海角大神

Last week, I was away at a media workshop and heard an idea that struck a deep chord. It came to mind again as I read this week鈥檚 cover story package. The idea is that humans can be prone to 鈥渆ither/or鈥� thinking. When presented with two possibilities, we often make it binary, assuming the two choices are mutually exclusive. There is also a tendency to do something even worse: Overlay that choice with a 鈥済ood/bad鈥� bias.

You can see where this is going. That kind of thinking is rampant in the political polarization we鈥檙e seeing across the West. It makes sense for politicians (who want to be elected, after all) to set things up as binary choices and then demonize the other choice. We can be complicit in this unless we push back.

The fact is, the best choices are often 鈥渂oth/and.鈥� Take this week鈥檚 cover story package on migration around the world 鈥� from Africa to Europe, from Central America to the United States. Let鈥檚 distill the four stories to a list of action items. In other words, what do the stories tell us about what we can actually do to address the challenges presented by migration?

1. Dictators don鈥檛 help. People flee dictators, and dictators are generally bad partners in trying to fix problems that run beyond their own narrow self-interests.聽

Action item: Be very careful about tolerating dictators. It can backfire, big time.

2. Safety matters. If people feel their loved ones are in danger, nothing will stop them from fleeing.聽

Action item: Help make people feel safer where they are.

3. Migration is about mind-set. You migrate because you can鈥檛 see a future where you live now. A sense of personal safety is the most obvious example. But a lack of freedom or economic opportunity can also have a powerful effect.聽

Action item: Help give people the possibility of a promising future where they are.

4. Mass migration can spread political turmoil. There鈥檚 a significant body of research suggesting that the core value of a democracy is not that it breeds high-minded civic ideals but that it maintains law and order without giving any one group an unfair advantage. In other words, it maintains a sense of control without reverting to authoritarianism. In Europe and the United States, migrations have led some to fear that things are spiraling out of control.聽

Action item: Make sure that processes are in place to clearly demonstrate the presence of law and order amid mass migrations.

Those action items are only a fraction of the practical lessons learned we can take from the past few years, but they鈥檙e a start. And they鈥檙e very much a 鈥渂oth/and鈥� list, whether it鈥檚 using foreign aid to build economic opportunities abroad or reinforcing border security. That鈥檚 the danger of overlaying any line of thinking with a 鈥済ood/bad鈥� bias. There are good ideas out there everywhere, and none of them hew exclusively to any one person or party. The biggest 鈥渂ad鈥� might be the rigidity of 鈥渆ither/or鈥� thinking itself.