If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. — Laurence J. Peter

If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.

Author: Laurence J. Peter

Insight: We all know the saying: two wrongs don't make a right. It's supposed to stop us from retaliating, from escalating, from matching someone's bad behavior with our own. But here's what actually happens in real life. Someone cuts us off in traffic, so we honk. They brake-check us, so we speed up. Suddenly we're both driving recklessly and neither of us remembers who started it. The logic breaks down because hurt people want justice, and when the first attempt at justice fails, we keep trying. What makes this observation genuinely funny and slightly unsettling is that it captures something we recognize in ourselves. We don't actually believe three wrongs make a right either—but we've all caught ourselves thinking "maybe if I do it one more time, it'll work." It's the stubborn logic of someone escalating a petty argument, or staying in a cycle of score-settling with a friend or family member. We keep hoping the next move will somehow reset the balance, even though we're just digging deeper. The real insight isn't that we should try three wrongs. It's that the saying "two wrongs don't make a right" is often ignored not because it's wrong, but because we're desperate. When the first attempt at correcting an injustice fails, we're left frustrated and unsure what to do instead. That's where the actual work begins.

Source: The Peter Principle, p. 171, 1969