The Black and White Thinking Problem
How dichotomous thinking closes us off from the truth
Each month, we tackle a different theme on how to live what the ancient philosophers called the “good life”—a life in the pursuit of becoming the best version of oneself.
For the month of February, we’ve been focusing on the themes of reason and rationality. You can find links to the series at the bottom of this article.
This Week at a Glance:
Societies today are built with complexity but demand simplicity. This often puts us into a mental bind where we attempt to simplify and create a habit of dichotomous thinking.
This week we explore how to escape the pull of dual thinking and how to harness wisdom in an ever-evolving world.
By the time you finish this meditation, you’ll learn:
🍭 How and why we lean into dichotomous thinking;
🍬 How dichotomous thinking limits our understanding of finding truth;
🍫 How to overcome the irrational thought patterns and hold an open mind.
Let’s dive in.
People often think and speak in terms of either/or. Something is either good or bad. We either eat here or there. We can do this or that.
But these thought patterns miss the most crucial aspects of life—the middle zone, the gray area, the in-betweens.
Thinking in an “either/or” style is a cognitive distortion known as dichotomous thinking or dual thinking, and it moves us to play a mental zero-sum game with our reasoning and decision-making faculties.
It is true, some things in life do boil down to an either/or situation, but for the most part, for a good majority of the decisions we make in life, there is a gray zone, and it is within this gray zone that the truth is most often found.
When we open ourselves up to non-dichotomous thinking or non-dual thinking, we open ourselves up to a world of possibilities:
Our logic is no longer tethered to hard and fast rules.
We no longer see in colors of party/group/team affiliation.
Our decision-making takes in a broader scope of information.
In short, it allows us to take a moment and look in-between the two, to the gray zone that holds a little black and a little white, a zone that often holds truth by keeping a foot in both camps while being beholden to neither.
The problem with getting to the gray zone is we split our decisions themselves into two categories of reason and emotion. But as Brad Stuhlberg points out in his book Master of Change (emphasis my own):
“Decision-making is not about reason or emotion; it is about reason and emotion… Non-dual thinking recognizes that the world is complex, that much is nuanced, and that truth is often found in paradox: not this or that, but this and that.”1
We’re creatures in search of simplicity, but we live in a world of complexity, and like it or not, that complexity is growing by the day.
We like simplicity. We like stories of easily distinguishable opposing views, good versus bad, hero versus villain, etc. But this simplified approach to life leads too much to entertainment and away from the chaotic, random-driven world we live in.
By not recognizing this distortion, by limiting our thinking to either/or, we limit our reasoning abilities and oftentimes throw rationality out the door in order to fit our own biased agenda and desires. Even worse, we don’t see the world in its true dimensional form but rather as a shadow of itself.
These are the ramifications of dichotomous thinking, of looking at the world in extremes, good or bad, black or white, right or wrong.
There’s a reason Aristotle’s “golden mean” is a sliding scale—virtuous action is not something someone can just blanket prescribe for all situations, it is a sliding scale that shifts with each and every situation one encounters.
By not properly analyzing a situation, by not providing decisions the respect and attention they deserve, we allow our minds to creep easier and easier into this way of thinking, this either/or framework.
By doing so, we leave out the gray. We become two dimensional. We lack the nuances necessary to live a good life by properly understanding the world around us.
But not all is lost.
It is through the recognition of dichotomous thinking that we can begin to enter the gray zone and allow our minds to turn themselves over to the power of non-dual thinking.
This is the first step in breaking dichotomous thinking’s hold over us. When we look to avoid it, when we broaden our lens of decision making and reasoning we give ourselves a chance to approach life with an open mind, to break free of the static process that so easily has enveloped us.
Life is filled with gray—different shades of it—and it is constantly adjusting as new information is provided to us—as we learn more, as we experience life, as we grow as individuals.
But it is an uphill battle. Our culture is built to view the world in extremes. As the theoretical physicist and mathematician Leonard Mlodinow observed:
“Our culture likes to portray situations in black and white. Antagonists are dishonest, insincere, greedy, evil. They are opposed by heroes who are the opposite in terms of those qualities. But the truth is, from criminals to greedy executives to the "nasty" guy down the street, people who act in ways we abhor are usually convinced that they are right.”2
Duality is a natural process. We hear one side of something and immediately try to think of the other. We want quick answers to life. We’re all moving very fast. We want problems smaller and more manageable. We want scenarios boiled down to solutions that are “this or that.”
But the truth often requires much more nuance, much more dedicated decision-making time, much more rationality before a proper decision is made.
By giving ourselves an understanding of this distortion, by recognizing when it is popping up, we better equip ourselves to step outside of the problem, to get away from the distortion, and to instead see the world for the vastly complex place that it is.
We can always simplify from there, but we need to ensure we don’t start our reasoning with the simplified approach.
There is too much at stake if we do.
3-Bullet Summary:
Much of life lies in its complexities and these in turn cannot be found when we think of situation as “either/or”;
To avoid either/or thinking, we need to step outside of the moment and look to the broader picture for a greater perspective;
Society is built of complexity but demands simplicity—start with the complex situation and funnel your way down to simplicity.
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Until next week,
D.A. DiGerolamo
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Master of Change, Brad Stuhlberg
Subliminal, Leonard Mlodinow