Both Are True?
Toolbox, Extremes, Messy Middle, Diversity, Controversy, Intellectual Humility
I.
Toolbox
I love big ideas.
I love running novel mind software.
I love viewing the world from different perspectives.
That’s why I read.
And whenever an interesting person tells me about a book that changed their perspective or made them think twice, I add that book to the top of my reading list. That’s how I came across Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Just a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of Rand or her work. All I knew was that this magnum opus of hers left a lasting impression on someone I know to be intelligent, hardworking, and kind. So I bought the book, began reading, and quoted a few passages in my last newsletter.
And that’s when I learned that Ayn Rand is a divisive figure.1
A couple dozen folks unsubscribed from my newsletter, while one reader wrote to tell me that, despite never reading Rand, they consider her work “an assault on human dignity.” Well, shit. Would’ve been nice to know that before diving into an 1100+ page novel. At this point, I was already over halfway through the story, and my dignity was still intact (as far as I could tell). Would finishing Rand’s novel overhaul my beliefs for the worse, or would it provide me with yet another perspective in my toolbox with which to view the world and understand the people in it?
Guess there’s only one way to find out.
II.
Extremes
Substack writer Alex Dobrenko, author of the Both Are True newsletter, reminds us (and himself) that the truth often resides in the messy middle. While ideological extremes may contain some truths, they also contain untruths.
An example of this can be found in Joe Rogan’s Burn the Boats comedy skit:
So I understand why people wanna be on a team. So you just try to find a team that aligns with your values, right? What does your team believe?
“We believe that healthcare is a basic human right.” I agree.
“We think that education should be free.” Me too.
“And men can get pregnant.” Fuck! Is that a package deal? How did that one slip through?
Now back to Rand.
Among other staunch beliefs, Ayn Rand was an uncompromising advocate for laissez-faire capitalism. Laissez-faire is French for “let do,” and an optimal laissez-faire system is one in which the market is free to “let do” what it will—with no regulations, no government restrictions, just pure, unchecked capitalism. The opposing extreme to laissez-faire capitalism is communism—the “let don’t” model—which abolishes private ownership, centralizes economic control, and entrusts all decision-making to the state. On one end of the spectrum, capitalists have no guardrails; on the other, they have no freedom.
Despite their stark differences, both laissez-faire capitalism and communism share a fundamental flaw: they both assume a perfect society populated by perfect people conducting perfect transactions. Laissez-faire capitalism presupposes an ideal free market where everyone has equal opportunity, access to perfect information, and no external distortions like monopolies or corruption. Communism, in turn, envisions a utopia where class distinctions vanish, exploitation ceases, and the state equitably meets everyone’s needs. And both systems hinge on the assumption that those in charge—whether capitalists or politicians—will act with perfect morality and justice.
But we know that reality is far from perfect—it’s in the messy middle. So the more we commit to an ideological extreme, the more we must rely on myths to sustain our beliefs.2
III.
Messy Middle
I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose... It’s what keeps us locked in “either/or” thinking: the notion that we can have only big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate forty-six million without health insurance or embrace “socialized medicine”. It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off of politics.
Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (2006)
In late October 2024, with the U.S. presidential election fast approaching, Substack writer Adam Mastroianni published the findings of his Ideological Turing Test.
The goal? To see how well Republicans and Democrats actually understand each other.
To test this, Mastroianni and his fellow researchers asked a group of Republicans and Democrats to write brief statements explaining why they support their own party. But there’s a catch: Half of the participants were asked to write statements pretending to be from the opposing party (i.e., Democrats writing statements as if they were Republicans and vice versa). To ensure sincerity, participants were financially incentivized to make their statements as convincing as possible (rather than resorting to strawman arguments).
A second group of Republicans and Democrats was then asked to read these statements and guess which ones were real and which were fake.
The results? Fake Democrats and fake Republicans were just as convincing as the real ones.
While I’m non-partisan (and always have been), I took the test myself to see if I could spot the fake Democrats and fake Republicans. I scored 60% on my first try and 50% on my second try. For the third try, I guessed at random by selecting “REAL” for every statement—and ended up with 70%. It’s not every day that I perform worse than chance…
So, how did the fakers pull it off?
Well, if you ask me, the fakers were able to pass as real partisans because they didn’t take their statements to the extreme. Democrats pretending to be Republicans didn’t write statements like, “I’m a Republican because I believe that all immigrant families should be broken up and deported.” Instead, they wrote things like, “I’m a Republican because I just want to live my life… I don’t want the government in my business any more than they have to be.”3
In the digital town square, both sides often paint exaggerated caricatures of each other. Left-leaning media portrays all Republicans as far-right extremists, while right-leaning media insists that all Democrats are far-left extremists. And while Joe Rogan once joked that Democrats believe men can get pregnant, we all know that the majority of Democrats either (1.) don’t fully believe this or (2.) don’t view it as a political priority. In fact, many statements from real Democrats and real Republicans suggested that the views of their party mostly aligned with their views.
Excerpts from real responses (emphasis my own):
I am a Republican because the Republican party is what I most identify with.
Mostly, I consider myself a democrat because the Democratic Party most closely aligns with my personal morals and values.
I chose republican because the party itself aligns their beliefs with a more conservative approach which better describes me.
I am a DEMOCRAT because it is the political position that resonates most closely with me.
Source: Ideological Turing Test
At the end of the day, most people—Republicans, Democrats, Independents—aren’t extremists. Their core beliefs exist somewhere in the messy middle.
IV.
Diversity
We’re all familiar with external diversity: race, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual identity. These are aspects of identity we don’t choose; we’re either born with them or not. But what about diversity of thought?
Etymologically, the word “diversity” means many things: variety, difference, oddness, disagreement. By the late 18th century, with the rise of modern democracies, diversity was first recognized as a national virtue—a safeguard against any one faction consolidating power. However, the virtue of diversity wasn’t tied to external identity. It was considered a difference of the mind.
Our diversity—our variety, difference, oddness, disagreement—is shaped by our experiences. A Black American, an Indian immigrant, and a disabled woman will inevitably see the world differently than a stereotypical white man in the United States. And their unique lived experiences influence their views, values, and understanding of society. But while external identity can signal a novel perspective, it’s not the only path to diverse thinking.
While a white woman will never fully understand what it’s like to be a Black man in America, she can still engage with Black perspectives—by reading Black authors, listening to Black voices, and immersing herself in Black stories. And while someone born and raised in the U.S. will never experience life as a young woman in Communist Russia, they can read works from the likes of Ayn Rand to understand how growing up in a classless society with collective ownership of production has shaped one woman’s views on capitalism.
The reason why we study history and the humanities is not to blindly repeat the past—it’s to better understand what worked, what failed, and why. The reason why we read the works of controversial figures is not to embrace their utopian or dystopian visions, it’s to better understand why they imagined the world that way in the first place.
The other kind of diversity—diversity of thought—is available to anyone and everyone. We may never walk in another person’s shoes, but we can step into their perspective, however briefly, through their stories. And in doing so, we expand our own.
V.
Controversy
Sometimes I think the only real division into two is between people who divide everything into two and those who don’t.
Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road (2015)
Censorship is bad. Free speech is good.
Donald Trump is bad. Kamala Harris is good.
Socialists are bad. Capitalists are good.
Guns are bad. Disarmament is good.
We’ve all heard these arguments before.
His opinion is bad. Mine is good.
If you disagree, you’re bad. If you agree, you’re good.
But is reality really this dichotomous?
Controversy is bad. Conformity is good.
Controversial figures are, by nature, diverse figures. Steve Jobs called them the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They see things not as black-and-white, good-or-bad, either/or. They see them as they really are.
These folks are not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. And when they come out of the woodwork, you can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Think Different ad (1997)
Controversial figures change the world by championing perspectives we might not have previously considered. They may be right. They may be wrong. But one thing’s for certain: they make us think—whether we like it or not.
Perhaps both are true. Perhaps both are false.
Every issue features a bonus idea for paid subscribers and referrers. Thank you for reading.
+I.
Intellectual Humility
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
Thomas Sowell, “A childish letter” for Jewish World Review (1998)