Us and Them

Virtually all public back and forth today is based on the fallacy known as the false dilemma.  This silliness is known by various names, including but not limited to the false dilemma, false binary, either-or fallacy or any other of numerous names.  Here's a bad example of it:  "You don't believe in my idea!  Well you're just stupid." You can substitute bad, arrogant, ridiculous, a hater, mean, greedy, uncaring, unwashed for "stupid,"  or any pejorative adjective you can conjure and you still have a false dilemma.

While that is kind of a broad ad hominem example, there are other more subtle forms that are based on false assertions of fact.  Imagine Joe and Harry talking about oil changes:

Joe:  "I use synthetic oil and you don't have to change  your oil every 3000 miles when you use synthetic oil."

Harry:  "What?  You don't think changing oil every 3000 miles is important?? Well I can tell you that every 10,000 miles isn't often enough and if you do it your way, you'll ruin your engine!"

There are a couple things here.  First, Harry ignores the fact that there are 6999 possible values between 3000 and 10000.  Second, he also ignores that there might be other mitigating information that might make 10,000 a good number in this context.  In short, Harry substitutes his own suppositions about what Joe is saying, ignores any possible information that Joe might have that he doesn't and leaps to a conclusion that he apparently holds dearly.
 
The great majority of public disagreement these days contains some flavor of the false dilemma.  I think the main reason for this is that too many of those doing the blabbering rather cynically assume they don't really have to convince anyone of the efficacy of their point.  Instead, they just have to have a message with sufficient personal appeal to whip 51% of the listeners into a froth.

This is how the division inherent in the construct of "Us and Them" or maybe "Us vs. Them" is made.  This is how the false dilemma literally cuts "us" and "them" into pieces.

Ultimately though, I don't think this has anything to do with "Them" or "Us" or even "Us vs. Them."  I think instead it has to with me.  I think it has to do with "me," because to ignore what others are saying to assert what I have to say exclusively, is much more about me and my brokenness than it is about any point I might be making.

Go back a minute to the first part of one of the sentences above:  "I think it has to do with 'me,'..."  That sounds sort of egotistical and narcissistic and at the same time self denigrating...and that's really the point.  The false dilemma in all it's forms defines so much that is wrong about all of us, both as communities and as individuals.

Still though, there's an interesting and maybe even beautiful thing in the subtext of the false dilemma swimming just below the surface of its broken form, as well as in all the ranting in the media it generates.  Although it abandons logic and sense and encourages the individual to put allegiance in an idea (and sometimes a person) over a valid argument to the contrary, the false dilemma requires an unyielding allegiance to an end or person in order for it to prevail.  That is, you really have to believe you're right and that you're a part of  "the right" to assert the false dilemma.  And to believe you're right, you have to believe in a way that's usually deeper than just knowing.  You have to feel it.

We are made for that kind of feeling.  That's why the false dilemma works at all; for it to work you have to be and feel yourself to be a part of something bigger.  That feeling was breathed into us in time before time.  As misguided as it can be in a broken world, it still contains the breath, belief and wonder of who we are, of who we were created to be.  It's core is so very beautiful and profound, that even when obscured by the distorted echoes of our wildest rages, the hope in it can be seen somewhere below the surface.  The best, most compelling and even most righteous argument is nothing without the prescribed, necessary feeling behind it; without this feeling, any argument is a banging gong or a clashing cymbal.  And the name of the prescribed feeling is love.

There's an Us in every Them and a me in all of it.  The sacrifice of Christ and the presence and reality of the Spirit of God make it so.