When is Black-and-White thinking better than Nuanced Reasoning?

Great Debates
1

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." ~ H. L. Mencken

We have been taught to make nuanced arguments, looking at both sides, examining weaknesses, and fully exploring counter-arguments. We tend to expect that a correct POV may well be a compromise, including aspects of various positions. As Menken said, answers that appear simple are probably incorrect. No doubt, this is the case most of the time.

However,** I assert that there are circumstances where a simple, black-and-white statement is preferable to nuanced reasoning**. Why? Because nuanced reasoning tends to discourage forceful action. E.g., [ol][]Great opportunities. The reinsurance business is cyclical. There are periods when market prices are far below costs and vice versa. In 1986, prices exceeded costs to an extraordinary degree. Those who sold in a nuanced way made good profits. Those who took a black-amd-white view and did business like gang-busters made even more money. []Great danger. Churchill and Reagon rallied the world against two terribly dangerous empires. Taking a black-and-white view led to more vigorous opposition, which was appropriate. []Great immorality. No doubt anything can be understood, but there are acts that ought not be forgiven. E.g., lynching African Americans. Intentionally bombing civilians like Oklahoma City. []Fraud or total ignorance. For a scientific study of mettalurgy, it would be just a distaction to consider the background to Uri Geller’s coin-bending. It’s mere slight-of-hand.Timing. There are emergencies that require rapid action. E.g., the Berlin Airlift was the right step at the right time. At that time were a lot of arguments that Berlin ought to be an independent city – distinct from West Germany and East Germany. But, the US was right to ignore those questions and simply deal with the blockade by means of the airlift.[/ol]

2

I agree; situations where you have a choice of two possible actions sometimes allow black-and-white reasoning, but I have always maintained that there are few situations so desperate that action must be taken without any consideration.

3

I’m not sure you’re talking about black-and-white reasoning here rather than black-and-white decision making.

I think it is still useful to use nuanced reasoning in all cases. It is ultimately up to a decision maker to weigh all variables and decide which course to follow.

Sometimes it is useful to compromise and sometimes it is best to jump all the way to the right or left and ignore the opposing side. Of course, it is left to history to decide if you were really clever or stupid to ignore other issues. It seems some of the greatest leaders have made extreme decisions to follow a given path and stuck to it in the face of opposition. Of course, some of the biggest debacles arose from the same sort of people who chose wrong or refused to give up when the writing is on the wall.

Nevertheless it doesn’t mean that Reagan or Churchill or Lincoln didn’t listen to all their options. They just decided to make a black-and-white stand for what they felt was the proper course of action rather than having their decision(s) diluted.

4

I agree with the assessment that it is not reasoning which should be black or white, but at times, the answer is just yes or no, do or don’t, now or never. There are times when the time for consideration is brief indeed.

But the “nuances” of reason often precede the moment of crisis by years. I draw and fire my weapon, or I draw, but do not fire, and verbally intervene in a crime in progress. How long do I have to make this decision? Seconds, at best. How much consideration can I give to the plethora of information that has bearing upon such an act? That answer lies not how well I explore the social, racial, economic, and legal ramifications of the philosophical decision of the right of might, but rather on how well I have learned the proven procedure that law enforcement has found to be most reliable in emergency confrontations with armed felons.

The decision is not a simple one, but many of its aspects can be analyzed in advance, and training can make the process of on the spot analysis very direct, and rapid. It is not simple black white thinking, it is preparation for difficult decisions, that can be foreseen. The final dilemma is indeed binary. Shoot, don’t shoot. But the thinking must be vastly more than binary decision making, or reflex and chaos become our law.

Tris

“It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi ~

5

I think Whack-a-Mole has put his finger on it. A careful, balanced analysis of a complex situation may well lead to a decision to take firm, decisive, forceful action at the extreme end of the range of possible responses.

The trouble with firm, decisive, forceful action is that, if it goes wrong, it tends to go very, very wrong. And firm, decisive, forceful action without the benefit of a careful analysis to satisfy you that it is the best thing is obviously a much higher-risk proposition. It may be unavoidable where time is limited and action of some kind is essential, but so far as possible it should be avoided.

6

It’s hard to disagree. Note also UDS’s wise comment (which is line with the other posters, as well):

Despite all the wisdom in these comments, I maintain that there are still situations where it’s actually better to do less analysis than more analysis?

“How can this be?” you ask. I’ll tell ya.

The concept of “Paralysis through Analysis” is well-known in the Business schools. (It may be due to Peter Drucker.) Anyhow it’s widely taught that too much analysis can routinely lead to paralysis, in certain situations. This principle conflicts with UDS’s idea “A careful, balanced analysis of a complex situation may well lead to a decision to take firm, decisive, forceful action at the extreme end of the range of possible responses.” The PTA principle suggests that this idea may be difficult to carry out in the real world.

Note this quote

This quote brings up another reason to sometimes avoid over-analysis. Although it is infrequent that too much analysis is bad, those situations are apt to be particularly vital. E.g., it’s historically rare to have an enemy as awful as Hitler or Stalin (thank goodness), but when you do, it’s incredibly important that nothing impede action on your part.

Similarly, it’s rare that one can make money effortlessly in reinsurance, but, during a remarkable period when it’s raining money, it’s wise to put out a huge barrel, not a little pail. The rain won’t last.

7

december, “paralysis through analysis” is not a warning to avoid analysis, it just means “you can only consider the things you know about”. It’s not “too much analysis” which bogs corporate action down; it’s the habit of reacting to information lag by waiting instead of acting on what you already know.

I know of no business school which teaches “black and white” thinking. Hell, even actuaries know about red ink. :wink:

8

december:

I think what you are referring to is more appropriately known as the “I’ve Got No Balls[sup]tm[/sup]” syndrome.

Certainly we can see times where nobody is willing to stick their neck out and take decisive action. Beauracracies are notorious for it as everyone keeps trying to pass the buck and it is (unfortunately) a rare leader who will take the bull by the horns and go with a decision.

The best example I can think of this is General McClellan in the Civil War. When it came to the logisitics of building and moving an army the guy was brilliant but when it came time to shit he couldn’t manage it yet stayed squatting on the pot. He always needed more people, more intelligence, more toilet paper, more something and refused to fight his army even when the odds seemed drastically stacked in his favor. Contrast that to General Grant. The guy got lots of his soldiers killed but he wasn’t afraid to slog ahead and hammer out a victory one way or another. This doesn’t mean that General Grant didn’t do his best to get what info he could beforehand and make best use of it but when the time came to act he didn’t sit around whining for more details and just got to it.

One of these men had Kermit’s balls and the other had big brass ones. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which.

9

If you’re the kind of person (or organisation) who finds that too much analysis leads to paralysis, then less analysis plus a decision can be preferable, but only in a situation where (in essence) random action, however unfortunate, is better than no action at all. And while there can be such situations, they don’t arise very often. And you can’t recognise them when they do arise without some kind of analysis. Which makes the principle fairly useless in real life.

Of course, history is full of examples where ill-considered action worked out well in the end. They prove nothing; there are many counter-examples where ill-considered action turned an unfortunate situation into an unmitigated disaster.

10

There are certain bits of information that have zero value or negative value. This terrible joke:

Three men out walking come across a brown pile. One of the men stoops down, peers closely at it, and announces, “Looks like sh*t.”

The second man sniffs it carefully, and rerports, “Smells like sh*t.”

The third man puts a bit in his mount, and tells the others, “Tastes like it , too.”

“Aha,” say the 3 men together. “It must be * sht. It’s a good thing we didn’t step in it!.”

A real-world example goes back to the Communist closing of Berlin to the West in about 1961. I happened to visit Berlin in 1963 and discovered a significant literature detailing plans for Berlin to become its own occupied territory, separate from East and West Germany. Of course, the separate territroy would have entirely under the control of the Communists.

I doubt that the Kennedy Administration wasted much time in becomoing expert on this approach. They knew that the Communists were violating their treaty obligations and that the US should support our West Berlin allies. They didn’t have to taste the Three Germanies concept to know that it was sh*t.

We need not studty and analyze the particular religion of those who try to prevent Darwinism from being taught in the schools. It’s enough to know that genetics and heredity are well established sciences, whereas the opponents are merely presenting religious POV’s. There’s no need to get fundamentalism all over one’s shoe.

Another example is some of the methods that have taken over certain part of academia. It’s sometimes called deconstructionism. One doesn’t need to spend too much time smelling this stuff to realize that it’s non-academic, and that it ought not be dominating university thought. If one wants to cleanse a university department under the sway of this theory, it’s a waste of time, or even counter-productive, to first master deconstructionism.

11

Depends on what you’re trying to acheive, doesn’t it?

A very cursory examination of some concept may convince me that it’s of no interest to me, and I need pay it no further attention.

However if, e.g., I want to take effective action to prevent the Soviets from establishing Berlin as a separate occupied territory, it’s not enough for me to know that I don’t want it established as a separate territory. It would help me, for example, to understand why the Soviets do want it established as a separate territory. What would they hope to acheive by it? Are there any other ways they could acheive the same ends, and how do I feel about them? Are they any ways in which I could prevent them achieving their ends, even if Berlin was a separate territory? (If so I may be able to demonstrate to the Soviets that establishing Berlin as a separate territory will not acheive their ends.) What would the Soviets sacrifice in order to establish Berlin as a separate territory? (This will help to to decide which of the range of actions open to me would dissuade the Soviets, and which would not.) And so forth.

History tells us that the Kennedy Administration did not launch a nuclear strike to prevent Berlin being established as a separate territory. Presumably an analysis of the situation showed them that less drastic action would acheive the same end, and that it was action which they were prepared to take.

Similarly, yes, we don’t necessarily need to get to grips with “creation science” in order to persuade ourelves that it is complete nonsense. But if we want to prevent it being taught in schools, that (presumably - I don’t live in the US) requires us to persuade school boards and, ultimately, voters that it should not be taught, and this may require us to engage with it sufficiently to demonstrate to others, and not merely to ourselves, that it is fundamentally unsound science.

I know nothing whatever about deconstructionism, so I’ll let that one pass.

I think my general point is that you’ll know quickly enough who your enemies are, but to deal effectively with them it usually helps, and is sometimes essential, to understand their position, their motivations, their objectives, their thinking and so forth.

12

In my experience, someone taking a stance of black-or-white, is usually someone trying to convince you of their beliefs rather than someone attempting to arrive at the “truth”, whatever that may mean.

I agree with earlier posters that having the ability to make difficult or unpopular decisions, can often be misinterpreted as black-and-white thinking. It is not. It is simply making a decision. “Paralysis of Analysis” is what happens when people or organizations cannot make the decision that needs to be made. What often is not understood by these people stymied with indecision is that a decision is what has to happen when information is incomplete. If the information were complete, the answer would be self-evident, and a “decision” wouldn’t have to be made.

Another problem arises in situations that I refer to as “doorknob decisions”. If you’ve ever built a house, there are scores of decisions to be made. One of those is to pick out doorknobs. So you go to the doorknob store and stare at a wall full of doorknobs. In most people’s experience, it takes forever to make that decision. Why? Because the outcome really doesn’t matter much. There is no real basis to choose one doorknob over the other. In the end, it doesn’t matter which doorknob style you choose. When was the last time you visited someone at their home and noticed their doorknobs?

“Paralysis of Analysis” is when people keep searching for a reason to choose one way vs another, and they don’t realize that either
a) sufficient information doesn’t exist, or
b) whatever additional information dredged up will continue to point to an ambiguous answer.
Or… I guess it could mean that the decision maker has fallen victim to the I’ve Got No Balls[sup]tm[/sup] syndrome. (Thanks Whack-a-Mole for the reference!)

But back to the OP.

Most people are raised in a competitive environment. School. Work. Sports. We have gotten quite good at advocating our position. We usually have a perspective of “I’m right and you’re wrong, and by God I’m going to convince you of the error of your ways if it kills us both.” These people are usually dogmatically assertive about their opinions and beliefs. This is black-and-white thinking. There is a right answer and a wrong answer, and nothing in-between.

Effective leaders balance this skill of advocacy with the skill of inquiry. Being able to ask questions like “what do you see that leads you to that conclusion?” As UDS puts it, “…to deal effectively with [your enemies] it usually helps, and is sometimes essential, to understand their position, their motivations, their objectives, their thinking and so forth.” Whatever the “battle”, I believe that either side would be more successful in the “fight” if they truly understood the principles motivating the opposition. Otherwise it is simply dogmatic us-against-them. I’m right and you’re wrong.

Some effective leaders are able to understand a situation quite quickly. And often with liberal amounts of “gut instinct”. But I don’t believe that this implies that these decisions are made without rational thinking. The interesting thing, is that in retrospect, good leaders make good decisions most of the time. Luck? Perhaps some. But mostly I believe it’s perceiving the situation with all it’s nuances, and making a decision using the available information. This is not black-and-white thinking, regardless of how fast a conclusion is reached.

Another attribute of effective leaders is that once the decision is made, they are not fraught with self-doubt. They advance forward with both guns blazing to achieve their objectives. (Hmmm. I’m a little distressed that the metaphors that come to mind are all violent in nature. Oh well. I guess it’s either that or a sports metaphor. ~shrug~).

13

Always! Wait – I mean, never! Always-never. Thank you.