How to Tell If You're Living in a Binary Crisis

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How to Tell If You're Living in a Binary Crisis<br>And how to get out of it

Ted Gioia<br>May 11, 2026

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How to Tell If You’re Living in a Binary Crisis

By Ted Gioia<br>I want to start with a story about Texas. It’s also a good description of what I call a binary conflict.<br>I recently wrote a letter of recommendation for an engineering student at Texas A&M. He’s an impressive, hardworking young man—with solid character and very trustworthy.<br>To help cover college costs, he does part time work helping people move. It’s grueling physical labor. But he never complains.<br>Someday soon he may be an engineer. But when he does a moving job, he has no attitude—and he puts 100% effort into the physical labor.<br>This young man recently showed up at a Texas house, where he was scheduled to help a family move But as soon as they opened the door, he could see they were shocked, even horrified, by his presence on their doorstep.<br>“I’m here to help with the move,” he explained.<br>“No you aren’t,” the woman at the door said, ready to slam it in his face.<br>“You don’t understand,” he replied. “I’m helping with your move today.”<br>“No, you are NOT,” she repeated, and pointed at his shirt.<br>His shirt had just one thing written on it: Texas A&M.<br>She scowled—and after a moment, explained: “This has always been a Longhorn house. We never let Aggies in here.”

And so he didn’t have a job that day. That’s how they roll in the Lone Star State.<br>And if, by some terrible destiny, a Texas A&M supporter marries a University of Texas fan, they put this “House Divided” banner outside their home.

That’s how a binary conflict works in society. Life may be complex—but it gets simpler if you can reduce things to two opposing forces.<br>But sometimes the binary conflict escalates into a binary crisis. When that happens, events spiral out of control.

Did you ever wonder why the biggest sports battles always involve two teams?<br>You could easily design a basketball court with three hoops—and play the game with three teams. Or four or five or any number you want.<br>But that never happens.<br>Despite all the talk of threesomes, you’re not gonna find one on ESPN. Well, not on screen—who knows what those athletes (or sportscasters) do after the game?<br>But every team competition I’ve seen in my entire life has featured a binary opposition—whether we’re talking football, baseball, hockey, volleyball, or even quidditch in a Harry Potter film.<br>It’s always two opposed forces.<br>That was even true when I competed in an academic contest during my student days—the national quiz bowl competition known as College Bowl. My team had to defeat dozens of other schools to win the national title—but every competition was a head-to-head matchup. We beat Yale in the televised finals, and the binary opposition was what drew the ratings.<br>The producers even told us so. “We like this Stanford versus Yale matchup—the ratings will be good.”

Even I had a team back in college, and we faced down a single enemy—Yale! (That’s Art Fleming, the original Jeopardy host behind me.)<br>Only a few individual sports allow for multiple participants competing all at once. Can you spell B-O-R-I-N-G? That’s why track events and swim meets don’t get much TV coverage—audiences demand the binary opposition.<br>In my youth, I was a fan of TV wrestling, and I recall with fondness the famous Battle Royale, which took place once each year at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown LA. But these free-for-alls never lived up to expectations—because so many competitors made it hard to identify the enemy.<br>And it wasn’t just the audience that got confused Even the participants and referees looked lost up in that ring. Without the binary opposition, the sport felt meaningless.<br>Just look at a video and see for yourself. A bunch of dudes in a brawl should be a lot more exciting than this.

There’s a rule here, but an ugly rule. The key to effective teamwork is having a single enemy.<br>Now here’s something even uglier. The same team-building hostility is heating up over in the enemy’s camp. That evil team is getting bigger and stronger because it hates you—and precisely because you’re bonding with your own team.<br>Some of this stuff is so toxic nobody wants to talk about it. But I’ve actually seen management teams bond together more effectively because they all hate the CEO. That’s what finally brings them together, and gets them to...