False Choices on Evanston's Future

A frequent rhetorical trick is to oversimplify an issue, and then present to the audience, factfinder, or decisionmaker a false choice, usually with loaded verbiage. Henry Kissinger was a master of the "we have two choices" overdistillation; Donald Rumsfeld would frequently attempt the same thing by re-phrasing a question into an unpalatable option v. what the Administration was doing.

This tack is what one alderman employed in saying Evanston's only option is to "move forward" or else we "slip backward."

An extended jam on the same riff recently appeared in an Evanston blog, oversimplifying all choices about Evanston's future into "progress" v. "regress" (anyone who doesn't agree with the author is a "regressive"). Sadly, as seems to be more and more common in debates over development, the argument was heavily flavored with sneering, ad hominem attack -- it is apparently not enough just to disagree on the issues, it seems necessary to demonize the opposition.

I'll leave for another moment my feelings about this latter tactic. Let's just address for now the false choice of forward v. backward.

First of all, forward is not always the wise choice. If you are standing on a cliff, or are running toward a wall or a thornbush, forward is just plain stupid. In gauging whether to continue on a vector, you have to look at the bigger picture, including where you've been, how happy you and others are with that, and where continuation is likely to lead. To urge that we have no choice but continue what we've been doing, and insult and marginalize all who disagree, is what Mr. Bush is doing with Iraq. Such anti-intellectual bullying is a dangerous device, because it dismisses the possibility -- which we should always consider -- that we might have erred.

Sometimes backwards is, in fact, the better choice, even if you want to move on. A quarterback drops back to pass. Corporations sometimes downsize, or spin off. Armies as well as organizations employ the strategic retreat. Both individuals and institutions can be overextended.

Second, motion is not the only option. If you have a destination, once you get there, you can stop, or at least pause. If you are building something, once it's built, you don't keep on building. If you are fetching buckets of water to fill a tub, once the tub is full, you don't keep on fetching buckets.

I don't get to travel as much as I'd like, but the last time I was in southern France, I was struck, as much as by the beauty of the countryside, by how the culture seemed freer of the endless striving and strife we see here, our restlessness of always wanting more. A vineyard does not need to increase yield every year to be a great vineyard. It is possible to get to a good place and enjoy it.

Finally, even if motion is necessary, forward v. backward are your limits only if you are stuck in a rut. The universe is not linear. Sideways is always an option. So are up and down. Growth can be inner as well as external.

Evanston's issues are multidimensional and demand more than two-dimensional thinking. Similarly, its citizens are complex creatures, who deserve better than mean-spirited cartooning or a menu with only two items.