Hegel’s Bluff

That's what I call it. It's a rhetorical gimmick that's actually much more effective for self-deception than for the persuasion of others. It's a way of telling yourself that "Everybody thinks I'm wrong — therefore I must be right!"

It's easy once you get the hang of it. Feel free to play along.

Simply find two extreme views roughly equidistant from your own along whatever spectrum you see fit to consult. Declare one the thesis and the other the antithesis, and your own position the synthesis. Without actually having to defend your own position, or to explain the shortcomings of these others, you can reassure yourself that you are right and they are wrong. Your position, whatever its actual merits, becomes not only the reasonable middle-ground and the presumably correct stance, but the very culmination of history.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden says this is a good example of "How not to think":

… “everybody’s unhappy, so it must be fair” is magical thinking. Justice isn’t a function of averaging.

I’m reminded of the number of times I’ve seen modern reporters and editors announce that they get flak from angry right-wingers and angry left-wingers alike, so they “must be doing something right."

Centuries before Hegel was born, the early Christians in Laodicea had perfected the illogic of Hegel's Bluff. They had probably convinced themselves that they "must be doing something right." John the Revelator had a different take:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth.