Somebody has to be wrong

It seems today that fewer and fewer people are willing to stand up for their ideas. Today the spirit of compromise and getting along takes precedent over doing the right thing or of telling someone they are wrong. The argument starts because two people have opposing viewpoints, but what good is the argument if no one is right? The peace makers love to come out and say things like “well neither of you are wrong” but this is a lie. What they really mean is I am uncomfortable with one of you being wrong and one of you being right so I want you to agree that neither of you is wrong.

In Asia this can be called saving face, the idea that to expose someone for being wrong would embarrass them and therefore you should give them an out, a way that they can back down without having their error exposed. While this may seem appealing to you, realize that to say no one is wrong is at best a lie, and at worst an acceptance of irrationality.

Take two kids lost in the forest. As they walk along they come to a fork in the path. There is a sign post and on the ground are two arrows that have since fallen from the post. One of the arrows says Exit, the other says Dangerous Terrain. The problem is there is no way to tell which way the arrows pointed. So the two kids must choose. One chooses the left hand path, the other the right. They argue about which way to go for a long time and it is starting to get dark when a man comes up the path. He spots the two boys yelling at each other and goes to see what the problem is. Soon he learns the situation and tells the boys that neither of them is wrong and instead they should follow him. The man takes them to the left path and they walk for quite some time as the path winds up a rocky trail. The boy who wanted to go left protests but the adult silences him and refuses to listen to his argument. Soon the temperature begins dropping as night sets in and they can barely see. In desperation they march on. Finally after hours of walking and the weather getting worse they find they can no longer follow the path any further, even the ground they had recently covered had been treacherous. As hypothermia sets in the boy who wanted to go right say, “I knew I was right!” The man looks at the boy and says how could you have known? The boy then pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket and says “because the map said to go that way.”

While things are not always so cut and dried it is important to realize that when two people disagree about opposing viewpoints there are only three rational outcomes, either person A is right and person B is wrong. Or Person B is right and person A is wrong, or they both are wrong. But logic tells us that they both cannot be right. So to accept the idea that neither is wrong without evidence is irrational, and to accept that both are right is illogical.

The next time you are confronted with a peace maker trying to end the conflict, ask yourself, what information do I have that the person I am arguing with does not, and what information might they have that I do not. From there you can decide whether you should follow your conviction or concede to theirs’ but do not be fooled into believing that you both are right. In other words, “ Check your Premise.”