Analogies: Two Paths in the Woods

You’re walking with a large group of people through the woods when the road splits into two choices. The path on the left is overgrown with weeds, the ground is wet, it takes some turns that make its final destination unclear. The path on the right heads through a thicket of poison ivy before starting up a treacherous cliff with loose rocks, the sound of hungry bears and buzz of stinging insects coming from its foreboding shadows. Both bad choices, but one worse than the other - more dangerous, higher likelihood of failure and injury, possibly death. The group must decide where to go but there is no leader. What argument do you make?

The natural instinct is to bitch and moan about your lousy choices. Point out the bad about each one but eventually, when it finally comes down to taking a vote, you know you’ll choose the one on the left, but you still won’t like it. The problem comes when you realize some people want to go right. In fact, many argue vehemently to the group that the right path is better, and if you sit by and grouse about the left path you’ll notice a lot of the people start to nod their heads. You see, most people haven’t bothered to check out either path very closely and just want someone else to do the thinking and tell them where to go. Maybe you get a little worried and start to argue for the left path, but they’ll just point out all the bad things you said about the left path a moment ago. You’ve undercut yourself and while a clear and rational approach would judge each path on its own merits, the truth is the mob mentality is often swayed more by passionate argument than facts and logic. Maybe you shouldn’t have spent so much time complaining about the better of the two choices, even if it’s far from perfect. Maybe you shouldn’t have spent so much time wishing for a third choice, longing for a straight path on solid ground directly cutting through a beautiful valley. Maybe your time would have been spent comparing and contrasting the two choices that exist and arguing strongly for what you know will be best in the end.

When the final vote is taken and the group heads off, you will know that you made the right choice regardless of what everyone else does. But that doesn’t matter if the group chooses the more dangerous path. Even if you’re confident in your wilderness skills to carry you through the danger there are many people who are stuck with the group. They don’t have the option to leave or the skills to survive without the group. Or maybe you know you can go it alone on the left path, but what happens when you reach your destination and there is no-one else there to share your success; what if none of the others survive their bad choice?  

In a lesser of two evils scenario it is an oft-mentioned truism that both choices are evil. Yet what really matters in any choice are not the similarities but the differences: one is lesser. So you should clearly choose the path on the left, the lesser of the two evils. We all know this even if we try to come up with some other third option, some excuse to avoid making the difficult decision. But if it’s really just the two choices, the choice is simple. What’s difficult is getting everyone to make it. And that’s where the decision-making process of a group is much different than the thought process of an individual. It’s not just the decision you make, but how you arrive there, the way you discuss it with others, the words you choose and the attitude you bring, it all helps drive the decisions of each other, especially those who may not be able to work their way through to the simple choice on their own. If you recognize the importance of choosing the lesser evil, you need to recognize the necessity of fighting for something you do not like.