Why debates harden when positions come closer

When two positions are very far apart, nobody risks confusing them. When they are neighbours, each must make an effort to distinguish itself from the other, and that effort goes through insistence on what separates them rather than on what brings them together. Freud named this tendency to mark the gap with the nearest the narcissism of small differences.

This mechanism is in no way irrational in a space where visibility is contested. Two close offers compete directly, whereas two distant offers are not disputing the same support. The hardening is a consequence of proximity, not proof of a deep disagreement.

It is compounded by a survival stake for the weaker of the two: if it does not distinguish itself, it disappears in favour of the more established. The violence of the tone is then inversely proportional to the real gap, which disconcerts outside observers.

In order to mark a fine distinction, one is led to harden the description of the other: one attributes to the neighbouring position its most extreme version, the one that makes the gap legible. That is effective in terms of communication and costly in terms of accuracy, since the opponent does not recognise themselves in the portrait.

Symmetrically, one softens one's own position by presenting it in its most reasonable version. The combination of the two produces exchanges in which each has the impression of being caricatured, which is accurate, and of caricaturing nobody, which is less so.

This double operation has a deferred cost. The arguments forged to distinguish oneself from a neighbour remain available afterwards, and serve against more distant opponents, often at the price of the coherence of the one who uses them.

A disagreement held in private and the same disagreement held before an audience do not unfold in the same way. In front of witnesses, each participant speaks as much for the spectators as for their interlocutor, which makes concession costly and escalation profitable.

That is why the same people may find agreement in a small meeting and refuse it in public session. It is not hypocrisy: it is an effect of the setting, and it is corrected by changing the setting rather than by accusing the people.

One useful sign is the shift of the subject towards questions of vocabulary or precedence, while the concrete proposals remain close. Another is the importance taken by the question of who said what first, an indication that the stake bears on distinction and not on content.

A third sign is asymmetry of vocabulary: the same facts described with harsh words for one and neutral ones for the other. That is not an argument, it is a marker of distinction.

Noting this mechanism says nothing about the substance of the disagreement, and certainly not that it would be negligible. Two neighbouring positions may differ on a point that really matters, and overall proximity does not imply equivalence.

It invites one only to check the real gap before concluding from the intensity of the tone to the size of the disagreement. It is one of the few reflexes that make public debate more legible without requiring one to take sides in it.