How the Rittenhouse incident might be the best example of the dangers of binary thinking we have.
How one incident has revealed all the craziness currently in play, and could help debunk some very bad ideas.
It could also help set in motion very destructive events. Like, even superpower collapse level events.
So much has been written and said about the trial, and the incident itself, that I’m sure you’re kind of bored with it by now — even if drawn to it because of everything that has been attached to it. Maybe also everything that appears to be riding on the outcome.
There’s something you may notice about all that chatter if you care to look. It’s very binary. Very. And depending on which side of that binary you live on, the whole thing looks totally different. Two separate realities.
On one side, one you could even term mainstream, is the idea this kid went to a town 30 miles away, crossing state lines in the process while armed with an illegal firearm, and went looking for trouble. He found it, and two people are dead with another grievously maimed. The kid is clearly a right-wing 2nd amendment ‘MAGA’ nut who had hate in his heart for black people and allies (why else go up ‘against’ an active BLM protest after another black man was brutally shot by racist police?!) and sometime during the night he actively provoked an attack by one man that allowed him to shoot that man, then while fleeing this crime shot two other people trying to stop him. The police letting him leave the scene and go home displays complicity and systemically racist forces openly at work. Charges of ‘white supremacist’ seem apt in that setting — to the point the POTUS, many in Congress and the media have made that very assessment publicly.
On the other side we have people calling him a ‘hero’. Exercising his (God given?) constitutional birthright to go about armed, and protect himself, his fellow ‘good guys’, and some private property. The people who attacked him were all convicted felons, all white (take that white supremacy narrative!) and presented deadly threats that he had every right to defend himself from. He should not have been charged with anything in the first place. He was there to offer medical aid, clean graffiti and protect a business from rioters while inept and disempowered law enforcement and city officials did nothing. He should be a role model to young Americans instead of on trial.
But there’s another view that puts nobody in a good light — and at the very same time puts each one of them in a reasonable and defensible position.
Everybody involved in the incident, and the unrest itself, are at fault. Nobody made a single good call on that night — and while they all deserve blame for what happened it was part of a much bigger set of compounding mistakes we’re collectively making. If we keep making them Kenosha will happen again, and worse. Maybe even in the wake of this very trial depending on the verdict.
As I write this the jury are deliberating, and I will post it before the verdict, because what I’m trying to point out is true no matter the outcome of the trial.
The events of that night are actually a prime example of how binary thinking plays out when applied to reality, which is almost always very complex. This runs through from the reason there was rioting at all, to how law enforcement and city officials responded, to the key actors in the chaos of the shootings themselves. This is the great tragedy of it in my estimation. The binary us/them driving every decision, where one or the other of these ‘sides’ is pure good intentions vs evil (Rittenhouse is either a hero or a horror. The people shot were either anti-American criminal grubs or good people protesting a great societal injustice).
The truth lies somewhere in between, though. In fact it can be argued everybody there was simultaneously perfectly reasonable in intention and motivation - and at the very same time dead wrong to be there at all, faulty in their reasoning for doing so and in every action taken. There’s also the point that the circumstances themselves reveal faults and failures at levels far above the individual actors.
The reason for the protest/riot is worth including for context. This was over the officer involved shooting of Jacob Blake. A 29 year old with a felony arrest warrant who actively and violently resisted arrest and was shot while reaching for a knife after physical struggle and less-lethal failed to detain or contain him. He was paralyzed from the waist down as a result. No charges were laid against the officer who shot him, because it was determined upon investigation to be justified under the circumstances. In the wake of the George Floyd death in May, and the accidental shooting of Breonna Taylor during a no-knock warrant entry in March however, this was seen and discussed by media, celebrities, sports stars and politicians as part of a society-wide bias against people of color by law enforcement in the US. A double standard when it came to how BIPOC arrests/interactions were handled vs. law enforcement of white or white adjacent people. Several high visibility examples of this have been sensationalized and centered in mainstream media, politics and culture since the early 2010s — usually loudly proclaimed by Black Lives Matter, a decentralized activist movement started in the wake of the Trayvon Martin case in 2012. Coupled with a trend toward college students being fed steady discussion on how society is racist, unjust, and unequal to an egregious level, and that it is on them to fix it through activism. The outraged behavior such claims provoke is predictable, and many feel is entirely justified — even before all relevant facts are known. Once we’re there, any justifications for the shooting are framed as further examples of the same injustice in action, and self-protecting.
These racist police in fact reveal a deeper system-wide entrenched racism through all structures and institutions in society, according to them — backed by the new ideas of anti-racism. Inequality is current racism in action. White people are complicit in this both by virtue of their historical advantage and current privilege that a generation or two of equal treatment under law has not provided to BIPOC. This outrage MUST be dismantled immediately and redressed or society itself is immoral.
If you are on board with this thinking — and when the President, VP, senior members of congress, mainstream media, corporations, sports stars and celebrities all say you’re correct — who wouldn’t go out to protest such a horror and demand reform? Or even demand we ‘defund the police’ completely? With a triple whammy of three shocking examples in short succession, perhaps even some anger, violence, and destruction seem appropriate. Grosskreutz, Huber, and possibly even Rosenbaum were on the ‘right side’ of things as far as they were concerned.
But how accurate is that take on society, police, and race?
Well, as sober people tend to understand it’s very complex. Are there racist police, and even departments, operating in a way that targets and unfairly treats certain demographics? I’m sure there are, even many. Is the entirety of law enforcement and wider society structured deliberately to maintain this as status quo? That’s not clear — but cool appraisal tends toward that not being the case. At all. You don’t have to take my word for it. The Washington Post has been collecting the data here.
Sam Harris took on these questions in a very intelligent and compassionate podcast in the weeks after the George Floyd incident and resultant unrest. I still think it addresses the topic extremely well with all that has been written and spoken about since. You can find it here, and I highly recommend you take the time.
On the other hand, if this is NOT your view of America or the people within it, then the arson, violence, vandalism, intimidation and property destruction is not only unwarranted, it’s a terrible injustice that should be stopped. The people doing the destruction are out of control, angry about the wrong stuff, and hurting their fellow citizens — not to mention destroying valuable and vital property and assets that belong to all of us, and are crucial for the ongoing well-being of the community. An attack on this is an attack on our livelihoods, our very way of life. Law enforcement is at once stretched by the sheer scale of the unrest, and hamstrung by Mayors and Governors who want to appear sympathetic to the people creating unrest, for both immediate (the unrest may stop)and long term (the protesters may feel heard and vote for me) gain. Many civilians who consider themselves patriotic, conservative ‘real Americans’ will find such breakdowns of public order completely unacceptable. Given 2nd amendment rights to bear arms and defend your own person and property some will take it upon themselves to step in and maintain the peace. Kyle was just such a person. He was also just a kid. In other circumstances his approach to community and standing up against the forces of chaos may indeed be admirable and useful. Add an AR-15 and some convergent events that spiral out of control in seconds, however…
So there is a take on this that has all the players there for the ‘right reasons’, and on the right side in their own minds. The already disturbed Rosenbaum gets higher and higher throughout the evening on his own sense of righteousness and ‘You don’t scare me’ thinking, that eventually leads to him chasing down Rittenhouse and grabbing for the gun. In his own mind, he may even have been attempting to make those around him ‘safer’ by disarming a threat. In fact on one level, that’s the most rational explanation for what he did…
Kyle however saw him as deadly threat when he grabbed for the rifle after not being deterred from aggressive pursuit by having it pointed at him. As any trained firearms carrier knows a struggle between you and another must be viewed as a struggle for the gun, with all the implications should the other party gain control of it…
Which brings us to the pursuit and subsequent shootings. In the minds of all those who attacked Rittenhouse they were trying stop a shooter who’d just shot a protester. Remember they had just seconds to make their judgements. This could have required a huge amount of courage to do for each individual. If he indeed was an active shooter who’d started a rampage their actions would have been nothing short of heroic.
To Rittenhouse however they were attacking and attempting to disarm him. People were calling for him to be ‘craniumed’ (headshot) from nearby. “Get him’ was the clear intent of all the pursuers. He had no option once he tripped and they rushed him, some armed, but to defend himself.
All these viewpoints are ‘true’ at the same time.
They also lead to the deaths of two people, the maiming of another, and the absolute end of any form of normal life Rittenhouse may have had, whether found guilty or not. It’s also what happens when things are allowed, or encouraged, to get so out of control in the first place.
As Jesse Singal caught very early on pretty much the whole case hinges on whether the Rosenbaum shooting was a murder or self-defense. If first option, then the subsequent shootings would also be considered murder. This is the prosecutors position, in fact. If not, then they are also self-defense — as Kyle’s attorneys state.
This is the one true binary in this whole thing.
As tragic as this understanding is — that all were essentially acting in ‘good faith’ from their point of view — the charges are against Rittenhouse, so the outcome rests primarily on what can be ascertained he believed in any moment. Many people analyzing the trial are agreed the prosecution has done a fairly underwhelming job of making the case that Rittenhouse provoked and deliberately murdered people. The case for self-defense in all three shootings and all other endangerment charges looks very good for Rittenhouse. Some analysts predict a clean sweep of acquittals.
Which brings us to the next problem. There’s no doubt The US under the Biden administration is a place where social justice, equity, diversity and racial divides are front and center of messaging from the White House, Democrat party members in Congress etc., and many of the mainstream media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, the NYT and the Washington Post. All have framed this incident so that when it became clear that Grosskreutz admitted being shot only after he had pointed a loaded Glock at Kyle, many were shocked.
As Andrew Sullivan points out so well in his essay here, along with Singal above — the nation may not be able to handle a full acquittal. They may not be able to handle anything less than guilty across the board. Everybody they trust has told them what happened and how. It’s a slam dunk, he’s a white supremacist vigilante who broke several laws before the shootings, and several others during. How will him being found not guilty of all charges play out with that as backdrop? Probably similarly to the outraged reaction to a justified shooting that got us here in the first place is a fair guess.
Here’s a key point: even with the best of intentions in anybody’s hearts and minds, taking part in or going to a violent angry protest can and will lead to the very worst outcomes possible. As we saw in this case. Going out to protest how this case came out and creating the same situation again seems daft — but watch exactly that happen.
Because two realities, according to those participating.
Others not convinced of the rightness of either side look on in horror knowing what comes next. There’s an old saying I love: ‘You can’t always keep trouble from calling, but you don’t have to make out a place card’.
‘Play stupid games, win stupid prizes’ also springs to mind.
But back to my original point — we could learn something here. It’s clear that both of the alternate realities on either side of the left/right divide over the Rittenhouse incident are seriously flawed, and don’t fit the facts. Those flaws are based mainly on a view of those on ‘the other side’ that is at best a gross caricature of them, or a blatant and hateful misrepresentation at worst. Not to mention any reality that has a 17 year old armed with an AR-15 facing down violent rioters as a good, normal or reasonable thing is insane by definition alone. Same goes for any reality that has the same 17 year old actively hunting people because he’s a white supremacist militia member.
There’s a take that people on the right view the left as people with bad ideas, while the left views the right as bad people.
The Trump years have seen rhetoric ramped up to hysterical levels by both far right and far left pundits. By my take, the left have misunderstood the right. This is either deliberate or because the right can often come off as smug and dismissive when making their case. Their feeling seems to be that their positions are obvious, so they don’t explain them at all, or badly if they do. They can also sometimes be downright mean and obnoxious. Sometimes they lie.
Democrats and their supporters have deranged themselves with what they thought Trump stood for, and thought he was doing. Which is entirely forgivable given how badly or not at all he would usually explain any decision. Any speaking really (most of the time). However they hyped it into an existential threat to democracy. The thinking was ‘whatever it takes to save our country’. Since he/they ‘must be racist, misogynist, trans/homophobic, white supremacist fascist bigots, I mean, listen to what we think they meant!’ *insert hyperbolic caricature that highlights the worst possible interpretation that then becomes a universally accepted identifying main feature*
‘Let’s turn their dirty tactics against them’ becomes a ‘rational’ response. Including the lying.
But what if you have misread (or deliberately misrepresented) intent and turned it into tactic in your own mind, so now you adopt a tactic you made up and are using it in the real world? Could you make some missteps if your foundational thinking is so badly warped? Could reactions brought about by going down this path further entrench the worst in the opposition? Does this escalate over time?
What happens when this broken foundation is applied further, to all people who also support or voted for Trump? Well, look around. Listen to how we’re speaking about each other, in the media and online. It’s pretty brutal and raw. It’s also darkly, dangerously different than only a few years ago. I remember. You should too.
I hope I’ve made a case that the reality around the Kenosha shootings doesn’t fit either side’s narrative in extremely fundamental ways. Perhaps these narratives, smacking into reality the way they have here, should be interrogated and investigated. Talked about, discussed. Perhaps adjusted, reworked or even dropped completely. We were doing fine without them, there was no derailing of democracy into an authoritarian dystopia. Or was there?
Kenosha has placed around 500 National Guard troops downtown in anticipation of a verdict. Death threats have been leveled at the Judge (who is now under police protection) and jury members have been videoed and photographed — presumably as a threat. Demands on social media and calls from various prominent voices say that an acquittal will lead to violence and rioting. Vote the way the mob demands or face consequences. Is this how we want justice decided now? Lock up this kid or a city burns, damn the facts of the case?
Perhaps if they had called in the National Guard in the first place we wouldn’t be here at all.