It takes two to tango

I was speaking with a professional mediator/arbitrator tonight and he threw this supposedly wise saying into the conversation.

It takes two to tango.

The meaning of the saying is that whenever there is a dispute both parties are at least partly at fault. The saying is false. It is possible for one party to be entirely in the right but he has ruled out this possibility beforehand.

Where to find people who will judge righteously?

3 thoughts on “It takes two to tango”

  1. Richard,

    Could he not have meant that it takes two to come to a compromise/agreement? That was the original meaning of the phrase, popularized by Ronald Reagan’s quip about Russian-American relations during a 1982 presidential news conference.

    If one party is wholly in the right and the other in the wrong, then it is not the phrase that is wrong, it is his use of it that is wrong; he is applying it to the wrong set of circumstances.

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