False equivalence.md

False Equivalence, etc.

I was talking the other day with a friend, telling a story in which I had been wronged.

There's nothing surprising or novel about being wronged: people fail their duty to each other and God regularly, either through selfishness, apathy, ignorance, misunderstanding, believing lies, or just not thinking things through all the way. Someone else failing to be just or loving or honoring your value isn't even a meaningful condemnation of their character or value; it's universal.

The friend responded in an interesting way, asking, "what did you do to make [that wrong] happen?"

It was clear that he approached this from a place of supporting me: his goal was my well-being and his question was designed to prompt me to examine myself and my failure modes. While good-intentioned, his response connotes some dangerous and three common fallacies that I thought were worth describing.

Substitution

Frequently, during times of conflict, both parties have failed in some ways. When discussing the conflict, you explore those failures. When discussing each individual failure, people often bring up the other person's failure – perhaps because it's a contributing factor to this one. While it may be relevant for understanding the history, bringing this up too early runs the risk of indicating that you believe that the failure under discussion is not a problem. Consider the following example:

Let's say your uncle stabs you with a fork. In discussing this issue (with him or anyone else), they ask you what you did to deserve this, and you indicate that he did this immediately after you said his new haircut looked goofy.

Upon this admission, there is a very real possibility that the conversation immediately heads into why you said that about his haircut, how insensitive it was, and ultimately the conversation never returns to the stabbing part. This is unjust and crazy-making for you: you've been stabbed, and somehow, it's now your fault. Your failure has been substituted for his failure. Both failures exist and are worth addressing, and in no way is addressing one failure the fix for another.

This can be especially damaging when this happens in a discussion with the griefer. Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of their failure. They are reflexively defensive and try to deflect blame or attempt to explain that their wrong was insignificant. Some people even do this maliciously, out of competition or an attempt to exert power over the other person. If you are explaining a wrong to your griefer, be aware of attempts to substitute their wrong with yours.

If you are the listener of a wrong, do not try to dilute the wrong told to you by substituting it for another. Some people do this inadvertently: they're eager for root causes and solutions, so charge ahead on figuring out everything relevant. Don't do that – for people who've interacted together for more than a handful of times, there's always more "root cause" than can be discovered. History in that relationship may be interesting, but it's fundamentally a red herring. The most important truths to uncover are about the wrong itself and the aggrieved's understanding of it: How do they feel about it? What options do they have? Are they telling any obvious lies? What aspects of the story did they omit or forget? What did they learn from it?

The Illusion of Control

The question, "what did you do to make this person do something" contains an implicit lie: that you have any power to make a single person do a particular thing.

Many people falsely believe they have this power:

• "I can fix him."
• "Doing well on this project will make my boss like me."
• "The correct parenting strategy will make my kids behave."
• "If I do this, she'll love me."
• "Following my dad's wishes for my life will make him respect me."
• Negging
• "Following the right sleep recipe will make my baby happy."

It's easy to see how people fall into this lie: sometimes it works. We do have influence over the people around us, and when we try to get them to do things, it sometimes works.

People are not deterministic machines. They have mixed priorities, intentions, strategies, and failure modes. Those can even change, sometimes over a year or even an hour. Your influence is less than you think it is. Only in unhealthy relationships is someone's influence greater than 50%, and even that rarely lasts long.

Further, thinking you have control over someone is disrespectful and unhealthy: it denies agency and responsibility to them. Saying, "yes, you stabbed me, but only because I insulted your hair" denies their power over their own life – that they couldn't choose not to stab you.

False Equivalence

The most damaging aspect of asking "what did you do to contribute?" is the implication that you might believe that actual truth lies in the center of the two positions.

Many people learn this early: just watch two children fighting, and you can see each of them hurting the other and misrepresenting facts to suit their own agenda. Adults do this too, and many conflicts consist of mutual hurt. Statistically, it doesn't seem like a bad assumption.

This is not always the case: sometimes, one person in a conflict is doing substantially more of the hurting, failing, and misrepresenting.

Each of us has limited influence over another – we truly only have control over our own behavior. The way to improve harmony and effectiveness is to encourage everyone to focus on reducing their own failures: to be just, not retaliate, represent themselves honestly, and be vulnerable. "First, take the log out of your own eye…" Working on your own failures will never directly change the failures of another – only they can do that.

When you assume that truth generally lies equidistant between two perspectives, you communicate that there's no advantage to righteousness: you will judge them by the distance between perspectives, not by their actual behavior. Further, you deny objective truth as a concept: the only important data to you is the size of the conflict, not the actual events.

Sometimes people follow this approach because they believe that the problem is the conflict itself; this often happens in cultures that consider conflict itself to be immoral.

Malicious people can manipulate this tendency for dramatic effect: they take unreasonable positions, take offense at small issues, and generally seek to widen the perceived conflict to push the conflict midpoint closer to their side. This is most frequent in politicians, but shows up almost everywhere.

For the coach

If coaching, focus on your priority: loving the person you're listening to. Determining objective truth about the situation they describe may not be possible and trying may not add any value. Helping them see opportunities for improving themselves and their life always is. If you assume their narrative of events is biased and seek to uncover their untruth, you communicate disrespect and lose credibility; you may be wrong.

For the aggrieved

It is often useful to spend some time to discern a problem of intent with a difference of style: it's possible that someone is invested in your well-being, but is exerting effort in areas with no value to you. This is the main use for exploring the specifics of conflict: if you learn why they operate the way they do, you can better assess and educate if it's just a misunderstanding. If they're interested in the conversation and want to hear more about your perspective, that's a great sign that the problem is not their intent. If they demean your perspective, continue lying, tell you it's your problem, or demonstrate disinterest, that would be evidence for an intent problem.

If you are trying to resolve a conflict with someone who strategically sets up false equivalence, you have two choices: reject it or fold. Fundamentally, they are playing chicken with your relationship, disregarding your best interest in favor of theirs, with lies and gaslighting as the approach. If you choose to reject it, you can either address the fundamental failure of intent (their selfishness and lack of good faith) or the method (lying to you). Addressing the root cause (intent) is more effective; solving it should also eliminate the lying. However, specific examples from the lying can also help explain the intent problem should they be unaware of it.

In many cases, addressing a problem of intent is not something you can work through. You're not gonna convince people to prioritize your needs by arguing the examples of why you think they don't. You must be willing to meaningfully disengage and withhold whatever value you offer until they demonstrate that your wellbeing is something they work for.

Sometimes people lie to themselves, so it's possible someone who engages in false-equivalence does so without realizing it. In most ways, the solution is still the same: owning that problem for them is still not a solution (Ref The Illusion of Control above); you must persuade them to care about you and care about the negative impacts of their behavior, however unintended. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get [someone] to understand something when [they benefit from] not understanding it."

Lessons

At different times, we play all the roles of coach, aggrieved, and griefer. I've summarized focusing questions for each role to help stay away from the 3 fallacies described.

For the coach

• How can you best support and love and guide the aggrieved?
• Are you honoring the agency and core value of the aggrieved?
• Do not assume that their story is biased.
• Ask questions to help them arrive at the root cause of their problem and find their own growth.
  • Are they telling themselves any obvious lies? To what end?
  • What aspects of the story did they omit or forget? How do they feel about it?
  • What options do they have? What did they learn from it?
• If you have a related role in the relationship or power over part of the situation, keep that identity separate. Focus on your coaching role and its goals. Take notes on facts or patterns you learn about for later consideration about how you might be contributing to the issue, but do not use that identity to solve the aggrieved's immediate conflict. It does not fix the root cause of the problem (the relationship between the griefer and the aggrieved) and it denies agency to the aggrieved, undermining your goal of encouraging their growth.

For the aggrieved

• Think hard about what you want from this interaction:
  • Advice?
  • Reassurance?
  • An objective view at the scenario for insights you may have missed?
  • An apology?
  • An admission of guilt?
• Is that a reasonable request? Will it ultimately be helpful for you or others?
• Is the conversation getting distracted by a substitution? How can you refocus it on your objectives?
• Are you respecting the agency and responsibility of the griefer?
• Is the listener invested in your well-being? If no, are you willing to disengage to solve that problem?
• Is the listener interested in truth?
• Do you feel cornered or trapped? How can you escape the trap?

For the griefer

• Think hard about what you want from this interaction.
• Avoid feeling bad?
• Make life better for the aggrieved?
• Learn something about their experience?
• Assess what the aggrieved wants from this interaction. Will that help them?
• Are you respecting the agency and responsibility of the aggrieved?
• Is the aggrieved invested in your well-being? If no, are you willing to disengage to solve that problem?
• Is the aggrieved interested in truth?