History Main / GoldenMeanFallacy

* ''Film/{{The Birth of a Nation|1915}}''. Siding neither with slavery nor with the "extremists" who want actual race equality, it supports the "neutral middle ground" of [[ValuesDissonance Jim Crow laws]].

%%What is the Golden Mean in this?* Spoofed in ''Film/DrStrangelove'' when General Turgidson (George C. Scott) tells the President that if they execute ''his'' nuclear strike plan, only ''millions'' of people will be annihilated instead of billions, which isn't too bad. (This "joke" is later used more seriously in ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''.)
* In ''Film/GoodNightAndGoodLuck'', Creator/EdwardRMurrow argues with his producer, who says he needs to stop "editorializing" about UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy and the RedScare. Murrow responds that sometimes it just isn't the case that two sides have equally valid points and there is a reasonable compromise in the middle.
* In a meta example, the nearly-lost 1966 ReligiousHorror film ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_(1966_film) Incubus]]'' tanked from its misguided decision to be filmed entirely in [[UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage Esperanto]]. It was believed that not only would it give it a layer of exoticism, Esperanto is a language spoken all across the world, and would theoretically give it the broadest international appeal, but the problem is that Esperanto was (and still is) a very fringe language where not enough people in any concentrated region spoke it, so its widest reception was that of [[AudienceAlienatingPremise alienation]] (not helped by how the Esperanto in the film is pretty poor, both in [[BlindIdiotTranslation writing]] and pronunciation).

** The [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Vorlons]] had a saying claiming "Understanding is a three-edged sword". Sheridan finally vocalizes the meaning behind it in season 4 when [[spoiler:he's telling off the Vorlons and the Shadows before kicking them out of the galaxy]]. Understanding has three sides: Your side, their side, and the truth.

** {{Parodied|Trope}} in the penultimate episode of season 4. The interim Earth Alliance president tells Sheridan that half the military wants him given the Medal of Honor [[spoiler:for rebelling against ex-PresidentEvil Clark]], and the other half wants him shot for the same actions. She then cracks that she believes in compromise, which by rights means she should give him the Medal of Honor, ''then'' have him shot. (The ''actual'' compromise she proposes is not an example--while Sheridan had done the right thing, he'd chosen a very dangerous path to do so, and having such a divisive figure remain in the military would cause too many problems, so asking for him to [[TurnInYourBadge turn in his badge]], while granting amnesty to those who followed him, was the most reasonable possible course of action under the circumstances.)

[[folder:Real Life]]
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Okrent#Okrent.27s_law Okrent's Law]]: The quest for balance creates imbalance because sometimes things are true.
* In Livy's writings, the Samnites managed to trap a Roman army in a narrow pass, but since the relations between the two people were tense, but not yet at official war, their commander Gaius Pontius vacillated about what to do. He then sent a letter to his father Herennius, who at first advised that they should let them go, and try to win friends with the Roman people by showing mercy. This was judged unsatisfactory by the Samnite officers who thought that this way they would lose their desired victory. Then Herennius advised that they should wipe out this army and try their best to crush Rome while it was reeling from the blow; the Romans would not have been capable of taking revenge for some generations, securing the safety of the Samnites in the near future. This on the contrary was deemed too brutal. Pontius eventually settled on humiliating the Roman army by seizing the weapons and making the soldiers pass under a yoke, accepting surrender and token tribute from them, and then letting them go home. The result? The Romans got pissed, but were still at more or less full strength, and after the Senate ordered to arm new legions with the returning soldiers, they came back with a vengeance, stomping the Samnites hard.
** This event is called the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Caudine_Forks Battle of the Caudine Forks]], despite no battle fought at all. Some modern historians actually believe that the event might be only legendary, although rooted in real events, and that Livy intentionally fabricated it to tell a moral lesson against this very trope. It goes for either sides: at first, the Romans are caught in the middle way between two high grounds, which is shown to be critical against them; then the Samnites choose the middle behavior between two extremes, which ultimately dooms them. This in spark contrast with many ancient Roman [[AnAesop aesops]] that stretched the importance of modesty and moderation (e.g. "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_(philosophy) aurea mediocritas]]" or "[[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/est%20modus%20in%20rebus#:~:text=est%20mo%C2%B7%E2%80%8Bdus%20in,in%20things%20%3A%20everything%20in%20proportion est modus in rebus]]"). For more details, see [[https://medium.com/in-medias-res/there-are-no-caudine-forks-2b3c181ed387 this article]].
* Congressman John Tanner (D-TN) on his fellow Blue Dog Democrats: "We're too liberal in our home areas and too conservative in Washington. ''I mean, we get it on both sides, and which means I think we're doing something right.''
* One of the theories about the Treaty of Versailles that ended UsefulNotes/WorldWarI was that it was compromised by this principle. The French delegation wanted to cripple Germany so that they could return to her 'glory days' of being the primary power of continental Europe; the Italians wanted as much Austro-Hungarian territory as they could get; the British wanted to avoid upsetting Germany or France or Italy so they could resume doing business with them all; and the U.S. delegation wanted to redraw the map of Europe on the model of North America because they believed that the ethnic heterogeneity of the region had caused the war and that peace and international cooperation would be easier if Europe was ruled by ethnically homogenous nation-states. The treaty ended up:
** So harsh that the Franco-British leadership and public would later feel guilty about enforcing it. [[note]]This was part of the wider cultural reconsideration of the war, with many people beginning to consider World War One as [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife a waste of money and lives]] [[OlderThanTheyThink by the late 1930s]].[[/note]]
** Too weak to actually cripple Germany (permanently that is, it did stunt them for a short while). The burden of paying Reparations was smaller than that of maintaining the pre-war German military. [[note]]This was deliberate.[[/note]]
** Too miserly with Italy. The Italian leadership and public felt cheated by and resentful of their wartime allies. [[note]]This was largely their own fault, as at the very last minute the Italian delegation walked out in protest because they weren't going to get all the territories that they wanted. When they walked back in, to their horror they discovered that the Americans had rewritten the treaty and everyone had signed it: Italy wasn't going to get ''any'' territories which didn't have large Italian minorities in them! The Americans had been their primary opponent in these negotiations because their commitment to the nation-state principle meant they had been very reluctant to give territories which had few or no Italians in them to Italy. In the end Italy got almost none of Austria-Hungary's Adriatic coastline, even though she had been promised (and wanted) all of it and was going to get reasonably large chunks of it before the Italian delegation walked out.[[/note]]
** Too committed to the principle of nation-states. Europe was now dotted with half a dozen small and poor states which would have to support disproportionately large militaries to defend themselves from Germany and Russia (and each other) and would quickly fold in the event of an economic depression.
** [[MortonsFork Insufficiently committed to the principle of nation-states]]. Refusal to institute population transfers to ensure ethnic homogeneity in the new states meant that most of them had large ethnic minorities, giving those states incentives to institute ethnic cleansing or wage war to 'liberate' their people from other states.
* This can be exploited for marketing purposes with what is known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_pricing#Goldilocks_pricing Goldilocks pricing]]. Suppose you have two products, Product A is the basic version which gives just the essentials for a low price, and Product B has all the bells and whistles but is more expensive. Many people will see this and decide that A does all they need, and so there is no point in paying extra for B. On the other hand, bring out Product C which is slightly better than Product B but with another price hike, and suddenly B becomes much more tempting, as it offers most of what you get from C but at a lower price. The classic example of this is Economy, Business, and First Class seating on airlines.
* Critics of TheHorseshoeEffect argued against it on the grounds that it presents centrist liberalism as the only option for society to take, which can end up being nothing more than calling for the status quo. Mentioning this trope is also something of a BerserkButton for individuals on either end of the political spectrum, who often resent the suggestion that they have anything ideologically in common with the individuals on the opposite end. To the centrists themselves, these objections merely sound like [[MoralMyopia special pleading]] from the Far Left and the Far Right. Conversely, Radicals often have their own versions of the Horseshoe Effect where they claim [[UnwittingPawn that centrists serve to only bolster the side they oppose and are most prone to supporting and being swayed by them]] (this is often [[https://www.theweek.co.uk/103810/what-is-fish-hook-theory called]] the [[https://psmag.com/social-justice/an-end-to-horseshoe-theory Fish Hook Effect]]). Best practice is not to take the existence of this trope as hard-and-fast evidence that opposing political groups or governments ''always'' end up ideologically similar to each other, just that there's a tendency; after all, it's the Horseshoe ''Effect'', not the Horseshoe ''Law''.
* Defied by Creator/{{Aristotle}}, even though he is often looked to as the source of the fallacy. Though he does argue that each virtue is a mean between excess and deficit, he remarks that it would be stupid to infer that therefore we should seek moderation in all things. What is an appropriate level of a particular character is context-dependent, and certain character traits are so unambiguously evil that there is not such thing as a moderate amount.
* The idea that teachers should deal with school bullies by staying neutral is an example. Many schools treat bullying as though it were a mutual conflict where both students are equally wrong, rather than one student abusing another. Of course, without evidence, even if it seems clear one kid most likely started it, teachers are usually expected not to be biased towards either party, especially once parents get involved. The general principle is usually expressed, as probably everyone has heard, "It takes two people to start a fight/argument". Approximately 90% of the time someone says this, it's because they don't want to go to the trouble of finding out if one of those two people was right. Or it's because they can't figure out that it actually only takes 1 person to start a fight, it just takes 2 people to make it a fair fight rather than [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown a merciless beat-down]]. It leads to kids not reporting that they're being bullied, because they figure they'll only get punished as well.
** The result can also be even more extreme. There was at least one report where the victim, knowing they would get suspended as well due to the 'zero tolerance' policy, decided to make it worth their while and ''[[DestinationDefenestration threw the bully out the window]]''!
* The Compromise of 1850 in the United States was designed to avert an impending crisis over slavery by giving both sides some of what they wanted. The result was the compromise simply kicked the can down the road ten years, and fell prey to Okrent's Law besides.[[note]]The law states "the pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true." In other words, either the abolitionists were correct that there was a moral imperative to abolish slavery across the nation, or the expansionists were right that it was a political question that each territory should decide for itself, and attempting to indulge both points of view was an inherently incorrect approach.[[/note]] The following decade caused the battle lines on both sides of the issue to harden considerably, and practically guaranteed that the issue would be solved with guns, not words.
* This is apparently how Stalin won debates before he became undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union. He would ask for the two opposing sides of an issue, then say he belonged to a sensible middle, undermining both rivals.
* Historian Gaddis Smith observed that during the Cold War, when strategists were called upon to provide the president with a list of options for a crisis situation, they'd usually provide five options. Option #1 would be "capitulate", option #5 would be "nuclear war". The strategist's actual proposal would be option #3. This tactic is typically used by the US military to this day when advising the President of options in a conflict, apparently hoping to invoke this as a cognitive bias in favor of their proposed position. This has at least once backfired, with US President Donald Trump having chosen one of the most extreme options.
* During the Constitutional Convention of what would become the United States, two of the compromises were essentially this:
** First was the Great Compromise, which revolved around the question of whether the voting power of a state should depend on the number of people in it (in other words, one person equals one vote) or based on nothing other than states as arbitrary units of measurement. The solution? Create two legislative bodies, one using each method to determine the voting power of each state. Despite the one-vote-per-state model being discredited to such a degree that the United States itself advises other countries against using it and some of the highest ranking members of the Senate advocating for the abolishment of their own legislative chamber, it is [[FranchiseOriginalSin nearly impossible to change]]. As the variance in state populations grew, the solution's cracks started to show even more - in the U.S. Senate, the vote of someone from Wyoming matters about as much as the votes of ''seventy'' people from California.
** The second compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise (slaves count as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of legislative apportionment), was a more literal application of this trope, between the position that slaves shouldn't be counted at all (as they were not considered legal persons according to the Constitution) and that they should be counted just like everyone else (as even without civil rights, they were still technically persons) and is often considered the founders' [[MyGreatestFailure greatest failure]]. [[MustMakeAmends It has since been redacted by the Fourteenth Amendment]]. Many people today don't seem to realize that not counting the slaves at all was the ''anti-slavery'' position, and that it was the ''pro-slavery'' faction that advocated counting them as full people - for purposes of allocating congressional delegates, presidential votes, taxes, etc., certainly not for giving them any rights or the vote. The compromise was an attempt to reduce the political power of slave holding states from what it would have been if slaves had been counted as full persons, with the hope that eventually the free states would have enough congress members to make slavery illegal through legislation. It didn't work out that way, mainly because no one's commitment to nationwide abolition was as strong as anticipated.
* UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's "evil empire" speech argued that anyone who saw the United States and Soviet Union as moral equals was using this fallacy: "I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil." Notably, when re-election time came along, his tone became much more conciliatory, suggesting that swing voters at least, weren't quite so certain of the dichotomy. Reagan's opponents, of course, charged that the controversy was never about whether the Soviet Union was good or bad (it was clearly bad, assuming you were a mainstream American), but whether America's moral superiority [[KnightTemplar gave it license to do whatever it wished to thwart the Soviets and still remain morally superior]]. Around the same time, Reagan's ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, made much the same argument in an essay called "The Myth of Moral Equivalence".
* Lots of countries, such as England, America, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. have a proverb that is some variation of, "If two people quarrel, both are wrong." Many readers of this page might recognize the more familiar, "It takes two to tango." Sometimes this proverb makes sense (a lot of times, to be fair), but other times, one person has clearly done something unethical or irrational (a police officer who arrests the wrong man for a murder, for example, or a child who throws a softball through someone else's window and breaks it); if you claim both parties are wrong in ''those'' cases, then even if you're arguing for something in the middle you are actually punishing the one person who ''didn't'' tango, by making it wrong for him/her to protest in addition to the pain already inflicted on him/her. Of course, be careful when arguing that particular point, since ''usually'' the proverb about quarreling is correct.
* Because of two vocal factions reacting to the Boy Scouts Of America's ban on gay members, the group proposed to allow gay youth but not gay leaders (since the organization does not condone having leaders discuss homosexual behavior with Scouts). One side wants no gay members; the other points out that gay children grow up. The Scouts' steady decline in membership has partially been attributed to the fact that neither side is satisfied with the compromise and both have refused to participate in protest.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute Alaska Boundary Dispute]]: Because of ambiguous phrasing in the ''Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825'', a three-way dispute arose between the U.S., Canada and British Columbia on the borders of the Alaska Panhandle.
* At one point, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLq6GEiHqR8 a different conflict]] nearly came to violence over the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_War_(1859) death of a pig]], only averted because the commanders in the field agreed that would be [[SillyReasonForWar profoundly stupid.]] The tribunal that ultimately decided the question basically split the U.S. and Canadian positions, leading to a result that was ''definitely'' inconsistent with the wording of the Convention.
* The trend towards centrism and the major focus on making {{Conscription}} equal ('load equality') for all Israelis (as some Ultra Orthodox Jews are exempt from service so they can focus on their religious studies) in the Israeli political climate around the 2013 elections, which led to the adamantly centrist Israeli Future Party ([[RealityIsUnrealistic yes, that's its name]]) winning almost one sixth of the seats in the Knesset (the Israeli house of representatives). This trend was thoroughly mocked in a skit on the Israeli satire show, featuring the representative of the 'extremist sect' of the Israeli centre, who insisted on 'load equality' in ''everything''--for instance, when he sees a man stealing his bicycle on the street, he protests and gives him a tool to break locks and steal everyone else's, too, in the name of 'load equality in crime'.
* [[UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies Fascism claimed]] that it was a post-ideological movement based purely upon practical policy prescriptions, taking effective communist and capitalist programs and using them to advance the national interest. In doing so it ''de facto'' [[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis created a new ideology]]. Some ideologically liberal academics, especially in the USA, teach their students that Fascism was a compromise between group and individual identity since it neither erased national boundaries nor respected individual rights like the latter. That is a valid perspective, but believing that it was important at the time is a misconception arising from a backward reading of the age's issues. Certainly, rich people of the time did promote individualism to try to protect their wealth being taxed/expropriated by collectives (whether by communities, unions, or nations) - but belief in individualism was neither prevalent nor something the Fascist program was particularly dedicated to eradicating.
* This trope went in three directions simultaneously during the American UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement. At one extreme were [[NobleBigot the "good" segregationists]] who condemned lynching and the Ku Klux Klan but also condemned race-mixing; next to them was the conservative, legalist wing of the integration movement (embodied by the NAACP and many white moderates/liberals) that condemned both segregation and the civil-disobedience tactics employed by activists to the left of them; and next to ''them'' was the movement's progressive wing (embodied by Dr. UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr), which deemed the NAACP wing too passive but also considered civil disobedience to be a good, peaceful alternative to the tactics of the movement's more militant wing (UsefulNotes/MalcolmX, etc.). It is a credit to the rhetorical skill and political acumen of Dr. King's faction that it is [[VindicatedByHistory now considered the golden mean on civil rights by most Americans]], even those who are uncomfortable with citizen activism and identity politics (though those who hold such views often erase King's anti-capitalism and opposition to UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar), while the "good" segregationists are generally seem as functionally indistinguishable from the KKK. This example is also a good illustration of the ValuesDissonance of a group thinking its positions are moderate even as other groups think they are too far to the right or the left.
* UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr began thinking so later in his life, as said in the [[http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html Letter from a Birmingham Jail]], saying that the worst enemies of the black cause weren't the ones openly opposing them, such as the openly racist politicians or Klan members, but the "white moderate" "who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice" since they would slow the activists' fight to a crawl, or even a complete stop, while still pretending to agree with them. In this case, he was reacting to an open letter from 6 clergyman, who attempted to suggest that King's "extreme" position of nonviolent civil disobedience was just as problematic as leaving Jim Crow be, and that the proper solution would simply be to rely on the law to quietly sort itself out over time. This, of course, ran into the exact same problem as the slavery example above, and it was ultimately King's firm commitment to his position that got the Jim Crow laws abolished over the next decade.
* Funnily enough this applied to [[WorldWarII/TheAftermath the trials of German War Criminals]] after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and particularly the trials of [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons German military (Wehrmacht) personnel]]. Italy, Poland, and the Soviet Union wanted every senior military officer who'd killed civilians or POW during the war to be hung or spend the rest of their life in jail (since said personnel had directly killed several million of their citizens, and [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust enabled the killing of millions mor]]e). Britain and the USA wanted junior military officers who'd killed British or American POW hung or jailed, and the rest to go free (since said personnel had killed several dozen of their citizens, and letting the rest go free would avoid alienating [[UsefulNotes/WeAreNotTheWehrmacht the West German military establishment and so faciliate a swift reconciliation]]). Neither side walked away happy. The Anglo-Americans were pissed at being forced to compromise their principles and try more than a dozen senior military officers [[ExactWords who had committed no crimes against Anglo-American military personnel.]] The Italians, Poles, and Soviets were pissed that these men were all released after less than six years in jail and many more senior Wehrmacht officers were never tried on the grounds of ill-health.
* Britain under the Labour Party of UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee did this in the period 1945-50 when attempting to ensure the future prosperity and well-being of Britain and her people. They instituted a Socialist Welfare State but retained a Capitalist Free Market Economy. The Welfare State was hamstrung by the lack of funding for education (just bodies to 'promote the importance of education') and the Free Market policies didn't work out because the UK economy needed government control and investment to make a smooth transition to modern industrial production (all they had was advisory bodies to 'encourage more competitive practices'). [[note]] In the 1960s the Labour government of Harold Wilson again shied away from major government intervention, instead protecting the UK's moribund industries from foreign competition. This ultimately set the stage for the sudden shocks of Thatcher's prime ministership in the '70s, which would have totally tanked the UK's economy if not for the sudden glut of North Sea Oil revenues. France is generally held up as the example of what Britain 'should have done' (Welfare State including comprehensive education, capitalist economy with strong state controls), as her investments in education and industry meant she had a relatively competitive industrial sector in the '70s and the bulk of the workers who were fired had the skills to work in the emerging services sector [[/note]]
* In the 2019 British election, Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn took a neutral stance on Brexit by supporting second referendum while not explicitly issuing a pro- or anti-Brexit position.[[note]]While the Labour Party is very pro-[=EU=], Corbyn has historically held anti-EU views as he saw the European Union as too conservative and capitalist[[/note]] However, this approach backfired as nearly all pro-Brexit voters voted for the explicitly pro-Brexit Conservatives while several anti-Brexit voters either boycotted the election or voted for other pro-EU parties like the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party. Many pundits cited Labour's indecisive stance on Brexit as a contributing factor towards their defeat in the election.
* In the 1960s a international standard time was needed (to be used in space, for example) and English speakers wanted to call it "Coordinated Universal Time" while French speakers wanted to call it "Temps Universel Coordonné" and both refused to let the other language be shown as more important. The time standard is now known as UTC because that initialism doesn't work in either language.
* The handling of rape cases at American universities often falls into this trope. Sadly, there is often not enough evidence for a conviction, especially if the only evidence is [[AmbiguousSituation conflicting stories from the alleged victim and alleged perpetrator]]. In many cases, the Universities have taken the compromise of banning the alleged perpetrator from the University until the alleged victim has finished their studies. If the accused is innocent, this is a miscarriage of justice. If they are guilty, this is a horribly inadequate punishment that makes a mockery of the victim.
* St. John Henry Newman accused ''himself'' of this. He had been a priest of the Church of England, and argued that the Anglican Church was a true church because it was the middle path between the doctrinal excesses of Protestantism and the ritual excesses of Catholicism. He changed his mind when he started doing research for his book ''On The Development of Christian Doctrine'', and learned that several [[UsefulNotes/HeresiesAndHeretics heresies in Christian doctrine]] were the result of trying to chart a compromise between a different heresy and the orthodox teaching, only to make an entirely different error that didn't actually resolve the conflict.[[note]]The heresy of monothelitism (that Christ had two natures, but only one will), for example, was an attempt at a compromise between the orthodoxy (that Christ was a unity both a human and divine nature) and the heresy of monophystism (that Christ only had a a divine nature); Semi-Arianism (that the Father and the Son had a "similar" substance) was an attempt at compromise between Arianism (that the Father and Son were of a different substance) and the orthodox position (that the Father and the Son had the same substance).[[/note]] This convinced Newman that he had been wrong, and to convert to Catholicism.
* People who speculate about the 1996 murder of [=JonBénet=] Ramsey are divided in two camps, mostly: People who think the family did it, and stalled the investigation on purpose; and people who think an intruder broke in, and the police's investigation was faulty. Then there are some other people who try to "compromise", by proposing that an intruder did it, but the family stalled the investigation anyway because they were either in league with such intruder, or ''mistakenly believed'' one of their own had done it.
* Professional negotiators are taught to avoid this with the example of two people who want an orange: one to make juice, and the other to make a cake. The naive solution would be to cut the orange in half, giving both parties less of what they actually want. The correct solution is to give one the peel and the other the pulp of the whole orange, which is an actual compromise giving both exactly what they want.
* Golda Meir wrote in her autobiography about meeting with a foreign ambassador who told her, "surely you must concede that, for the Germans to have been so hateful, the Jews must have done SOMETHING to warrant such hate?" She described the man's utter befuddlement at her silently standing up and walking out in response to his "reasonable question," and how he continued to remain confused as to why she had taken such offense, even years later!
* A key part of Sukarno's political philosophy as the first leader of a united and coherent {{UsefulNotes/Indonesia}} was "Democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of deliberations among representatives", which he considered an incarnation of democracy more appropriate for a nation largely made up of villages wherein wise chiefs and elders would preside over and make decisions on the basis of tempered but lively and open debate. While this in itself did not outright kill political discourse, the continued survival of the personal ideal was largely on the part of personal intervention by Sukarno, who envisioned a diverse coalition of nationalist, Islamist, and socialist elements, rather than by any real systemic integrity. After the communist element was subject to a bloody wave of politicide by the public in 1965 (considered genocide by some, as ethnic and religious minorities were frequently targeted under the cover of anticommunism) and Suharto took power, his forced merger of the opposition into two dysfunctional parties under this same principle completely did in the spirit of ideological commitment outside of Pancasila, the vague Indonesian "state philosophy", and Islamic democratic parties. While partisanship has recovered to a small degree in recent years, incongruous political compromises are frequently made in the name of consensus and unity. President Joko Widodo, for example, often paints himself as a committed ally of Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, his own appointee...and his fiercest political rival, running as Widodo's opponent in both the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections.
* In the course of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War Russian invasion of Ukraine]], several neutral parties (most notably China) [[https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Welcomes-the-Chinese-Peace-Plan-for-Ukraine-20230224-0011.html proposed compromises to achieve peace]] that involved the demilitarisation of large swathes of battleground - usually the eastern chunk of Ukraine as well as Crimea. While balanced on the surface, all of these proposals would have spelt a net territorial loss for Ukraine without impugning the sovereignty of Russia (beyond, in some proposals, the five Ukrainian regions it laid claim to in the course of the invasion). These arrangements also belied the fact that Russia's attempts to invade its neighbour or annex their territory were [[https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-human-rights-court-rules-on-russian-responsibility-in-eastern-ukraine/ blatantly illegal in terms of international law to begin with]] and that Ukraine's acts of war [[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/un-tells-russia-to-leave-ukraine-how-did-countries-vote were recognised by the majority of the international community as justified acts of self-defence]].
* Rational Wiki covers this under [[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy Balance fallacy]].
* Website/{{Fark}} "independents" (read: Republicans) use the fallacy so much, it has its own initialism: BSABSVR. (Both Sides Are Bad, So Vote Republican.)
* There's a joke (or riddle, or witticism; take your pick) asking whether half a CuteKitten is a compromise between all of a kitten and no kitten at all. The answer is no, it's not at all cute and indeed more horrible than either of the other two, because it's a kitten bloodily sawed in half.
* Another joke goes: Should we drive on the right side of the road or the left? Let's compromise, and all drive in the middle!
[[/folder]]

* Naturally, this was parodied mercilessly on ''Series/ThatsMyBush''. For example, in the episode "Mom E DEA Arrest," there are two opposing sides presented: The people who use drugs and see no problem with it (i.e. the imprisoned druggie and his raving friends) and the political leaders who believe DrugsAreBad and should never be used under any circumstances. After Laura Bush makes a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to George Bush's mother (Barbara Bush, of course), the druggie decides that the solution to the whole "War On Drugs" is that... it's okay to use drugs occasionally but not on a regular basis.
* Tiffany Malloy from ''Series/UnhappilyEverAfter'' could be considered a farcical send-up of this trope. Because the series was a SpiritualSuccessor to ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' - even having some of the same creators - Tiffany is often compared to Kelly Bundy, though unlike Kelly she was not stupid (not deep down, at least) and actually tried to preserve her dignity (publicly, at least). Tiffany's assessment of herself was that, while she was gorgeous and obviously a sexual tease, she struck a balance between the other smart girls who were overly intellectual and cared nothing for their personal appearance (she said ''to their faces'' that they were "dried-up old prunes") and outright slutty bimbos (most notably her [[EvilCounterpart arch-nemesis]], Sable) for using their good looks only to gain sexual pleasure rather than [[IHaveBoobsYouMustObey trying to gain a sociopolitical advantage over men]]. This had the effect of making Tiffany seem like the most normal and reasonable person on the show, despite obviously being a ManipulativeBitch and just one step up from a hooker. Of course, it helped a great deal that [[SurroundedByIdiots every other member of the Malloy family was either moronic or delusional]].

[[folder:Religion and Folklore]]
* Literature/TheBible: Subverted in the JudgmentOfSolomon from the Old Testament. Two women each claim to be a boy's mother. Solomon cannot tell who is lying, so he declares that he will cut the baby in half and give each woman her "share". The boy's true mother gives up her claim so that the child lives, which reveals who truly loved him. Subverted in that Solomon never intended this as a legitimate solution but only a trap to catch out the liar, leading to the phrase "splitting the baby" when someone destroys the subject of a dispute rather than assign it to one party.

* ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' has gotten a lot of heat for portraying the Vox Populi, a band of revolutionaries fighting for racial and economic equality, as every bit as ruthless as the racist establishment they're fighting. But considering how completely ''Infinite'' is enmeshed in actual history, and given the wealth of RealLife examples of TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized, [[TruthInTelevision this might simply be a case of art imitating life.]]

* [[https://web.archive.org/web/20070830012050/http://idrewthis.org/d/20070815.html This comic strip]] offers a wry comment on the subject. It also unintentionally illustrates how the Golden Mean Fallacy is often weaponized against arguments by depicting them as extreme when they may actually be quite reasonable to an impartial observer. Say, for example, if you can just get everyone think that [[{{Demonization}} "their" beliefs are inherently wrong and/or evil]] (like, say, [[DeliberatelyBadExample equating an opposing viewpoint to blending kittens]]), then your own beliefs don't need to be defended or supported because you've already set them up to be manifestly pure and true.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other]]

* In Livy's writings, the Samnites managed to trap a Roman army in a narrow pass, but since the relations between the two people were tense, but not yet at official war, their commander Gaius Pontius vacillated about what to do. He then sent a letter to his father Herennius, who at first advised that they should let them go, and try to win friends with the Roman people by showing mercy. This was judged unsatisfactory by the Samnite officers who thought that this way they would lose their desired victory. Then Herennius advised that they should wipe out this army and try their best to crush Rome while it was reeling from the blow; the Romans would not have been capable of taking revenge for some generations, securing the safety of the Samnites in the near future. This on the contrary was deemed too brutal. Pontius eventually settled on humiliating the Roman army by seizing the weapons and making the soldiers pass under a yoke, accepting surrender and token tribute from them, and then letting them go home. The result? The Romans got pissed, but were still at more or less full strength, and after the Senate order to arm new legions with the returning soldier, they came back with a vengeance, stomping the Samnites hard.

* In Livy's writings, the Samnites managed to trap a Roman army in a narrow pass, but since the relations between the two people was tense, but not yet at war, their commander Gaius Pontius vacillated about what to do. He then sent a letter to his father Herennius, who at first advised that they should let them go, and try to win friends with the Roman people by showing mercy. This was judged unsatisfactory by the Samnite officers who thought that this way they would lose their desired victory. Then Herennius advised that they should wipe out this army and try their best to crush Rome while it was reeling from the blow; the Romans would not have been capable of taking revenge for some generations, securing the safety of the Samnites in the near future. This on the contrary was deemed too brutal. Pontius eventually settled on humiliating the Roman army by seizing the weapons and making the soldier pass under a yoke, accepting surrender and token tribute from them, and then letting them go home. The result? The Romans got pissed, but were still at more or less full strength, and after the Senate order to arm new legions with the returning soldier, they came back with a vengeance, stomping the Samnites hard.

* In Livy's writings, the Samnites manage to trap a Roman army in a narrow pass, but since the relations between the two people was tense, but not yet at war, their commander vacillated about what to do. One of his advisers said he should let them go, and try to win friends with the Roman people. Another one said that they should wipe out this army and try their best to crush Rome while it was reeling from the blow. He eventually settles on humiliating the Roman army, accepting surrender and token tribute from them, and then letting them go home. The result? The Romans get pissed, but are still at more or less full strength, and come back with a vengeance, stomping him hard.

* ''VideoGame/ATotalWarSagaTroy'': The VideoGame/TotalWar franchise fandom, with some overlap, is divided between pro-history and pro-fantasy sections, a divided created by the ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammer'' trilogy. The design philosophy of Troy tried to thread the needle between both sections and typically pleased neither with their "truth behind the myth" approach to the Trojan War, with mythical monsters being represented essentially by people in suits. Conversations on Website/{{Reddit}} often boiled down to wishing it was an actual historical game, or went all in like VideoGame/AgeOfMythology, eventually resulting in the ''Mythos'' ExpansionPack adding in both modes.

* ''VideoGame/ATotalWarSagaTroy'': The VideoGame/TotalWar franchise fandom, with some overlap, is divided between pro-history and pro-fantasy sections, a divided created by the VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammer trilogy. The design philosophy of Troy tried to thread the needle between both sections and typically pleased neither with their "truth behind the myth" approach to the Trojan War, with mythical monsters being represented essentially by people in suits. Conversations on Website/Reddit often boiled down to wishing it was an actual historical game, or went all in like VideoGame/AgeOfMythology, eventually resulting in the ''Mythos'' ExpansionPack adding in both modes.

# ... it goes illogical or unreal. For example, a paramedic could state that a person lying on the ground is deceased, thus priority should be given to the rescue of other injured people. Another paramedic could argue that the victim is still alive and first-aid should be given immediately. The Golden Mean Fallacy would state that the victim is partially alive and partially dead, or undead, which is nonsense.

Note again that this trope is not saying that moderate compromises are always wrong. Sometimes an option somewhere in between two polar opposites really ''is'' the best choice; this trope is when the author claims or assumes the best choice ''must'' be found in the middle. In other words, it is the opposite of the [[FalseDichotomy False Dichotomy]], or always [[TakeAThirdOption taking the third option]].

In conclusion, one should use neither the False Dichotomy nor the Golden Mean Fallacy, but rather [[HypocriticalHumor find a logical medium between the two.]]

** {{Parodied|Trope}} in the penultimate episode of season 4. The interim Earth Alliance president tells Sheridan that half the military wants him given the Medal of Honor [[spoiler:for rebelling against ex-PresidentEvil Clark]], and the other half wants him shot for the same actions. She then cracks that she believes in compromise, which by rights means she should give him the Medal of Honor, ''then'' have him shot.

* In the course of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War Russian invasion of Ukraine]], several neutral parties (most notably China) [[https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Welcomes-the-Chinese-Peace-Plan-for-Ukraine-20230224-0011.html proposed compromises to achieve peace]] that involved the demilitarisation of large swathes of battleground - usually the eastern chunk of Ukraine as well as Crimea. While balanced on the surface, all of these proposals would have spelt a net territorial loss for Ukraine without impugning the sovereignty of Russia (beyond, in some proposals, the five Ukrainian regions it laid claim to in the course of the invasion). These arrangements also belied the fact that Russia's attempts to invade its neighbour or annex their territory weren't blatantly illegal in terms of international law to begin with ([[https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-human-rights-court-rules-on-russian-responsibility-in-eastern-ukraine/ which they were]]) and that Ukraine's acts of war weren't recognised by the majority of the international community as justified acts of self-defence ([[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/un-tells-russia-to-leave-ukraine-how-did-countries-vote which they also were]]).

* In the course of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War Russian invasion of Ukraine]], several neutral parties (most notably China) [[https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Welcomes-the-Chinese-Peace-Plan-for-Ukraine-20230224-0011.html proposed compromises to achieve peace]] that involved the demilitarisation of large swathes of battleground - usually the eastern chunk of Ukraine as well as Crimea. While balanced on the surface, all of these proposals would have spelt a net territorial loss for Ukraine without impugning the sovereignty of Russia (beyond, in some proposals, the five Ukrainian regions it laid claim to in the course of the invasion). These arrangements also belied the fact that Russia's attempts to invade its neighbour or annex their territory weren't blatantly illegal in terms of international law ([[https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-human-rights-court-rules-on-russian-responsibility-in-eastern-ukraine/ which they were]]) and that Ukraine's acts of war weren't recognised by the majority of the international community as justified acts of self-defence ([[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/un-tells-russia-to-leave-ukraine-how-did-countries-vote which they also were]]).

* In the course of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War Russian invasion of Ukraine]], several neutral parties (most notably China) [[https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Welcomes-the-Chinese-Peace-Plan-for-Ukraine-20230224-0011.html proposed compromises to achieve peace]] that involved the demilitarisation of large swathes of battleground - usually the eastern chunk of Ukraine as well as Crimea. While balanced on the surface, all of these proposals would have spelt a net territorial loss for Ukraine without impugning the sovereignty of Russia (beyond, in some proposals, the five Ukrainian regions it laid claim to in the course of the invasion). These arrangements also belied the fact that Russia invading its neighbour or attempting to annex Ukrainian territory weren't blatant violations of international law to begin with ([[https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-human-rights-court-rules-on-russian-responsibility-in-eastern-ukraine/ which they were]]) and that Ukraine's acts of war weren't recognised by the majority of the international community as justified acts of self-defence ([[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/un-tells-russia-to-leave-ukraine-how-did-countries-vote which they also were]]).

* In the course of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War Russian invasion of Ukraine]], several neutral parties (most notably China) [[https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Welcomes-the-Chinese-Peace-Plan-for-Ukraine-20230224-0011.html proposed compromises to achieve peace]] that involved the demilitarisation of large swathes of battleground - usually the eastern chunk of Ukraine as well as Crimea. While balanced on the surface, all of these proposals would have spelt a net territorial loss for Ukraine without impugning the sovereignty of Russia (beyond, in some proposals, the five Ukrainian regions it laid claim to in the course of the invasion). These arrangements also belied the fact that Russia invading its neighbour or attempting to annex Ukrainian territory weren't blatant violations of international law to begin with ([[https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-human-rights-court-rules-on-russian-responsibility-in-eastern-ukraine/ which they were]] and that Ukraine's acts of war weren't recognised by the majority of the international community as justified acts of self-defence ([[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/un-tells-russia-to-leave-ukraine-how-did-countries-vote which they also were]]).

* In the course of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War Russian invasion of Ukraine]], several neutral parties (most notably China) [[https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Russia-Welcomes-the-Chinese-Peace-Plan-for-Ukraine-20230224-0011.html proposed a compromose to achieve peace]] that involved the demilitarisation of large swathes of the battleground - usually the eastern chunk of Ukraine as well as Crimea. While balanced on the surface, all of these proposals would spell a net territorial loss for Ukraine without impugning the sovereignty of Russia (beyond, in some proposals, the five Ukrainian regions it laid claim to in the course of the invasion), belying the fact that Russia invading its neighbour or attempting to annex Ukrainian territory wasn't a blatant violation of international law to begin with ([[https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-human-rights-court-rules-on-russian-responsibility-in-eastern-ukraine/ which it was]] and that Ukraine's acts of war weren't recognised by the majority of the international community as justified acts of self-defence ([[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/24/un-tells-russia-to-leave-ukraine-how-did-countries-vote which they were]]).

* This trope is discussed in {{GKChesterton}}'s non-fiction book "What's Wrong With The World" where he complains that too many people refuse to argue for what they actual believe and instead argue for what they believe is an acceptable compromise..which he compares to a man being forced to walk the plank by pirates arguing to walk a length of the plank that's acceptable to both parties.

* In a meta example, the nearly-lost 1966 ReligiousHorror film ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_(1966_film) Incubus]]'' tanked from its misguided decision to be filmed entirely in [[UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage Esperanto]]. It was believed that not only would it give it a layer of exoticism, Esperanto is a language spoken all across the world, and would theoretically give it the broadest international appeal, but the problem is that Esperanto was (and still is) a very fringe language where not enough people in any concentrated region spoke it, so its widest reception was that of [[AudienceAlienatingPremise alienation]] (not helped by how the Esperanto in the film is pretty poor, both in [[BlindIdiotTranslation writing]] and [[NoPronunciationGuide pronunciation]]).

* In ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', Manticore politics includes the Liberal, Progressive and Conservative parties, who are wrong and often evil, and the Centrist party, who are right. The Conservative party only cares about the noble's rights, and do not resemble most real life conservative parties. The Liberal party does resemble real life left wing parties, with leaders who privately admit their welware policies are just vote buying schemes, and the [[FoxNewsLiberal main sympathetic Liberal character states she disagrees with her party on everything]] except their opposition to genetic slavery which doesn't exist in real life. The Centrists are pretty much real life Libertarians. There are no parties to their economic or religious right on Manticore, but the author named his preferred party the Centrists anyway.

* Tiffany Malloy from ''Series/UnhappilyEverAfter'' could be considered a farcical send-up of this trope. Because the series was a SpiritualSuccessor to ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' - even having some of the same creators - Tiffany is often compared to Kelly Bundy, though unlike Kelly she was not stupid (not deep down, at least) and actually tried to preserve her dignity (publicly, at least). Tiffany's assessment of herself was that, while she was gorgeous and obviously a sexual tease, she struck a balance between the other smart girls who were [[{{Nerd}} overly intellectual and cared nothing for their personal appearance]] (she said ''to their faces'' that they were "dried-up old prunes") and outright slutty bimbos (most notably her [[EvilCounterpart arch-nemesis]], Sable) for using their good looks only to gain sexual pleasure rather than [[IHaveBoobsYouMustObey trying to gain a sociopolitical advantage over men]]. This had the effect of making Tiffany seem like the most normal and reasonable person on the show, despite obviously being a ManipulativeBitch and just one step up from a hooker. Of course, it helped a great deal that [[SurroundedByIdiots every other member of the Malloy family was either moronic or delusional]].

* Brought up and criticised during the AuthorFilibuster in ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''. Very thoroughly criticised. To the point that it claims anyone who doesn't agree with the author or is part of the DirtyCommunists is engaging in this falacy, entire because they are spineless moral relativist or because they're trying to sneak in Communism. Which arguably makes it guilty of FalseDichotomy instead.

* Brought up and criticised during the AuthorFilibuster in ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''. So thoroughly criticised that it arguably turns into FalseDichotomy instead. It argues that every position that isn't [[AuthorTract the author's prefered extreme small-government policies]] or the policies of DirtyCommunists is at best mealy-mouthed compromises by the weak-willed, at worst insidious plots to sneak evil Communism into the author's perfect system. It basically denies that anyone holds a position between Objectivism and [[StrawmanPolitical strawmanned Communism]] except to engage in the GoldenMeanFallacy.

* Of the Manticore political parties in ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', the Centrist party is the one [[AuthorTract with the "correct" policies]], while [[StrawmanPolitical the Liberals, Progressives and Conservatives are wrong and often evil]]. However the Manticore Conservative party is basically the nobility-party, and their views have little in common with those of real-life conservatives. The Liberal and Progressive party do have similar views to real-life left wing parties. [[FoxNewsLiberal The one sympathetic Liberal character we meet outright states that she disagrees with the Liberal party on everything except their strong stance against genetic slavery]], which doesn't exist in real-life. Meanwhile, the Centrist party sounds a lot like staunch real-life Libertarians, who feel that a progressive tax rate is a dangerous step on a slipery slope towards communism. By most modern-day metrics, there actually isn't a party in Manticore to the right of the Centrists, making the name rather false advertising. Either by the in-universe party, or the author.

* Brought up and criticised during the AuthorFilibuster in ''Literature/AtlasShrugged''. So thoroughly criticised ("There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.") that it arguably turns into FalseDichotomy instead.