Meeting in the middle

Differences in opinion are indisputably part of human societies, because each one of us has had different experiences in life, different upbringing, different luck, so it is just natural that the things we appreciate are not the same that our neighbor, our friend or even our sibling appreciates. In fact this diversity is not only fully understandable but also beneficial for the society at large, because it is the seed to a much higher variety in possible solutions to any given problem: I might not be able to work out a solution by myself, and maybe my family ends up just suggesting solutions that I have already tried without success, but chances are that, if I discuss the problem with a sufficiently large number of people, one might have a solution that works or, even better, know the person who has the right answer. Of course, going to every one of our acquaintances asking them the same question could be rather daunting, which is why we have been compiling this kind of answers in encyclopedias for a few centuries already. However, digitization changed everything.

One of the most interesting aspects of librarians back in the 20th century is that they really knew a lot about the book they had and their respective contents. They would certainly did not ready every volume under their custody, but they could certainly recognize most of them by their cover and even summarize the essence of many. In some way, they were the equivalent to the modern day web search engines. There is no question that they were less accurate than current engines, but their advantage as humans was that you could have a conversation with them and get a fairly pointed set of recommendations. More importantly, they were able to point you to conflicting views of an issue, giving you a chance to consider the arguments of each camp before you passed your own judgement. Unfortunately, filter bubbles have done away with a lot of this discussion, serving each one of us with the results that the engine deems more likely to please us, even if that means misleading us.

Photo: Evan

The internet has enabled us, for the first time in history, to surround ourselves (at least virtually) with like-minded people. In the old days, in order to meet other cat lovers, you would have to ask your neighbors and keep an eye out to identify who had a cat or even who was thinking of getting a feline companion. This meant a lot of research time and the success was not a given (perhaps it was for cat lovers, but more fringe tastes might have been harder to find). However, it also brought along a lot of exchanges, including some with people that you would have never approached otherwise. Today, you just have to go to a cat-lover website and you are guaranteed to find hundreds or thousands of people who share you enthusiasm for these pets. However, conversations in these sites necessarily circle around "the subject" and in some places it is even punishable to stray away from the theme of the forum, so most of the time you never get to discuss where you live, your job, your family, your political or religious opinions or your last vacation. Surprisingly, the one thing that you are almost certainly to find beside cat-conversations is dog hate: since every single participant is a declared cat lover and this group has a substantial overlap with dog haters, the division between "us" and "them" is very likely to arise. Furthermore, even if there are also dog lovers among cat lovers, they will know better than to express their disagreement with the "general sentiment" lest they are insulted or spurned as "unworthy".

This kind of polarization is sadly very present in the recent political discourse. As this article points out, it is very noxious for governance, since it makes impossible to reach any kind of agreement. Even the most moderate in each party would not dare approach the opposition by the same reason as the dog lovers in the cat forum. They would most likely be ready to find a balance, but they do not even have a chance to discuss because even being open to talks is already considered as "high treason". But of course that is not good for anybody.

The ancient Greeks already argued the virtues of the middle way more than 2500 years ago. Prominently displayed beside the world-famous "Know thyself", the Temple of Apollo at Delphi used to sport a second maxim that read "Nothing in excess". This idea was later solidified by Aristotle and other philosophers in the so-called Golden Middle Way, thoroughly described in his Nicomachean Ethics, where he lists different types of virtues and demonstrates how both the excess and the defect are inadequate while thye proper attitude lies at some point in the middle.

In fact, this dialectic among the extremes is not that different from the ancient Chinese concept of Yin and Yang: two complementary (not opposing) conditions that interact with one another and, in some sense, enable each other's existence, and the balance between the complimentary extremes is the ideal condition. Let us just think about the balance between day and night. If there were only eternal night, many types of plants would die and life would be much harder for most type of animals, including us. If we had light all day long, we would have a hard time to find rest, the heat of the day (particularly in summer) would never respite and all nocturnal creatures would become extinct. An the same principle of dynamic between the extremes applies to almost every facet of life, with the sad exception of politics.

The current wave of polarization is really driving us into two completely disjoint camps who are not complementary but truly opposing each other, and the situation is not going to get better on its own. It will require an active change of mind for many of us to admit that other ideologies and opinions might have a hint of truth, might be able to make useful contributions and they should therefore be considered rather than summarily dismissed. It will also take a non-negligible amount of courage to admit this realization in public, risk the dislike of our peers and actually invite them to take an honest consideration of the opposing views themselves; they might be positively surprised. Life will go on with or without us, but if we are ready to change, our chances of surviving will be higher. Have a nice evening.