The ‘Giving Comfort’ Fallacy

If you believe I’m “giving comfort” to your enemies, must I write a retraction anytime one of them agrees with me on a single point?

Recently, I’ve made a fledgling friendship here on Medium. This newfound friend has expressed how she worries that I’m “giving comfort to” those who threaten America’s social fabric. She doesn’t appear to think I’m doing this intentionally, but she alleges that some of my language, priorities, and sentiments could end up having that unintended effect.

Heh. Yeah, I wish I was *that* influential…

Such constructive criticism is nothing new in my life. When people object to a position I’ve taken — or invectives that I fling at those whom I despise — they try to appeal to some of the commonalities they share with me.

I get it. Their underlying fear is that I’m “too easy” on antagonists who apparently need to be put in their place. That, by failing to unequivocally and forcefully denounce harmful ideas, my lack of fury will somehow be viewed by bad actors as encouragement or consent.

Unfortunately for them, real life isn’t always so effortless.

I’m an equal-opportunity disparager.

Just because you might have the same skin color as me…or similar genitalia as me…or get aroused by what also turns me on…or have been raised and educated in a region or neighborhood resembling mine…that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you off the hook when I find your speech or beliefs to be objectionable.

Liberal critics of mine will usually take issue with my usage of the terms “hyperwoke” or “political correctness.” They view leftist groupthink as a remedy against fascism, and they’ll protest that my dissent could “give comfort” to fascists.

Conservative critics of mine will protest when I recognize racial groups or ethnic categories in nuanced ways. They claim we should all be “colorblind” while embracing the notion of “meritocracy.” In their minds, my acknowledgment of race and ethnicity, in and of itself, only “gives comfort” to racism.

These mentalities pretty much boil down to…

The friend of my enemy is also my enemy.

You’re either with us or you’re against us. And it’s a proposition that extends beyond race relations or political power struggles.

On her advice blog known as “The Friendship Doctor,” Irene S. Levine, PhD fields a question from a reader named “Allie” who asks how to handle acquaintances who have hurt her own friends. If she exchanges niceties with those acquaintances, is she being disloyal to the people with whom she is supposed to be closer?

Levine responds that, in her opinion, it would only be considered “disloyal” under extreme circumstances. If the pain that was caused could be honestly defined as heinous, extreme, recent, or intrusive — then a friend’s anger would be completely understandable. Betrayal would be a natural emotion for someone who sees one of their friends socializing civilly with one of their enemies.

On the other hand, Levine makes the distinction:

Having a date or private tête-à-tête with an “enemy” is very different than innocently bumping into that person in a social situation — for example, at a party or wedding.

These dynamics between friends can get blurred when schools or other institutions are involved. This is why, politically, disagreements on issues between allies might sometimes feel like a “betrayal” to one or both parties.

In a December 2022 piece for CollegeRaptor, Allison Wignall uses the example of friends who end up attending rival schools. When reunited, those buddies may engage in competitive rhetoric; most of the time, it’s meant to be conveyed with good-natured fun.

It’s sort of akin to pals who will engage in friendly teasing over their allegiances to rival sports teams. Generally, the void created by a lack of time spent with one’s friend, in these types of scenarios, is greater than any actual cultural rivalries that might be artificially erected.

Of course, sports isn’t politics. If we’re dealing with public policy, it can have serious real-life ramifications for your sparring partner.

Not the frivolous disappointment of when your favorite sports team loses a big game.

Forming alliances can be a necessity. It isn’t some coded message indicating that you are completely selling out your principles or values.

At a forum hosted by The Sutherland Institute, U.S. Congressman Blake Moore (R-UT) talked about how he teamed up with U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA) to save the Great Salt Lake (bordering Moore’s district) from drought. During that congressional session, Democrats controlled the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Moore disagrees with Huffman on many issues, he reached out to Huffman since he knew that Huffman also has a saline lake in his Northern Californian district.

Common interests.

Together, they drafted the Saline Lake Ecosystems Act. Being a member of the majority party in 2021, Huffman was able to fast-track the bill in order to benefit both his own as well as Moore’s district. Furthermore, after it was passed, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Utah Governor Spencer Cox — a Democrat and a Republican, respectively — were able to utilize the bill’s resources on behalf of their vastly-different constituencies.

In approaching Huffman, Moore had drawn inspiration from the cross-partisan friendship between former U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy. Neither Moore nor Huffman had to abandon their passionate convictions. But they aligned, on that occasion, to serve a purpose greater than the egos of their respective parties’ leaders.

At other junctures, someone from a marginalized community might get accused of being a “traitor” to “their people.” This happens when the perspective of the individual doesn’t line up perfectly with the sentiments of gatekeepers who’ve experienced similar oppression.

In 2017, Catapult magazine’s Alexis Cheung interviewed novelist Maxine Hong Kingston, one of her personal heroes. Kingston’s 1976 book The Woman Warrior chronicles Kingston’s experiences being raised in a Chinese-American immigrant family.

Cheung found Kingston’s narrative to be relatable to Cheung’s own familial struggles. However, after The Woman Warrior was published, many critics — most notably, playwright Frank Chin — accused Kingston of pandering to White readers and enabling racist stereotypes.

These dynamics are complex, Kingston tells Cheung. When growing up American as Asian-born elders pass along knowledge from Chinese culture, it can be difficult to identify what is tradition and what isn’t. Whether it’s rituals or family stories or socioeconomic experiences, Kingston says that one cannot always cleanly decipher myth from history.

Through her own self-reflection, Cheung grapples with this internal conflict that Kingston’s critics dredged to the surface:

Today, I mostly write about culture, fashion, women, and rarely, if ever, about my Chinese family. Sometimes I wonder why. Do I refrain because I’m wary of being categorized as an Asian[-]American writer? Because I hesitate to ask my family about the things they think are unspeakable? Maybe, if I am honest, the real reason I no longer write about my father’s family is fear: There is so much to [potentially] misrepresent.

But how is it fair to expect Kingston or Cheung to serve as an avatar for all people of Chinese descent — let alone all Asian people? These two women express how some members of their community pressure them to only paint Chinese-Americans in a positive light via their literature.

That’s a burden that no individual — of any identity — should have to wear like an albatross around one’s neck.

I frequently write about how I feel angry or self-conscious or ashamed based on my multiple identities as someone who is Millennial, gay, autistic, and a centrist Independent.

Does that mean my commentary must speak for all Millennial, gay, autistic, centrist Independent voters? And, if my own reflections fail to represent other Millennial, gay, autistic, centrist Independents — does that automatically “give comfort” to those who would inflict ageism, orientationism, ableism, and sectarianism against me and “my people”?

In a March 2019 interview with Brian Gallagher for Nautilus, NYU professor Jonathan Haidt makes observations about how emotion and morality and objectivity don’t always align with each other. He and co-author Greg Lukianoff tackle these conflicts at length in their 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind.

Among Haidt’s top concerns are how many colleges seem to be training students to embrace rigid binaries through which everyone will be viewed as either an oppressor or a victim. He emphasizes to Gallagher that we can’t make effective changes until we understand precisely what we want to change.

Haidt points out that individuals shouldn’t assume they are right about everything all of the time. That’s part of why he identifies as a centrist. He believes that, by listening to all sides, it will be easier to find a solution. Sometimes the best solution happens to fall smack in the middle of the political spectrum; other times, it may be much closer to what the Left or the Right has proposed. We need to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis.

He elaborates:

The rise in polarization of the country, as [L]eft and [R]right hate each other more and more every year since the 1990s. There’s much more of an impetus to yell and scream, become passionate, and shut down speech that in any way seems to give comfort to the other side. That’s a huge one. The nastiness of our culture war. And related to that, the 2016 election and the inauguration of Trump. Right around then is when we see most of the actual violence [from activists]. There hasn’t been a lot of violence on campus [instigated by students], but what there was especially happened right after the inauguration.

Similar to Haidt’s observations, the Greek-based Centre for Post-Capitalist Civilisation compiles a list of 21 informal fallacies found within so-called Cancel Culture.

They define “Cancel Culture” as a zero-sum attitude that reduces ordinary people to being seen as “the enemy.” This leads to mob rule and the weaponization of legal systems. People jump to conclusions about speech or behavior without asking thoughtful questions from whoever they’d be inclined to blacklist.

The twelfth of their informal fallacies states:

If we deprive badness of a platform, it will lose its platform elsewhere, too.

In other words: When thoughts or ideas from “the enemy” get outright censored, they will soon become viewed as illegitimate — by default — if those same concepts or messages pop up in any future venues.

The unintended consequence of creating a bubble-like echo chamber, here, would be secondary. By following this fallacy, the main goal is to distinguish oneself as being as dissimilar to “the enemy” as possible.

This means you must always criticize your “enemy”…and you may never praise them. Such a sin of “giving comfort” to them would indicate that you are morally depraved — somehow destined to follow their wayward footsteps all the way to Crazy Town.

Of course, I reject this fallacy — regardless of whether it’s being espoused by someone who is progressive, liberal, moderate, conservative, or libertarian.

This is why critical thinking skills are so essential.

Nobody holds all of the keys to the mysteries of the universe. No single individual can endure the life experiences of every type of human in existence.

We shouldn’t dismiss someone’s pain or trauma. But that works in all directions. If someone is articulating what they view to be wrong with society — our instinct should be to search for collaborative remedies.

Not tell them they’re wrong merely for existing…and then send them off to a leper colony.

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