The "split-message dichotomy"

There's this idea I've thought about from time to time that I wish there were a word for so that I could talk about it more concisely. For lack of a better term, I call it a "split-message dichotomy." The general idea is this: Sometimes there are two principles that are both true and relevant, and two audiences that need to understand them. But one principle is more useful to emphasize for one audience, and the other for the other audience. Emphasizing a principle for the opposite audience can cause them to overlook an important part of the truth and end up making bad decisions. You don't always have the luxury of tailoring your message to just the target group, which makes crafting your message tricky.

One example of this comes up a lot in church, when you're talking about a specific commandment, although you could easily broaden it to any piece of good advice if you want. To be very specific, let's use the commandment to stay away from recreational drugs. There are two important messages here:

• Using drugs is very destructive. Don't do it. The consequences can hurt both you and others, and they may be permanent.
• If you're already addicted, healing and repentance are possible. Don't give up.

And of course the two relevant groups are these:

• People who haven't used drugs, but might be tempted to do so
• People who already have

To someone who hasn't started using drugs, you want to emphasize strongly just how bad the effects of them are, and how some of those consequences may be permanent. If you dwell too much on the availability of help and repentance, you might unintentionally convey the message that people can just try stuff out now and fix whatever problems arise later.

On the other hand, if someone in the room is already addicted, focusing on how bad and irreversible the consequences are might just convince them to give up trying to change. For that person, the message of repentance and the availability of help is exactly what they need to hear.

So you can see the problem. I guess the only real solution is to make sure that you cover both aspects of the issue, and do your best to be aware of the specific needs of the people you're talking to so you can tailor the message as much as possible.

It's pretty common though. I guess it applies to any choice that people make with major consequences. All the chastity stuff comes to mind. But the situation can also come up when one of the audience groups isn't really facing a decision. To use a super heavy example, imagine that you're talking to a person who has lost someone to suicide. They might worry about the soul of that person, since taking an innocent life is a sin. You'd be inclined to explain to them that the person clearly had a heavy burden of depression and probably wasn't seeing things clearly, and that God will take that into account - in other words, the person's moral accountability was probably low. But you would never want to send that message to someone suffering from depression or thoughts of self-harm, because "you can't control what happens" could encourage them to act on those thoughts. (I guess you'd focus on showing empathy and getting them professional help instead.)

Anyway, back to the start - I wish there were a word to describe this situation. Because it comes up a lot, and I don't think that most people think about it. We tend to focus on only one of the two groups, and that can be really dangerous for the group we're not thinking about. It's very important to give proper attention to all sides of the truth so that a little fragment of that truth doesn't blind people to the rest of it.