were running to lynch Shrek. They knew only what they had been told by their echo chambers and never heard another perspective that may challenge theirs. As the story goes, we learn that Shrek was actually a very kind gentleman.

Beneficial opposition is maybe the most interesting concept, and yet a quite simple one also. Opposition, in the way I’m using it here, can be explained in terms of working out. When you lift weights, you cause opposition, or resistance. You tear the muscle to make it heal stronger. You put force against it so that in the final analysis, it benefits the muscle. We require beneficial opposition to keep us calibrated in life.

Another interesting version of beneficial opposition is marriage. In the Bible, God says that it isn’t good for Adam to be alone and that He is creating a “helpmate” for Adam. That term helpmate is made of two Hebrew words, ezer and kenegdo. The term ezer means to rescue, save, to be strong. Kenegdo means to oppose, compliment, counter. This term is used 21 times in the bible; 3 for military, 2 for women, and the other 16 times it was the term used to describe God as a stabilizing helper. This is how important women are to society and to us. So God said (paraphrased), “I’m going to give you someone who will help you on one hand, and oppose and counter you on the other.” This is a principle that is used in neurophysiology when they want to stabilize something. Applying opposing force to something causes it to become more steady, less shaky, and more capable of direct linear movement. If you have recently changed a car battery, there is usually a block that is bolted down that helps stabilize the battery so that it doesn’t move around and cause harm to the engine. That is a beneficially stabilizing force. So God Himself knew that we needed beneficial opposition and created just that for us. In common vernacular, God gave us someone to keep us in check, because as men, we need it!

Back to polarization. If we now know that we need multiple viewpoints to avoid binary thinking that leads to inevitable polarization, the only way this is possible is through beneficial opposition, hearing something we haven’t heard before. We must open our ears to viewpoints we don’t typically share in order to hear a perspective we haven’t thought of. The problem is that listening to viewpoints that may conflict with our previously held presuppositions causes internal conflict. This internal conflict is uncomfortable. We are presented with an idea that, if accepted by us, means we have been wrong the whole time about the previously held idea. And this goes against our very nature to seek proper understanding. Now we’re faced with the possibility of being wrong, which could cause us to second-guess everything else in our lives. What all have I been wrong about if I was wrong about that? For some, this causes them to rethink their entire existence, which is detrimental to their health. Hopefully, at some point, we get more and more comfortable being wrong about something in order to become more knowledgeable and closer to the ultimate aspiration in proper understanding. It’s ok to be wrong. Let the old idea go. Accept the new idea and let it propel you forward.

The way to avoid polarization is to open your mind to multiple ideas and be willing to hear opposition to a previously held idea with the possibility that you were already correct or maybe you were not and now that you have accepted this new idea, you are now correct in your thinking on that subject. It’s possible. Having said all that, don’t expect me to start putting pineapple on my pizza. I have to draw the line somewhere.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger