There are some sayings that are so obvious, we never stop to question them. This is one of them.

You can’t fight fire with fire.

Obviously.

The better question is this: are people actually doing this?

I don’t think so.

A better version

I know what people are trying to get at. And it may have been more useful back in the day.

Then, it was mostly a way of critiquing violence. Quite like the famous play on the Hebrew teaching “An eye for an eye,” transforming it into “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.”

Of course, what we’re suggesting is that the person fighting the fire with more fire is literally doing the same thing. But these days, we’re often using it totally wrong.

We ignore the context.

We say you can’t fight fire with fire when one political group stands up to another. The implication we think we’re making is that violence begets violence. But often we use it when one chooses to not be violent. When one group shows up with pepper spray and the other shows up with bottles of milk.

We create a false equivalence.

There are two groups opposed to each other. They both show up prepared for a fight. They align with opposing political parties. So we conclude that they must be the same. The Proud Boys have exploited this idea by starting a proverbial fire and making the opposition into co-arsonists.

Defining it this way, we never actually fight the fire.

In defining any fighting as fighting with fire, it means that we have no firefighters. So we never actually fight the fire.

We either aren’t being consistent with our understanding of politics or with our metaphor. Either way, we never solve the problem of the ones setting the fires. Or what we’re supposed to do about it.

We often add fuel to the fire.

Not by enflaming passions, but, depending on what it is, by the way we go about dealing with the fire. We’re often using it when someone really is doing something literally violent or metaphorically destructive.

So, to avoid fighting fire with fire, we offer what we might see as the alternative. We build up the institution or public positivity. In other words, the very things being set ablaze. We’re not helping: we’re actually adding kindling.

Rethink the phrase.

As sayings go, I find this one frustrating. But more than that, I find it counterproductive. Only because we use it wrong.

Rare is it that I actually see people fighting fire with fire. Because the very idea is nonsense. But so is fighting fire with a brittle chair or a dried out log.

People fight fire with water and extinguishers.

And I suspect that most people who are actually fighting the fires in our lives are doing that. The only ones who don’t understand that that is what’s happening are the ones judging from the cheap seats.

Maybe experts in fighting fires are the ones worth listening to.