No Defense Whatever

Sooner or later somebody says something about A.A. in public that is wrong. Not a fair criticism — wrong: a bad number, an old grievance, a confident claim from a person who has never sat in a room. Every instinct says correct it. The correction would be easy, and it would be true. A.A.'s service literature gives the answer without hedging (A.A. Service Manual): "Almost without exception it can be confidently estimated that our best defense in these situations would be no defense whatever — namely, complete silence at the public level." No defense whatever. And then a reason that is about the other party rather than about our virtue: "Unreasonable people are stimulated all the more by opposition. If in good humor we leave them strictly alone, they are apt to subside the more quickly." There is one permitted move and its conditions are strict. Where a critic is merely misinformed, A.A. may write — temperately, never questioning motives, and privately. "If made public, they will often be seized upon as a fresh excuse for controversy." The correction is not withheld because it would be untrue. It is withheld because publishing it is the thing that starts the fight.