The Third Object: Cooperation Doesn't Require Prior Consensus

In our social series, we’ve explored many aspects, continually examining an issue that is both ancient and modern: given that people differ in status, interests, identities, and beliefs, how can they still coexist peacefully and cooperate effectively?

Don’t you find human society a miracle? A group of strangers, for whom it would be good enough if they simply didn’t harm each other, yet they can establish companies, build hospitals, construct high-speed railways, write open-source software, host World Cups…

We’ve discussed mechanisms that facilitate cooperation, such as propriety (Li), incentive compatibility, and common knowledge. We’ve also covered mechanisms that cause cooperation to fail, like lemon markets, externalities, and Moloch. Furthermore, we’ve explored the costs humans pay for cooperation, such as legibility and unintended consequences.

In this final installment, let’s not engage in too much introspection. Instead, we’ll directly present a simple and effective method to foster cooperation. You might already be using this method, but few people articulate it explicitly; it’s a form of wisdom that is widely practiced but rarely articulated.

Imagine a group of children contesting territory on an open field. Kid A says: “What right do you have to stand here?” Kid B says: “This is my spot.” Kid C starts forming a clique, and Kid D is already looking for bricks. It looks like a children’s version of a geopolitical crisis is about to erupt.

Just then, a child takes a ball out of their backpack and says, “Want to play?” And then, something strange happens.

Those who were just glaring at each other start forming teams, setting boundaries, passing, cooperating, defending, and vying for victory for their respective teams.

These children didn’t resolve any of their original disagreements; they didn’t determine who was right or wrong, and no one yielded to anyone else. Yet they immediately began to cooperate in a highly organized manner.

This ball is the conceptual tool for this discussion. We call it the “third object,” meaning something that can be jointly seen and jointly manipulated by both parties, thereby transforming a direct “person-vs-person” stalemate into a shared “people-around-the-object” situation.

Cooperation Doesn’t Require Consensus, Only a ‘Third Object’ #

Many might assume that to cooperate, one must first reach a consensus. You’d need to exert influence, persuade, engage in efforts to align perspectives, ensure mutual understanding, ideally achieve alignment in values, unify in thought, be emotionally attuned, and even like each other, to be able to work together… But in reality, where do we find so much consensus?

In truth, our species’ survival instinct is not for everyone to first figure things out before cooperating.

To foster cooperation, you only need a remarkably simple “attention mechanism.”

Psychologists have discovered that human infants, even before they can speak, already possess a remarkable ability called “joint attention” [1]: Mom points to something, say a flower, and tells the baby to look—the baby immediately knows that Mom wants him to pay attention to this object, and also knows that Mom is paying attention to it too. If Mom is teaching the baby to speak at this moment, making the sound “hua” (flower), the baby knows that this sound means this object called “flower.”

No prior verbal communication is needed, no need for explanations or reasoning; as long as two people jointly point to an object, the foundation for cooperation is laid. Language, teaching, and imitation all emerge from this triangular relationship: ‘you → that object ← me’. Humans don’t cooperate after first reaching a consensus; rather, they first become capable of focusing together on the same object—a “third object”—and only then do consensuses slowly develop.

Think about it. If two people can only stare at each other, the relationship is tense—person-to-person staring breeds vigilance, assessment, comparison, and defensiveness. But as soon as two people simultaneously look at a third object, that tension relaxes: we can study it together, manipulate it together, and be responsible for it together.

This instinct, as people grow older, transforms into a whole set of social technologies.

In 1989, two researchers from the University of California, sociologist Susan Leigh Star and philosopher of science James R. Griesemer, published a paper about the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley [2], but the ideas presented in this paper were much grander than the museum itself.

They found that the people working together in this museum—professional scientists, amateur specimen collectors, financial sponsors, and administrative staff—had completely different understandings of “what a specimen truly meant.” Scientists saw evidence, collectors saw a hobby, sponsors saw prestige, and administrative staff saw records. Yet they managed to collaborate very effectively.

Why? It was thanks to the specimens themselves. Regardless of how you understood it, as long as you could use it for your own purposes, then you could point to it and collaborate with others.

Star and Griesemer called such objects “boundary objects”: they allow different groups to each take what they need and simultaneously maintain a common identity across different social worlds.

As an academic concept, the original context of boundary objects primarily explains how people in different social worlds collaborate without complete consensus. We expand this concept a bit: whether it facilitates collaboration or competition, as long as it can transform a person-to-person stalemate into a situation where people rally around an object, we call it a “third object.”

The key point is that cooperation doesn’t necessarily require consensus. Isn’t this precisely what the Chinese proverb “harmony without uniformity” (和而不同) means?

Shared understanding is a luxury; a shared object is a daily necessity.

The ‘Third Object’ Is Everywhere #

Once you recognize a third object, you’ll find it’s ubiquitous.

For example, price is a third object in the market. A seller thinks their item is worth a thousand, while a buyer only wants to pay six hundred. These two people can come from completely different worlds—you don’t need to like the person you’re trading with, you don’t need to agree with their way of life, you don’t need to understand their childhood, and certainly don’t need to align with them on values. You just need to move back and forth around a number: Eight hundred? Seven hundred fifty? As long as you can both nod at a certain price, the transaction happens.

This is the greatness of the market: it doesn’t make humans nobler; rather, it allows even less noble people to cooperate.

F. A. Hayek had a famous insight: price is an information mechanism for transmitting dispersed knowledge. Everyone only knows a little about their immediate circumstances, but price can compress information like scarcity, demand, risk, substitutes, expectations, etc., into a single number, allowing strangers to adjust their actions independently [3].

For instance, tin suddenly becomes scarce. You don’t need to know which mine had an accident, nor do you need to hold a global supply chain conference. As tin prices rise, people who use tin will automatically conserve or seek alternatives, and producers will automatically increase supply. Innumerable strangers, without explaining themselves to each other, moved together because of the same price.

As long as there’s a “number,” that’s enough. No matter how tense two rival gangs are, as long as there’s a number to discuss, both sides can sit down and talk.

Take global climate governance, for example. Nearly two hundred countries, with different stages of development and conflicting interests. One says, “You developed countries must bear more responsibility,” and another says, “I am a populous country and must reduce emissions.” How do you even begin to talk? The Paris Agreement compressed this tangled mess onto a single number: to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

With this number, countries can debate, make commitments, and negotiate around it, giving everyone a concrete target to aim for.

The third object makes problems comparable, negotiable, and trackable. The third object first transforms value conflicts into common coordinates, and then people can transform these common coordinates into actionable steps.

A meeting agenda, a KPI, a quote, a contract, a product prototype, a household chore chart… Anything that can be “put on the table” can be a “third object.”

The ‘Third Object’ Helps with ‘Externalizing the Problem’ #

The third object is particularly effective at preventing conflict, through a mechanism called “externalizing the problem.”

You’ve surely had this experience: when two people start clashing, the topic quickly slides from “How should we handle this matter?” to “Why are you like this?” But once it slides to this point, the situation becomes irretrievable, because the other party will immediately go on the defensive, starting to justify, counter-attack, and bring up past grievances.

There’s a school of thought in psychotherapy called “narrative therapy” [4], which requires therapists to separate the “person” from the “problem”: not viewing the client as a problematic person, but helping them extract the problem from their self-identity, place it before them, and observe it like an external object.

Michael White, a leading figure in narrative therapy, famously said: “The person is not the problem; the problem is the problem.”

Once you detach the problem from the person and place it on the table, the conflicting parties no longer judge each other, but instead jointly confront an externalized third object.

For example, a child is always dawdling and refusing to go to bed. Your instinct is to yell at them: “Why are you always so sluggish?” The moment those words are out, the child becomes the accused, and the only thing they can do is defend themselves, either by talking back, or by staying silent and playing on their phone.

Externalizing the problem requires you to rephrase it: “Come on, let’s investigate together: what time does this ’late-sleep monster’ usually appear? What tricks does it use to delay you—is it your phone?” With just this change, the habit of dawdling is detached from the child and becomes something on the table that the two of you can tackle together. The child becomes a detective fighting alongside you.

This is what people often say: “It’s not you versus the child, but you and the child facing the problem together.”

“Separate the people from the problem” is also the number one principle in negotiation [5]. Only then can negotiating parties focus on interests rather than positions, thereby creating win-win options and using objective criteria.

Low-level negotiation: “You’re being unreasonable.”

High-level negotiation: “Which item on this list—price, deadline, or risk allocation—is unreasonable?”

Low-level family argument: “You don’t care about me at all.”

High-level family negotiation: “Let’s put this week’s childcare, cooking, overtime, and rest times on a calendar.”

Low-level company meeting: “Sales always makes reckless promises, and R&D always lags behind.”

High-level company meeting: “Let’s put client commitments, delivery milestones, and risk lists onto a single table.”

Once a person is defined as the problem, they can only defend. Once the problem is externalized, people can act.

‘Le’ (Ritual Music/Harmony) as the ‘Third Object’: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Conflict #

At the beginning of this series, we discussed how status is the first principle of social participation. People tend to establish hierarchy when they meet, so society invented “Li” (propriety/rituals) to mitigate status conflicts. Ancient people also devised another means to resolve conflict: “Le” (ritual music/harmony).

On the surface, “Le” is music, but in essence, it’s a ritualistic system that allows people to jointly enter a rhythm and participate in an order.

“Li” governs “differentiation.” In a room full of people, who is honored and who is humble, who comes first and who comes last, elders and juniors, all clearly delineated according to certain protocols. But with “Li” alone, people remain reserved, distanced, and tense towards each other.

“Le,” on the other hand, governs “integration” or “harmony.” In a room full of people, they play music together, sing in unison, and dance together to the same beat—regardless of who is honored or humble, everyone hears the same rhythm, performs the same actions, and everyone merges into a single “we.”

The Book of Rites states: “Music (Le) brings unity; propriety (Li) establishes distinctions. Unity fosters intimacy; distinctions foster respect.”

Le is that third object. It allows a group of people with diverse identities, varied thoughts, originally reserved and assessing each other, to temporarily forget their respective statuses and disagreements and unconsciously coordinate their actions, simply because they collectively focused on the same object.

The fundamental role of the third object is to “align everyone’s attention.”

How to Utilize the ‘Third Object’ #

So, as an individual, how should you use the third object?

The core principle is simple: If you want to gain the initiative in a situation, don’t enter empty-handed; first bring out a “ball.”

Those who only complain are asking others to change. Those who only reason are asking others to admit they are right. But a person who can present a third object—even if it’s just a rough plan, a sketch, a list—doesn’t ask anything of anyone; they directly change the dynamics of the situation, making everyone revolve around their object.

If you want to push a project forward, don’t just say “this direction is very important”; first write a one-page memo. If you want to persuade colleagues, don’t just say “you all should cooperate”; first draw a flowchart. If you want to improve family relationships, don’t just say “you all need to understand me”; first produce a calendar, a division of labor chart, or a weekend plan. If you want to sell an idea, first make a small prototype.

Your initiative isn’t about directly changing others, but about creating an object around which others can re-orient their actions.

Here are two particularly practical ideas.

The first is to create “shared objects.” In a family, couples who have been together for a long time can easily run out of things to say; topics like “Do you really love me?” quickly descend into philosophical quagmires. But as long as two people jointly care for a plant, organize a trip, keep a ledger, or even have a child—with a shared object of focus—the relationship finds its anchor, and there’s always something to talk about.

Similarly, gatherings are rarely just people sitting around chatting idly; they usually at least involve a meal. What is eaten is secondary; the important thing is that the meal itself is the most basic third object, allowing everyone to at least share the act of eating. Better gatherings should have a discussion topic, and the best gatherings have a project: a book club, a movie night, organizing an event together, or jointly helping a friend solve a real problem. People particularly easily establish deep connections through shared actions.

The second idea, and also the highest form of the third object, is called a “superordinate goal”: a common goal that absolutely requires everyone’s collective effort to achieve.

This is the famous finding of social psychologist Muzafer Sherif [6]: simply increasing contact and encounters between two previously hostile groups doesn’t necessarily improve their relationship; what truly resolves hostility is giving them a task that absolutely requires their combined effort to accomplish—for example, pushing a truck stuck in the mud out together.

Therefore, the best team-building isn’t the whole company shouting slogans or eating hotpot together, but rather facing a tough battle together [7]. A common enemy unites quickly; a common goal unites for longer.

The Dark Side of the ‘Third Object’ #

I must add a word of caution: the third object is not inherently good; it has a dark side.

A ball can organize a game, but also fanaticism. Price can facilitate transactions, but also swallow things that cannot be priced. KPIs can make goals visible, but also lead people to sacrifice real value for metrics. A common goal can turn people into teammates; a common enemy can also turn people into a mob. An object can be “something everyone acts around together,” but once it becomes “the only thing everyone sees,” trouble arises.

Scapegoats, population registration systems, common knowledge, and Moloch, which we discussed earlier, can also be re-understood from the perspective of the third object.

Enabling strangers to coexist peacefully and those with differences to work together is an eternal challenge for human civilization. And we have indeed explored a series of good methods to facilitate cooperation.

Civilization isn’t without conflict. Many times, civilization gives conflict a ball.

【A Verse to Testify】

Each clinging to a single thought, facing each other as walls; Place an object in the middle, and align shoulder to shoulder. No need for shared hearts, first seek a shared gaze; With the ball introduced, old grievances are hidden for now.

Notes

[1] Tomasello, Michael, et al. “Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28, no. 5 (2005): 675–691.

[2] Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer, “Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39,” Social Studies of Science 19, no. 3 (1989): 387–420.

[3] Hayek, F. A. “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review 35, no. 4 (1945): 519–530.

[4] Michael White and David Epston, Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990); Michael White, Maps of Narrative Practice (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007).

[5] Fisher, Roger, and William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (1981).

[6] Sherif, Muzafer. “Superordinate Goals in the Reduction of Intergroup Conflict.” American Journal of Sociology 63, no. 4 (1958): 349–356.

[7] 《精英日课》第二季，《激进包容》5: 指挥官和“自己人”