Beware of False Dichotomy

Posted on September 08, 2020 by Andrew Bazakis, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

The world and its observable phenomena have been often described in terms of a balance of opposites: hot and cold, light and dark, yin and yang. While this framework of dichotomy (the existence of two opposite and mutually exclusive entities) is often useful and accurate, one would do well to be cautious about its inaccurate assertion.

Rocks in a creek

For example, if I am walking along a creek, carrying a bucket and putting stones from the creek bed into the bucket there are at any given time either an odd or even number of stones. The principles of mathematics demand either one situation or the other. If I empty the bucket and count the stones, I can know the answer but even if I do not it is either one or the other. Similarly, in the entire creek bed itself there are either an odd or even number of stones but in this case, I may not be able to remove them all and count them even though once again, basic mathematics demands that either one or the other is true. Fortunately, for practical purposes, the answer to either of these questions is essentially inconsequential.

Consequential dichotomy

Sometimes dichotomies are not so inconsequential. When I was in high school, I had a teacher who said in describing her tardy policy “Being late is like being pregnant. Either you are or you aren’t.” Now we can describe degrees of tardiness and stages of pregnancy and all that, but for purposes of whether the student was arriving before or after the tardy bell rang, this dichotomy was clear and the consequence of being recorded in the teacher’s records as tardy was as well.

A potential tool for intimidation

Dichotomy exists throughout nature but sometimes we see these things put upon situations that create a false dichotomy. Sometimes this is deliberately stated such as “Either you agree with everything political candidate X stands for or otherwise you’re a [insert derogatory label].”

In all reality one may agree with some positions of candidate X and disagree with others and may not in any way truly fit the definition of the asserted label. In this instance, the source of the dichotomy is attempting to produce a proclamation of support or agreement not because it exists but in order for the target of the message to avoid a particular negative label. This type of forced dichotomy is easily used as a bully tactic as opposed to promoting any sort of dialogue.

[insert derogatory label]

Dichotomies in everyday interactions

Sometimes false dichotomies (also called false dilemmas) are either warned against or implied on more benign matters not involving any bullying at all. For example, on social media I have seen the following meme:

“Sometimes the nicest people you meet are covered in tattoos & sometimes the most judgmental people you meet go to church on Sundays.”

In the spirit of presumed benevolence, one can assume the author to restating the old axiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” in a different way. The author may very well be playing on the tendency to presume a false dichotomy: that tattooed individuals are not considered nice people and Sunday churchgoers are, an idea that the author encourages us to consider as false or at least not always true. There is also and additional presumption when we peel back the layers of that quote a little further: that is the dichotomy of either people have tattoos, or they go to church on Sundays, as if these two are mutually exclusive groups. In reality, these are not mutually exclusive groups either. While it is true that many religious communities discourage their members from tattooing and encourage acts of kindness, we must be careful with an absolute dichotomous presumption. For example, were anyone to visit my home parish, upon entering the church you may very well find yourself greeted by one of the nicest ladies you have ever met, a devout Christian, and it would be obvious to you upon seeing her that she is covered in tattoos. Sometimes the nicest people you meet are not only tattooed but are also in church on Sundays. As to judgment, I would argue the struggles (as well as the gifts) of the human condition are ubiquitous – neither virtue nor vice discriminates by any parameter.

When is dichotomy useful?

Dichotomy is a useful tool for understanding many natural phenomena such as mathematical and physical properties. Light and darkness are exclusive. The conservation of mass states that in the realm of Newtonian physics, a material object is either in one location at a moment in time an not another. Either a drug cures a disease, or it does not. Either a bridge holds the weight it was designed to carry, or it does not. Either our school basketball team won a particular game or they did not. We must be careful however to remember that dichotomy does not encompass an understanding of all phenomena.

For example, a drug may very well treat a disease in one individual or not but may have a degree of variance in success across a population. That same disease may be treatable by more that just that one drug alone. The treatment options for a particular disease may include options other than pharmaceuticals. We may be remiss to think that for disease “X”, it’s either drug “Y” or nothing at all. While that is a design possibility for a research trial to get at whether drug “Y” actually does anything at all in the treatment of disease “X”, in thinking more broadly about the disease, the answer may not be that dichotomy of drug or nothing, at least for now.

The temptations of Ockham’s razor

Why are we tempted to fall into false dichotomy? One possibility is the overapplication of Ockham’s razor. Ockham’s razor (or the law of parsimony) is a principle that the simplest solution to a problem is likely the most likely to be correct. In our drug example, either the application of our drug to treat the disease or nothing seems the simplest, but one might consider a combination of physical therapy, surgery, dietary modification, lifestyle modification and other treatments in order to attain a more well-rounded picture of a treatment plan.

That said, Ockham’s razor can be extremely useful and often true. Ockham’s razor is a thought tool. If one is building a house, a hammer is necessary but not sufficient. One needs saws and sanders, drills and screwdrivers and all types of tools, even though the hammer and nails play a key role. Ockham’s razor, like most tools, should be used in conjunction with other thought tools when used in construction of in this case thoughts about solving a problem or expressing an idea.

The misapplication of the process of elimination.

Sometimes when solving a problem, we can exhibit what is called an anchor bias. This is when we anchor mentally to our first impression. For example, if my dog is scratching more than usual and my first impression is that he has fleas, I may treat him for fleas once or twice and when it doesn’t work either give up or just assume that there is nothing wrong with him as either it’s fleas or nothing. In all reality it could be a skin condition, an allergy to something in his food or a sign of being nervous for some reason. If I eliminate all of these other possibilities in my mind right away, then my poor dog continues to itch and scratch because to me it was either fleas or nothing at all.

In the broader perspective

The universe best as we can possibly know is full of dueling opposites: light and darkness, strength and weakness, east and west, fire and ice. If we see the world’s dualism in black and white, then we have gained some understanding of its complexity and at times have a sense of where the bounds of truth may very well lay. In that, however, we must always be on the lookout for the shades of grey.