Everyone is right.
Or said better, everyone is partially right. And maybe if we acknowledge that fact we can start to mend the rips in our social fabric.
Let’s take welfare, to pick one explosively illustrative topic.
Are there welfare cheats, people who could earn a living but refuse to? Yes.
Are there people who need temporary help to make ends meet? Yes.
Are there people who will be permanently dependent on our largess because they lack all capabilities to support themselves? Yes.
But in our current debate you don’t hear anyone who agrees with all three statements. We can’t seem to grant even a small concession to an opposing point of view. And why not? Fear that others will use that concession to invalidate our perspective?
Everyone is partially right. The real question is to what degree? Is our belief consistent with the bulk of data? Or is it on the tails of the distribution with the outliers?
I think we do more damage to our causes by refusing to acknowledge facts. The anecdote is a powerful persuasive tool that often resonates more than data – a subject for another time – but an anecdote probably shouldn’t be the basis for an opinion and assuredly not for policy. But it is one data point, and since I believe that we can find an occurrence of just about anything any of us can think of, it means everyone is right at least once on an issue.
It doesn’t hurt to acknowledge it. And I think it even helps, because (1) it gives us credibility, and (2) it might soften the rancor felt by those who might otherwise feel at best unheard and at worse attacked.
I’m conflict averse. I believe we are far more effective when we work in concert instead of fighting each other. And I believe there are many paths to a destination. So I feel very strongly that we should give each other our just due.
I worry about us. The polarization, the tribalization, the demonization. It’s all so poisonous. Hateful. Destructive. Surely we’re better than this.
Maybe it starts with acknowledging that each of us is partially right. I’m not evil or stupid because I believe something that has happened. So give me that credit before we start to discuss where our respective ideas fall on the issue’s true distribution.
By denying this truth, we alienate ourselves from our fellow citizens. Which makes it easier to judge them. And we rarely judge mildly.
Does any good come from judging? Only if we judge ourselves. Otherwise we run afoul of what Daniel Kahneman calls WYSIATI – What you see is all there is. And since we aren’t omniscient, we miss important factors, things that would change our conclusions or make us more sympathetic to those with different views. But once we judge, we rarely backpedal, so if we learn those factors post-judgment we tend to discount them, or rationalize them away, or twist them into something that supports our rendered judgment.
Instead, perhaps we should simply acknowledge to each other that we are all partially right.