More Than Two Sides

Against political reductionism

Trump or Harris. Apple or Android. Michigan or Ohio State. Sometimes you’ve got to pick a side.

But those situations are exceptional. On most issues, there are more than two sides. This is a function of the world’s complexity, and accepting it is a way of acknowledging reality. (In truth, even the antinomies cited above admit of other positions, such as a third party, tech avoidance, or indifference.)

Contemporary political discourse tends to flatten reality, reducing three-dimensional issues to two-dimensional caricatures. “Pro-gun,” “pro-life,” and “pro-immigration” are not meaningless designations, but a realistic understanding of the matters under discussion requires recognition that the available policy positions do not reduce to “pro-” and “anti-.” A hunter who owns several rifles and shotguns but supports limited regulation of firearms purchases may not be as “pro-gun” as some would wish, but he can hardly be characterized as “anti-gun.” The appellation “pro-choice” doesn’t quite fit a birthing center nurse who favors a ten-week abortion ban but supports exceptions for hard cases. A second-generation Mexican American who favors an increase in immigration quotas but also supports strict enforcement of the law to prevent illegal immigration cannot plausibly be described as “anti-immigrant.”

Sometimes, the reductionism of two-sidesism reaches absurd levels. Policy analysts who believe that the earth is warming, but for one reason or another oppose some regulatory proposal designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, are called “climate change deniers.” Parents who vaccinate their children routinely but express some concern about a particular vaccine policy are tagged “anti-vaxxers.” In the tribal world of two-sidesism, there are only two options: with me or against me.

Historically, the political culture of the United States—including the separation of religion and politics, robust respect for minority rights, and the dispersion of power across branches and levels of government—has militated against the conversion of public life into a “politics of friend and enemy,” the model of politics embraced by those “elements of the left and right” that are currently fueling a revival of regard for Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt. A two-party system will necessarily simplify electoral choices, but this simplification should never be taken as a reflection of reality. Reducing every issue to a binary choice fails to recognize the complexity—that is, reality—of the world. And perceiving people to avatars of one party or the other fails to honor their dignity as individuals composed of a mixture of traits, identities, and motivations.

Instead of reducing issues to two sides and reducing people to members of tribes, we would do better to think about issues more deeply and “unbundle” people. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you should recognize that many of your fellow Democrats or Republicans differ from you on a range of matters. They might be for more (or less) immigration. They might be more (or less) religious. They might favor more (or less) free trade. Being a member of a political party doesn’t automatically remove a person’s capacity for critical thinking, nor is that party a monolith devoid of internal divergence and tension.

Members of racial or ethnic minorities have often rightly complained of the tendency of others to see them primarily as representatives of a group rather than as individuals. Resistance to this inclination provoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous exhortation to judge people “not by the color their skin but the content of their character.” The principle can be applied across all kinds of nonracial categories. We should judge people not by their political party, not by their neighborhood of residence, not by their alma mater, not by the sophistication of their vocabulary, not by their taste in music—but by the content of their character.

There are two important qualifications to this thesis. First, avoiding two-sidesism does not mean committing to philosophical, cultural, or religious relativism. There is truth, and it can be known. Either God exists or he doesn’t, and where we come down on that question matters. At the same time, any one person’s grasp of the truth is imperfect. There are many things we might be wrong about, and the more a question involves contingent matters, the more difficult it is to know an answer with certainty. When it comes to solving thorny problems, it is even more difficult to identify definitively “right” and “wrong” positions. On complicated policy matters, Thomas Sowell’s proverb almost always applies: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

The second qualification is that affiliations and associations do have significance. If you know someone is a committed Democrat, you might reasonably deduce that she is not a pro-life activist (though, even here, there are exceptions). The point is that such associations—even if they seemingly contradict our own commitments—do not exhaust the meaning and identity of the person who exhibits them. We can still learn from, engage with, and even befriend those who differ on any number of matters, so long as there is some piece of common ground—for example, a faith tradition, a commitment to free speech or high standards of scholarship, a focus on the welfare of children, or even an interest in a hobby or leisure activity.

At its root, the practice of two-sidesism is a form of objectifying persons. If our immediate impulse when we encounter someone (online or in person) is to “bundle” them into a racial, socioeconomic, political, or ideological category, then we have fallen into the habit of objectification of the other. In contrast, honoring persons’ subjectivity means meeting them with a sense of wonder, an inclination to ask questions rather than impose answers: Who are you? What do you value? Why do you believe that? What do we share?

Conflict is inevitable in this fallen world. There will be people whose worldviews are so radically different from ours that fruitful interaction seems impossible. But if we approach others within the framework of a resolution to recognize their dignity and individuality, we may find that the number of such people is far smaller than we thought.