One of my favorite arguments to stoke while hanging out with friends is the “Ford-verses-Dodge-or-Chevy-or-whatever” debate. I don’t have strong opinions on the quality of many vehicles or a loyalty to any brand of car. I jut like teasing folks about things like that. The interesting thing to me is when a person in the argument reaches the point where they make crazy absolute statements, like “Ford has never made a car worth owning.” This would mean that in the entire 118 year history of making cars, they never made one vehicle that wasn’t a lemon. The reality is that the speaker doesn’t like Fords, but is demonstrating a pattern of thinking that is very common and is also erroneous. Specifically, I’m referring to “Black and White” thinking. Black and white thinking is a faulty thinking pattern where we begin to categorize things, ideas, people, or anything else as purely good or bad. The idea is that there are only two categories and things fall in one or the other. In my silly example of Fords-verses-whatever, cars are garbage with no exceptions. It’s also easy to do this with people we encounter in our daily life, seeing them as good or bad, with no middle ground. The most obvious and common example of this sort of thinking is the greatly degraded state of our political discourse. If I disagree with a politician, they must be evil, stupid, racist, a nazi, a communist, or a crook. It’s much easier to simply label the other guy than to acknowledge that they might just disagree with you. The reality is that most folks are probably trying to do what they think is right. They simply don’t agree with how I think the right thing should be accomplished. Being wrong or uninformed or just having a different opinion is simply not the same thing as being evil. Though politics is an easy place to spot it, the most damaging version of this thinking error happens in our community and family relationships. When a man decides that his wife is just mean, nothing she can do will ever be seen as anything other than hostile. When a wife decides her husband is selfish or self-centered, he can never overcome that label through his behavior. If we decide our neighbors are jerks, they cannot ever do anything that will make us happy. Black and white thinking is usually an error because people and situations are often more complex. People usually have a motive for behavior that goes beyond “he’s a jerk” or “she’s mean.” Black and white perspectives are almost never accurate. Certainly, there are instances of real black and white truths. For example, Hitler and Stalin were evil. That having been said, they were also unusual examples in history. Calling your political opponent “Hitler” or “Stalin” is almost certainly just not accurate. Worse, it prevents you from any engagement or conversation. You can’t negotiate with the devil. If a man sees his wife as mean, he can’t make his marriage better because his wife is unreasonable and unable to change. There can be no forward movement. The best way to deal with (or prevent) this tendency in our own thinking is to be intentional about looking at things from the other persons perspective or to ask how reasonable it is to hold the assumptions we are maintaining. Another approach involves simply listening to the other person’s point of view without filtering it through our echo chamber or our own resentments. This is difficult. However, it also is the key to engaging the world around us in a manner that is more realistic and accurate.
