In a conflict such as the one between Russia and Ukraine, at least in principle, two symmetrical questions could be asked. Could certain Russian actions against the Ukrainian population constitute genocide? Could certain Ukrainian actions against Russian or Russian-speaking populations constitute genocide?
A similar structure could be applied to Gaza. Could certain actions by the Israeli government and armed forces against Palestinians in Gaza constitute genocide? Could certain acts, plans, or intentions of Hamas and other armed groups against Jews or Israelis constitute genocide?
Asking the questions in both directions does not imply that the evidence, intentions, capabilities, scale of harm, or strength of the accusations are equivalent. The symmetry is methodological: the same question is allowed to be asked of different actors before examining whether the evidence leads to the same or different conclusions.
This matters because “genocide” has, on the one hand, a relatively precise legal meaning and, on the other, a considerably more flexible political and popular use. In ordinary public debate, people rarely engage explicitly with the protected group, the legally defined acts, the portion of the group affected, or the specific intent to destroy it in whole or in part. The discussion can take a much simpler form: “Do you consider this genocide?”
The phenomenon of interest here is not that someone answers this question affirmatively, nor that they defend their answer with great conviction. One person may consider certain Russian or Ukranian actions genocidal while another rejects that classification. Someone may conclude that certain actions by the Israeli government in Gaza constitute genocide, while another may argue that that particular category has not been established. Similarly, someone might interpret certain acts and intentions of Hamas as genocidal, while another might regard different categories as more appropriate.
All of these positions can be examined through arguments and evidence.
An interesting phenomenon appears when the shift is made from:
“I consider this genocide”
to:
“It is important that you also acknowledge that this is genocide.”
The second proposition introduces a new objective. The aim is no longer simply to describe a situation correctly or to persuade another person through argument. It is to make that person publicly adopt the same interpretation.
Three levels can therefore be distinguished: 1) holding a diagnosis, 2) defending it through argument, and 3) demanding alignment with it. It is this third level that is particularly interesting.
A thought experiment helps isolate the phenomenon. Suppose an institution required its members to declare that certain Russian actions in Ukraine constitute genocide. Now suppose another institution required its members to recognize certain Ukrainian actions against Russian-speaking populations as genocide. A person could refuse to sign either statement without approving in any way of the acts being discussed.
The experiment could be repeated with Gaza. One institution might require its members to classify certain actions by the Israeli government as genocide. Another might require the same classification for the October 7 attack and for certain intentions attributed to Hamas. In both cases, someone might regard the acts as atrocious while still rejecting the specific classification being demanded.
Refusing to use a particular word does not necessarily imply approval of what that word is meant to describe.
This leads to a broader distinction: commitment to diagnosis versus commitment to outcome.
Commitment to diagnosis asks what is happening, why it is happening, and how it should be described. Commitment to outcome asks what state of the world one is trying to produce.
That outcome may be peaceful or destructive. It may involve ending a war, reducing suffering, protecting civilians, or achieving stable coexistence, but it may also involve conquering territory, forcing surrender, expelling a population, destroying an organization, or eliminating an adversary. Being outcome-oriented is therefore not the same as being moderate or pacifist.
An actor determined to destroy an enemy completely might use diagnoses, slogans, and moral categories only insofar as they help achieve that objective. Their relationship to the diagnosis would be instrumental. It is also possible that someone who genuinely wants peace may come to consider it so important that others share their interpretation of the conflict that they refuse to cooperate with people who want exactly the same outcome but use different categories.
This is where goal displacement appears.
The initial sequence may be entirely coherent:
we want to produce a certain outcome → we develop a diagnosis → we promote that diagnosis because we believe it will help produce the outcome.
For example:
we want to reduce suffering → we believe certain acts constitute genocide → we believe that getting others to recognize them as genocide will help stop them.
Here, the diagnosis functions as a means.
But a transformation can occur:
we want society to recognize the diagnosis → we want institutions to recognize it → we want the people around us to recognize it → we begin to regard refusal to recognize it as problematic.
Recognition of the diagnosis then begins to become an objective in itself.
This does not necessarily mean that the original objective has disappeared, nor that seeking recognition is illegitimate. Truth, memory, justice, or recognition of victims may also be regarded as valuable in their own right. The important point is to notice that there is no longer only one objective.
A simple question can make the distinction visible:
If the desired outcome could be fully achieved without getting other people to share one’s interpretation of what happened, would that be enough?
If the answer is yes, the diagnosis remains primarily instrumental. If the answer is no, recognition of the diagnosis has also become one of the outcomes being pursued.
An important consequence follows. Demanding alignment does not have the same effects in relation to every possible objective. If the aim is negotiated peace, reduction of suffering, or some form of coexistence, turning a word into a hinge question — “Do you condemn it?”, “Do you recognize it as genocide?” — may be counterproductive. It can force people with intermediate positions to define themselves in favor of one camp, reduce the possibility of cooperation among people who share goals but not diagnoses, increase the social cost of nuance, and narrow the space available for compromise.
This need not always happen. In some cases, requiring a clear declaration of some kind may establish normative minimums necessary for negotiation, such as rejecting the deliberate killing of civilians. But there is at least a potential tension between forcing diagnostic convergence and keeping sufficiently broad the space in which people who interpret the conflict differently can still cooperate.
The same dynamic may cease to be counterproductive if a different outcome is being pursued. If the goal is to defeat the adversary completely, expel them, destroy their organization, or make compromise impossible, increasing polarization may be functional. Forcing everyone to take a side, eliminating intermediate positions, and treating those who refuse the preferred diagnosis as suspect may help mobilize the group for a more intense confrontation.
A hinge question therefore cannot be evaluated independently of the outcome it serves. It may hinder reconciliation for exactly the same reasons that it may facilitate mobilization for confrontation.
This does not allow us to infer automatically the intentions of those who use such strategies. The fact that a strategy increases polarization does not prove that the person using it wants to destroy the adversary. They may sincerely believe that polarization is necessary to achieve some other objective. But it does raise a relevant question: if a practice supposedly aimed at peace produces effects that make compromise more difficult, and is nevertheless maintained because getting everyone to accept the diagnosis has acquired value in itself, has goal displacement occurred?
Euskadi ta askatasuna
The Basque conflict offers a historically different but structurally related example. During the 1980s, “condemnation” acquired a political significance that went beyond simply expressing disapproval. Asking a representative of Herri Batasuna whether they “condemned” an ETA attack could help determine whether their distancing from ETA was substantive or merely strategic. But the word could also become a binary test: whether or not someone uttered it could end up functioning as an indicator of a much broader political position.
The question could be reversed:
“Do you condemn ETA’s violence?”
“Do you condemn violence carried out by the state?”
The questions did not make the underlying acts equivalent. They showed something else: how a word can cease to function merely as a description or evaluation and become a test of alignment.
That is the central point. In certain conflicts, a category may begin as a tool for understanding reality and acting upon it, but gradually become one of the objectives to be achieved. The problem does not necessarily lie in holding a diagnosis firmly, or even in trying to persuade others that it is correct. It arises when getting others to share the diagnosis begins to compete with the outcome for whose sake the diagnosis was originally supposed to be useful.
The decisive question is therefore not only “What is the correct diagnosis?” but also “Why do we want others to share it?” If achieving that recognition helps reduce suffering, secure peace, or advance whatever outcome is being pursued, it may continue to function as a means. But if demanding it makes that outcome harder to achieve and the demand persists nonetheless, it is worth asking whether goal displacement has taken place: the instrument has begun to replace the end.
The difference may seem small, but it radically changes the orientation of action. It is one thing to be committed to producing a particular state of the world and to use a diagnosis because it seems useful in achieving it. It is another to become committed to getting other people to describe the world in the same way.
In highly polarized conflicts, these two aims can easily become confused. That is precisely why it may be useful to keep one simple question in view:
What are we trying to achieve: to change reality, or to make others accept our explanation of reality?
Sometimes both aims will be compatible. Sometimes they may even reinforce each other. But when they come into conflict, the choice between them reveals which one was really the objective.
Method
This document was produced through a model of human conceptual leadership and editorial execution delegated to artificial intelligence. The author provided the thesis, examples, objections, revision criteria, and editorial decisions. The AI developed the prose, proposed reorganizations and formulations, searched for and cross-checked references, and maintained the master version of the text, that is, the documentary reference to which successive changes were applied. The author critically reviewed the successive versions and approved the published version.
Method summary: conceptual leadership, human; drafting and master version, AI; reference search and cross-checking, AI; critical review and approval of the published version, human.
