As long as humanity has been telling stories, the theme of facing risk on either side has been a theme. Expressions such as “between the devil and the deep blue sea”, and “between a rock and a hard place” have long shaped our narratives. They bring to mind impossible choices, referred to with names like “Catch-22” and “Morton’s Fork”.

Yet it has always been the story of Odysseus, guiding his ship between the deadly sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, that has always caught my imagination. For many years I misunderstood the expression “being between Scylla and Charybdis” to mean finding a centrist path between two extremes. Instead, I have come to realize that the path between these monsters is a resistance to the binary itself. Perhaps the expression “on the horns of a dilemma” makes it more clear. Having witnessed bullfights in Madrid as a teenager, the idea of being gored by a bull makes for a profoundly visceral concept. There is no “between the horns”. The only hope lies in refusing to get in the ring with the bull.

Whether it is politics or theology, when we engage in debates that are primarily framed around the questions “Who is right?” and “Who is wrong?”, we all too often find ourselves “on the horns of a dilemma”. Why? Because such a posture requires that both “sides” engage in a fear-based “othering”, that “they” are wrong and “we” are right. “They” are bad. “We” are good. Note that I said this is what happens when we make the binary position our primary approach. I am not suggesting that there is no place for debate, nor am I suggesting that there is no right or wrong. Instead, I am pointing out the fact that such a posture is fundamentally born out of and sustained by fear.