Reinforcing Our Views On False Choices

An activist in Arizona went through some use-of-force training scenarios with police and came away with a different attitude. I think it’s a great example of the power of rejecting False Choices and trying to understand opposing perspectives. The better you understand what it’s like to be a police officer, the better you can offer legitimate critique and ideas for improving things as opposed to baseless criticism and demagoguery.

I think it would be great if every protester did this. I also think it would be great if, say, every pro-police counter-rally-goer would spend a couple days driving around and hanging out with some young black men in the inner city (it’s harder to come up with comparable reverse scenarios due to some of the power asymmetries involved, but something like that might be a start). Increased understanding leads to increased empathy, breaking the negative feedback cycles of defensiveness and outrage.

It was interesting, though, to see the article making the rounds in the conservative wings of False Choice land. Many people seemed to view the story through the tribal lenses that divide these issues between “police” and “protesters” and insist on choosing sides between them. False Choicers already knew that “police” was the right side and “protesters” was the wrong side, and this activist’s experience simply proved that he was on the wrong side in his ignorance, but his enlightenment showed him the truth about the right side.

Instead of the article making them think that their own views might suffer from similar ignorance, they could only think about all the activists on the other side they wished would also become enlightened to their side. Instead of the article implying that protesters who want to fix problems with police are more likely to be able to make genuine improvements if they understand an officer’s position, the article only implied to them that there are no problems with the police that need fixing at all!

As someone who rejects False Choice land, the incident reinforced to me the value of rejecting False Choice land. For someone who thrives in False Choice land, the very same incident reinforced the value of thriving in it.