Thinking is a Serious Problem: The Dangers of Two-Valued Reasoning

What are “conversations” like today when people differ in view? They are mostly unmitigated disasters, what I call crap-throwing contests. The goal of these interactions is “I win, you lose,” with each party throwing as much crap as possible at the other: anger, guilt, sarcasm, yelling, interrupting, pseudo facts, misrepresentations, outright lies, name-calling, and so on until one person collapses. These interactions are no more conversations than water is stone, and quality thinking is obviously the big loser.

Thinking clearly requires a lot of us. It demands first of all that we suspend all emotional reactions, which obstruct clarity and degrade respect, and face the issue on its merits. Having such reactions is normal; allowing them to intrude into the conversation is a recipe for a bad outcome. I have already addressed in earlier posts the real unpleasantness arising when people fail to suspend emotion.

Second, to think clearly we need an attitude toward conversations that stresses learning, truth, openness, and greater understanding. Most people I know say they have exactly this attitude, but they could not be more mistaken. In this post I will talk about the attitude they do have, one that characterizes their real behavior and which is demonstrably inimical to quality thinking and respectful conversations. This attitude is known as “two-valued reasoning,” and considering the damage it does, I view it as both a moral and a practical “affliction.”

Two-valued reasoning results from a view of the world defined by categorical opposites. Everything is seen from the standpoint of what I like or dislike, see as good or bad, approve or disapprove of, support or condemn. Folks with this standpoint invest huge amounts of emotional energy in the attitude, such that it becomes a fact of their existence (part of their ego) and is no longer merely an intellectual aspect of differing views on something.

People with the two-valued reasoning affliction generally express themselves with great certainty on anything in which they have an emotional investment, and their comments are often framed as “either/or” type propositions. As a consultant to organizations I would often hear comments like, we are either customer oriented or profit oriented, or we are either sensitive to employee well being or we are not. As a counselor to couples in conflict I often hear similar phrasing, as in you can have transparency or privacy in a relationship, or you can have individuality or community, but in neither of these cases can you have both.

People with the affliction not only have an emotional investment in their general view of the world as defined by categorical opposites, they also have an equally strong attachment to one side or the other of any “either/or” proposition. In organizations managers who argue that the firm is either customer oriented or profit oriented have a clear and obvious attachment to one side of this proposition, defended with great emotion (while anyone with a different view is often  attacked). And the same is true in all “conversations” in which the parties have differences, no matter what the subject matter. To describe such interactions as characterized by thinking is absurd.

If quality thinking involves the search for greater understanding of what are often very complex issues, then two-valued reasoning does precisely the opposite----it actively diminishes (strenuously denied by the arguers) the breadth, depth, and sophistication of the interaction.

As an example, at the time of the first Gulf War I encountered a large number of folks who either supported the war or thought it crazy and morally wrong to boot. Typically, this difference in view was articulated by folks on the political right as, “We are going to Iraq to promote democracy,” and by folks on the left as, “We are going to Iraq solely to get their oil.” Two-valued reasoning, and its attendant emotional disturbance, characterized both of these views in any conversation. Folks with the affliction tend to describe very complex situations (like the Gulf War) in such simplistic terms that they border on child-like. They use a pre-existing litany of statements that they accept at face value (if I like it, it must be right) and trot out any time they encounter someone whose views differ from theirs. It’s very difficult to give the name thinking to this.

An additional unpleasant outcome to interacting with those using two-valued reasoning is the impossibility of engaging with them in a productive and respectful way. Since their view is certain, backed up with big emotion, any alternative views cannot be allowed to exist. Whether those alternative views have any merit is of zero importance. What is of utmost importance is that those views be destroyed. So, if you differ from me you are by definition wrong, and often morally corrupt as well. The current political scene gives ample evidence of the prevalence of two-valued reasoning and the accompanying inability to deal openly and respectfully with those who differ.

The great tragedy of self deception: I have exposed the two-valued reasoning idea to some folks and they believe it has considerable value, and that it does describe what they and others they know have experienced. Sadly, these same individuals will not hesitate to immediately trash, with typical two-valued reasoning, those who differ from them. Bertrand Russell expressed this unfortunate state neatly:

            Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting

            Convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Failure to subject our convictions to critical analysis ensures two-valued reasoning will prevail, and that we and our society will continue to see ever greater hostility and irrationality among people of different views.

Thinking is a Serious Problem: Values, Words, and Hypocrisy

Thinking well requires the careful use of words, including a clear understanding of the meaning and intent of a word, and a consistent use of that word. Words often have multiple meanings, which is entirely workable. But in certain cases such variability can cause thinking as well as action problems, most obviously when one person uses the same word differently depending on the situation.

Among the most important words we have are those representing our personal values. Our values are principles we hold very dear and which are not compromised at all or very rarely. Typical values we might hold are integrity, fairness, openness, personal responsibility, truth, tolerance, respect, loyalty, family, honor, care for others, objectivity, or hard work. The list is nearly endless.

Over the last 40 years or so I have observed a change in how people talk about their values and how, if at all, they implement them. As I grew up people generally stood by their values, meaning they acted those values out to the best of their ability.

After the 60’s and the cultural tumult that accompanied it, things began to change in unhealthy ways. It wasn’t that folks had no values, but that their implementation was suspect. We can argue forever about the benefit or fitness of one value over another. We can even argue about the methods of implementing a particular value. But one thing that is very bad for a society happens when people espouse good values and then fail to implement them, or implement them differently depending on how they feel at the time.

Whether one really holds a value highly cannot be determined by how vocal a person is at proclaiming the value. It can determined only by seeing the person apply the value when it is not only inconvenient to do so, but very difficult if not nearly impossible. Applying the value when it is easy is not the best test. Today the action commitment to one’s values seems lacking in the extreme and I will give two personal examples of this.

I was talking with a colleague at the local community college where I teach part-time. In the conversation I asked him about values important to him, and he said a prime one is respect for others. The conversation moved on and we ended up talking about college unions. At one point in response to something I said he made a dismissive comment accompanied by a bit of sarcasm. I mentioned that I thought respect was a prime value for him, and in my view sarcasm was not respectful. He assured me that respect was a hugely important value to him, but I irritated him with my view and that explains (read: justified) his behavior.

In another circumstance I was talking with a person at a party whose political views differed from mine considerably. Before we knew this, he told me that he saw himself as very tolerant. When it became clear that we differed politically, his whole demeanor changed. He did not attack me personally, but lit into my party, its views, candidates and office holders, castigating them for what he termed idiot thinking and a mean-spirited attitude. I mentioned to him that he did not seem particularly tolerant of my thinking, and he agreed totally and said, “Because your thinking is wrong.”

Certainly these anecdotes do not define all folks with espoused high values. But I have seen far more than just these two, as have friends of mine. Watch TV or movies and you will see that generally values, when espoused at all, are mainly for show, not for action. But the worst offenders of the “I-get-to-do-and-say-what-I-want-no-matter-what-my-values-are” crowd are politicians. Take the simple word “disclosure,” at the moment a “big” deal in the media. Each side defines the word differently and quite favorably for themselves. They then define it very unfavorably for opponents, not at all attentive in their righteousness to the hypocrisy.

In both my examples a person with a self-proclaimed important value failed to implement it, and was not at all bothered by the hypocrisy. Espoused values such as respect and tolerance are important and socially valuable, but only if they are implemented. These individuals can tell themselves (and me) that they have fine values, feel good about that, and then ignore situations in which those values should be implemented. I suggest that what is going on is a classic case of self-deception, and all-too-common psychological event these days.

What is important to such individuals is that they have an important value, and that everyone knows it, hence the sense of righteousness. When it becomes uncomfortable to implement such a value, it will be ignored, and then justified with ex-post-facto reasoning (Your thinking is wrong). This is one of the huge dangers of situational ethics: the game is played so that I get to do what I want to do, even if that includes ignoring one of my own prime values. In fact, if I am in the presence of others who “think” as I do, they will not only accept the deviation from the value, but positively applaud it as the right thing to do, adding more ex-post-facto justifications to my already rich repertoire.

Social divisiveness, of which we surely have enough, is increased when folks espouse and then fail to implement values when the going gets tough. The important trust structures that enable the members of a society to co-exist are destroyed by people hailing their own values and then ignoring those values when they have become inconvenient. The meaning and use of a person’s value word is now subject, not to some reasonable standard of consistency, but to a whim, particular agenda, or emotional need, clearly evidenced in my two examples.

Not only does social coherence suffer, but thinking does as well. When a person fails to uphold his/her own espoused value, and then argues that such behavior is just fine, it is impossible to have a legitimate and open conversation with that individual. That person is not thinking but, as I have mentioned in prior posts, emoting. Essentially, it means he/she will change the meaning of an important word to get the outcome desired (usually a diminished opponent). A truly thoughtful person with even a modicum of intellectual honesty would be embarrassed by such hypocrisy.

I don’t want to sound too Orwellian here, but it is difficult not to see the damage such hypocrisy does to our society. As such “tricks” make their way into the political arena, that danger increases exponentially, and is visible today.