We live in a field day for dialectic.
It's important to recognize that dialectic doesn't mean that in every opposition, the synthesis lies directly in the middle. That would be called the middle-ground fallacy, bothsidesism, or false balance.
One way I remind myself of this is, I say, "There are MORE THAN two sides to every story." When you recognize that, and keep it in mind, you're less likely to fall for either pole or some mythical happy land where all claims are equally true and false.
In the US political spectrum, I avoided identifying as a Democrat specifically until I really felt I had no choice. But I've never called myself an Independent. Independents seem to fall for the middle-ground fallacy a lot. I'll never forget those well-meaning, respectable people on the eve of the 2016 election, in town halls, responsibly asking questions at the mic, reading from their note cards. They couldn't decide who would be better for our country, and they were going to ask just the right questions to find out.
They were all massively deluded, I'm afraid. They had fallen for bothsidesism.
But anyway. People make mistakes. They weren't trying to be confused. They just were.
It's my natural inclination to gently pull people, including myself, away from poles - not all extremes under the supposition that all extremes are wrong, but just in general by pointing out what hasn't been said, yet is surely relevant. The simpler the better. Often this takes the form of a "maybe." Maybes are very important, because if you are closed to maybes, you become inflexible.
I've learned to choose my timing better, and I've learned that if it doesn't feel natural to say something, it probably won't feel natural to hear it. Sometimes you still press on, sometimes you wait. Sometimes you find better words. Sometimes you only have one chance to affect someone, but if they feel you yanking them around, they will become resistant, or even more resistant than before. Often a person hears you better if you say something once and they know where you stand, but you don't lecture or chide. These are my personal findings, anyway, mixed with research I've read and the opinions of people who know about this stuff.
After all, at work it's my job to affect people. I'm supposed to change people's minds. But it isn't an agenda. They're supposed to walk out knowing and understanding more, and feeling less stuck.
My philosophy here clashes with progressive notions about ostracizing what we don't like, in an effort to fight it or control it. And my stance on that is actually very simple. Each person can choose who or what to ostracize or boycott. Personally, I like to remember that if I refuse to talk to someone, that person goes right on existing no less than before. It rarely sends much of a message. We think it does. But still, there are times when that message can work.
In my opinion, silence says nothing. All it does is amplify what's around it. So if you go silent, you amplify whatever you said most recently, and whatever you might say after the silence. The silence itself, however much we might like to believe in its eloquence, says nothing on its own. To believe silence speaks volumes is otherwise known as passive aggression. To believe silence is consent is, at the extreme, rape.
We need to fight for justice. It doesn't establish itself. It doesn't just grow in the soil with sunlight and water. But let's not forget the importance of sunlight and water and soil and growth. We spend too much time refusing to understand people who cause problems, because we believe that understanding, compassion, empathy - in short, humanization - ends up promoting evil. This is not actually true. If we stand around and watch evil happen and do nothing, then we are implicitly promoting it, in a sense. That would be condoning. At the same time, all of us are limited. We can't help but condone most of the world's problems, if we are honest with ourselves. We know there are a great many problems, and we are not solving all of them, or even most of them.
What I would like to see is more of a focus on science. What does science say about what will help the problems we face? In the area of social justice, I usually see very little in the way of citing research. And I'm sure that's partly because a lot more research needs to be done. But more research will be done if we take more interest in it. Then there will be more demand for research, and, eventually, by various routes, less demand for prisons. We all believe that loudly condemning what we don't like shakes the baddies down and shows them we mean business. Policing basic, necessary standards is critical. But this symbolic show of force that everyone believes in, this moral fire and brimstone, only goes so far, and can even backfire. It does not actually solve the problems we believe that, if we are only loud and insistent enough, it will solve.
Solving a problem without understanding it is called "luck."
Fully understand a problem and it melts.
That's dialectic.
