Two recent editorials in The New York Times—one by Damien Cave and one by Amanda Taub—argue that “zero-sum game” thinking is on the rise in American geopolitics. In a zero-sum game, like tic-tac-toe or chess, one person’s gain is the other’s loss; in other words, the net sum of the exchange is zero. This kind of thinking, they argue, runs afoul of the post-war consensus of the positive-sum game: the cooperation that not only benefits the other side but redounds to my own—a rising tide that lifts all boats.
The irony of both pieces, which neither author seems to see, is what the whole argument hinges on: this rise in zero-sum thinking and its evils entails a corresponding fall of the positive-sum perspective and its goods. In other words: a zero-sum game.
Indeed, the authors are at pains to admit, at times, that zero-sum exchanges do indeed occur. No pie—whether of apple or Apple Inc.—can be divided into wholes. In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below—where two finite objects cannot occupy the same physical space and two finite experiences cannot fill the same temporal expanse—it is simply a hard fact of reality.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that Cave and Taub aren’t onto something. We do seem to be in the grip of a crisis of zero-sum, either/or thinking.
But the key question is this: Where is the crisis? It doesn’t seem to be, pace Cave and Taub, in a particular political party: A Harvard study found that “zero-sum thinking does not map neatly with party affiliation,” and, in fact, if one had to choose a more binary bunch, it would be the Democrats, who “proved slightly more zero-sum than Republicans.” It also doesn’t seem to be in politics on the level of practical exchanges: Again—as the authors admit and demonstrate—zero-sum scenarios are, to a certain degree, unavoidable in economic transactions and power struggles.
No, the crisis runs far deeper, to depths even game theorists and psychologists never quite reach.
Very little about the Times pieces on binary thinking, about our polarized political climate, or even about the whole riven twenty-first century is intelligible apart from a view of the human being as forever caught on the horns of one great dilemma: Are we infinite spirits navigating a finite world, or finite bodies with a dream of infinity? Is the meaning of life with God up in his heaven or with man upon this earth? The more we move toward one side of the dilemma, the more we seem to move away from the other side; one side’s gain is the other side’s loss. This is the human crisis: a war of ultimate—that is to say, religious—ideas.
Cave and Taub are right in stating there’s a crisis of zero-sum thinking in politics. But it is inherent in the great political divide itself—the division of middle Americans and coastal elites, of Republicans and Democrats, of conservatives and liberals, of the “right” wing and “left” wing stretching back to the seating of France’s National Assembly. And behind this divide is the dilemma between order and openness in governing human society. The first group tends to privilege tradition, custom, hierarchy, and local stability; the second tends to privilege innovation, liberty, equality, and universal justice.
And this dilemma of order and openness is, ultimately, an extension of our great dilemma of heaven and earth. In our secular age, this seems like a category mistake. But conservatism is deeply rooted in a defense of traditional religion from skeptical liberalism, and to this day, conservatives tend to be more religious than their liberal counterparts. And consider the psychological profiles of each: orderly conservatives, who favor clear boundaries, tend to have a higher disgust sensitivity, while open-minded liberals, who favor bold bridges, tend to register higher levels of neurosis.
We see these same thought patterns in various “heavenward” and “earthward” movements of philosophy and religion across the centuries: on the one hand, the “spirituals” who would withdraw from and discipline this world below, and on the other, the down-to-earth who would shrug off or even deny a world above. The conservative mind knows that this place isn’t heaven and never will be, while the liberal heart longs to build some kind of heaven on earth.
The crisis isn’t that these poles of order and openness are defined and distinguished, or that some of us tend toward one and others to the other. It’s that they are absolutized at the expense of their opposites. This is the source of our either/or polarization. We lament the splinters of our opponents’ eyes but excuse the beams protruding from our own; we cry foul on them for doing today what we did yesterday, and would do again tomorrow if given the chance; and we read every one of their gains as our loss, and every one of our advances as their retreat.
All the while—bereft of the deep truths the other side honors—ideological order succumbs to paralysis, and ideological openness to chaos.
This would be a hopeless situation indeed if it weren’t for one who called himself “the Way” (Jn 14:6)—the God-man who, as Saint Paul said, gathered and reconciled all heavenly and earthly reality in himself (Eph 1:10; Col 1:20). The rich tradition of Catholic philosophy and theology has a whole host of both/ands to speak to our either/or age —not through a bland, centrist middle position, but through a higher plane that holds the opposing forces in tension. Catholic social teaching, in particular, has much to teach modern politics, including the geopolitical pull between a particular nation and the global community, about holding together heavenly order and earthly openness.
“Welcome to the Zero Sum Era,” the Times correctly observes. “Now How Do We Get Out?” In answering that question, we ignore the absolute paradox of Christ, and the paradoxical wisdom of Christianity, at our peril. And in our struggle against the Evil One—or, if you want, the negative force that relentlessly divides us from each other and ourselves—there’s no positive sum to be had: our loss is his gain.
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We seem to hear about the polarization in politics only when certain partisans win elections. And, with that, there are then calls for them to “reach across the aisle in compromise.”
Insofar as we’re living in a real world of pluralistic visions we can never achieve, as Becklo submits in his closing a perfect order unless all were converted to Christ. Otherwise, we’re bound to subtract the gain of the other.
Perfect order in this world would necessarily require complete conversion to Christ’s Gospel. Religious familial communities were tried in the early Church when all was shared, a Christian communism, which soon failed because the secular world has its own principles, the civil laws required for order. Which is why we had the formation of monastic religious orders.
Aquinas suggested a Christian monarch with absolute authority. Then he added that it would require a very honest, exemplary man. As such one would be difficult to find. That was evident during Christendom. As Qoheleth advised, we do well to offer our best, have faith in God, eat, drink, and enjoy the goods of our labor. Even with compliance to rules of sanctity during Lent. When loss is gain.
Know Jesus, know peace between men of good will.
Becklo asks: “Are we infinite spirits navigating a finite world, or finite bodies with a dream of infinity?”
To which, four answers of which three are mathematical: First, theologically: 1+1+1=1. Second, humanly: 1+1=3. Third, now politically: 1-1=0. But, fourthly, Thomas More gives us “Utopia” (meaning the “no-place” of this world when absent Revelation (like today), of which he counsels thusly:
“…Suppose wrong opinions cannot be plucked up by the root, and you cannot cure, as you would wish, vices of long standing, yet you must not on that account abandon ship of state and desert it in a storm, because you cannot control the winds. But neither must you impress upon them new and strange language, which you know will carry to weight with those of opposite conviction, but by indirect approach and covert suggestion you must endeavor and strive to the best of your power to handle all things well, and what you cannot turn to good, you must make as little bad as you can. For it is impossible that all should be well, unless all men are good, which I do not expect for a great many years to come” (Utopia).
Outside of Revelation, does not the Holy Spirit counsel all men for all time to do what they ought to do and what they ought not to do? The Holy Spirit contends that the virtuous life is the good life and the good life the virtuous life.
Perhaps an absolute Christian monarch would work, but would we want any of the previous or current occupants of the White House to have absolute authority?
Appreciate this thoughtful piece.
My concern, however, with the general bemoaning of either/or polarization involves matters of absolute truth such as the intrinsic evil of abortion which pro choice advocates don’t just support but rather laud as an intrinsic good. In that debate either/or polarization is not just inevitable. For the believing Christian it seems to me to be an absolute moral necessity.
Exactly so, your “concern.”
The same concern and teaching (!) articulated by St. John Paul II (JP II) in Veritatis Splendor (VS, 1993) where he recognizes “intrinsically evil acts” and defends, therefore, moral absolutes (a typical and incisive quote, below).
A concern also raised, within the Church (!), by four cardinals in the “dubia” response to Amoris Laetitia (2016). But because of the follow-up silence, the Church itself has become more or less polarized by the later half-blessing of irregular “couples”, especially LGBTQ couples, under the creative nuances of Fiducia Supplicans (2023).
Said JP II (also in line with the Catechism, 1992/4) in VS about such presumed carve-outs or exemptions, in practice, from the inborn natural law:
“A separation, or even an opposition [!], is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid and general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision [no longer a ‘moral judgment’!] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions’ [!] contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [thou shalt not!]” (VS, n. 56).
Open dissenters from such dissent–or rather, steadfast upholders of the universal and inborn natural law “without exception” (VS, n. 90)–are: all of continental Africa, Poland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Peru, the Netherlands, and parts of France, Spain, and Argentina, and of course and again, the consistent magisterium defended by some guy named Pope St. John Paul II. Even by Vatican II, which also clearly affirmed the morally biding natural law (Gaudium et Spes, nn. 27 and 79).
So, yes, polarization, creatively combined with appeals to merely harmonize absolute moral “polarities” through dialogue…
As Christian’s, we were , are and always be in the minority. Our Way will never be the way of the majority. It never was and never will be. In fact it can’t be. The World order was long ago given over to the evil one and he is in charge. Christ was offered control, but He turned it down ;and we have no business trying ro take over. Our mission must be to live the alternate way so that others may understand and want to follow it. We must live love without compromise. We needn’t worry about political philosophies or agendas, movements or causes. Our job is very simple- follow the WAY.
I can think of 10 reasons why much of this philosophy zer sum bolder dash doesn’t work. The battle between God and Satan can’t end as a win win scenario. As Ronald Reagan said of the Cold War, “we win they lose”. Or here, do this, remove all goals from playing surfaces. Then watch the end of sports.
“Again—as the authors admit and demonstrate—zero-sum scenarios are, to a certain degree, unavoidable in economic transactions and power struggles.”
They propose this, they do not admit or demonstrate it.
Economic transactions, to the extent they are engaged in by informed individuals free of deception or coercion and able to choose among alternatives are not “zero-sum scenarios”. The zero-sum element occurs with licensing and registration fees-which are coerced by legal authority.
If I purchase a car, I have been battered by trading a sum of money for the vehicle of my choice. I have cash to offer and the seller has cars to offer. Most economic transactions are positive sum, because voluntary exchange allows buyers and sellers to obtain form or time preferences.
Ten years ago, I purchased a small SUV for about $25K. It saved me in two collisions and now with attentive maintenance and about 103K miles, still performs well, with no noticeable degradation. I expect to keep it for several more years, until it’s repair costs become problematic, or it ceases to be reliable.
It is unfortunately clear that the author lacks any economic acumen and did not solicit the advice of somebody who could have informed him that market transactions as described are examples of mutual betterment.