Finding The Middle Way

Most discussions (on this WikiWiki and otherwhere) seem to be about opposite opinions. One says A and another one says not-A, both argue their point. Sometimes a conclusion is reached, sometimes a synthesis is found, but often the answer must be: ItDepends. This is especially so, if real human beings are involved.

Example (inspired by discussion on FairnessDoctrine?):

• A: Everyone should be awarded/treated equally, otherwise emotional development is impaired.
• not-A: Competition is a natural human social behaviour. Treating e.g. children independent of their behavior leads to laziness and demotivation (esp. for talents).

I think, that is is often a BifurcationFallacy.

My position is FindingTheMiddleWay in this case: Basically you have to treat your children (s/child/human/) equally, but there is no need to suppress your delight when one child does something special, or your anger when it does something nasty. Your child will find its own MiddleWay between the extremes by learning how others respond to its behaviour.

FindingTheMiddleWay is hard.

• The optimum may be difficult to find (be a GoldilocksSolution).
• A choice between the (different) benefits of the extremes is involved.
• The middle may not be interesting in its own (extremes by themselves carry some advantages, a JackOfAllTrades is a MasterOfNone?).

Benefits of FindingTheMiddleWay:

• More flexibility, you can move slightly to one or the other extreme, without loosing much.
• Easier to hit than the extremes. The middle is usually flat around the optimum.
• Easier to argue about, after all, ItDepends.

I have found this choosing the MiddleWay a useful LifeStrategy, especially after being married. Some things in life are just not BlackOrWhite?, TrueOrFalse?, but ShadesOfGrey?.

--GunnarZarncke

---

See MiddleWay, ItDepends, BifurcationFallacy, GoldilocksSolution, AllThingsInModerationEspeciallyModeration, ConservationOfComplexity

CategoryLifeStrategies