Deadly Seeds of "False Dichotomy"

Greetings!

Here is an anecdote that made me think about an insidious infliction that affects humanity.

A 'normal' shepherd is chatting with an 'educated' shepherd. Let's call them Norm and Ed.

Norm: How many sheep do you have?
Ed: White or Black?
Norm: White?
Ed: 50. By the way I have 50 Black sheep too. Wonder what you have against the Black sheep?
Norm: But I asked about all the sheep?
Ed: Oh! Did you? You just said, "White?"

Norm: Hey Buddy, I don't have anything against any of the sheep. By the way, do you get enough wool ?
Ed: From which one? White or Black?
Norm: Black? (Thinking he won't repeat the mistake this time!)
Ed: Well I get enough from Black ones. By the way I get enough from white ones too. Wonder why are you bent on exploiting the Black sheep for their wool?

Norm: (Gives up)

Black Sheep and White Sheep

I call Ed's infliction as "False Dichotomy". This has been a cognitive conditioning for gullible ones, usually perpetuated by those with ulterior motives. This conditioning causes a person to divide everything they perceive in (usually) two categories. Then the person uses this division to associate all that is wrong in the world to one of these. 

This also is a major hindrance to learning and impediment in one's evolution as a human being. The moment one starts seeing things in such falsely dichotomous manner, one stops seeing the truth and crux of the matter. 

Each time one faces such a false dichotomous view, it sows a seed of doubt in mind. I think it is extremely important to chuck out such bad seeds from mind and not nurture them as the fruits of such an endeavor are poisonous for one and all. "False Dichotomy" is probably one of the major causes of 'human-created' problems that society has faced over millennia. I think a lot of problems faced by humanity today can be traced to this infliction.

Brown, Black, White, or Grey,
They jus' eat grass, an' sometimes bray,
Seeds of doubt sow poison, an' lead us astray, 
False Dichotomy! jus' keep-it-at-bay!!   

Sincerely Mine!
Anand Kulkarni

Comments

Pawan said…
Another thing I can add to this vein is “labelism”. Typical social and political narratives are centered around assigning reductive labels to complex things that cannot be easily argued on one side or the other.

I think it is human nature to “over”-simplify things so as to not have to spend time thinking the next time around. And out of this can come the blindspots - one of which as you mentioned is the False Dichotomy.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Ken Montgomery said…
This is a great post and something I've been thinking about a lot lately, especially as people want to argue against facts and science as we better understand what not to do in response to Covid... There is an old saying in law "If you have the fact, argue the facts... if you don't have the facts, pound the table...." We see a lot of that today and I agree, you have to not let those people derail you... don't give then your attention because they succeed when they get you to expend energy on them.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Anand P Kulkarni said…
Agree with you Pavan. Reductionism is a great scientific tool but lousy social tenet.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Anand P Kulkarni said…
You are rght Ken,

This is unfortunate but has been happening. Number of societies in world fell for these tendencies, especially when such pounding was incessant.

On individual level it is best to ignore. However I beleive that as a society, the wise ones, especially those who have influence on young minds, should guide them to not fall for such cognitive biases.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Anonymous said…
Very true, Many great personalities especially, the saints see the things, the world as it is and that's why understand the root causes and power behind each happening and saying correctly. Good one. Thanks!
Saturday, May 16, 2020
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