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Contrast
and opposition is power. The greater the distinction
between one position and another, the stronger its
credentials. Humans have an almost universal impulse
toward opposition: every analysis of a concept or
thing reverts to a sketch of its converse. Since dualism
is invariably invoked as a conceptual tool, we don't
notice its role in structuring our thoughts, in shaping
and finally constraining our understanding. After
thousands of years of a binary approach to political,
philosophical, economic and sociological problems,
we have let our imagination ossify. We are three-dimensional
beings imprisoned within a two-dimensional perspective.
Banners
and slogans are distilled ideas: they reduce thought
to the basics and that is our weakness. In the run-up
to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, for example,
a baldly dualist perspective worldwide changed the
terms of debate and made a peaceful resolution impossible.
'No Blood for Oil' chanted ‘our’ side -
'Anti-war Is Pro-terrorism' echoed the hawks. Many
wanted a more finely-tuned discussion about the long-term
effectiveness of inspections backed by a UN controlled
process of checking Saddam and gradually dislodging
him from power. Polls taken in February suggested
that such a policy had the support of majorities the
world over, even in the US, but it was a position
that required elaboration and compromise. But real
men don’t compromise – like they don’t
cry as we all know This alternative position never
had a chance. Loud voices hijacked the debate and
marched off in opposite directions, bullhorns blaring.
Polarized ranting made real discourse impossible.
It always does. And tragedy follows invariably. ‘It
wasn’t our fault’ my comrades say. Sure
it wasn’t.
We
shouldn't have been surprised. Dualism is older than
organized religion, as old as philosophy. Plato distinguished
between forms and the world, the ideal and the actual
instantiation. The Bible is an extended rant of good
and evil, of us (the chosen people, and then those
who follow Christ) against them (Egyptians, Canaanites,
Romans, sinners -- a medley of unbelievers). The Old
Testament chronicles the mostly horrific tribulations
of a tribe: its interactions with other, less durable
populations, and its efforts to secure God's blessing
(if not reliably his aid), while diverting his wrath
to others.The New Testament is an extended meditation
on Saints and Sinners (no pun intended – M.Y.)
and the paths to heaven and hell.
Zoroaster,
who lived in the 6th century B.C., believed the world
to be a product of the struggle between Ormuzd and
Ahriman, light and wisdom on the one hand, darkness
and evil on the other. The Manicheans, a hybrid of
Gnostic and Zoroastran thought, with a helping of
pre-Islamic Persian pantheism, posited a world perfectly
divided between good and evil, the former represented
by the spirit and the latter by the body, the two
spheres radically and irrevocably distinct. Although
Catholicism rejected Platonic dualism in favour of
monotheism, a God-centered unity, St. Augustine remained
preoccupied with the difference between physical and
moral evil, and Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics
distinguished between spiritual beings and the bodily
matter that the spirit animates. Our very own Catholic
hierarchy here continues on the same path.
To
jump forward, Descartes, Spinoza and Schopenhauer
all grappled with the same duality. The last mentioned
believed that it was impossible to quite distinguish
between body and soul, and for that reason the nature
of consciousness was unknowable. Saxophone players
since Woody Allen and soccer players since Maradona
have tended to agree.
Methinks
(in the form of a summary of the above): The mind
is a system of organs of computation designed by natural
selection to solve the problems faced by our ancestors
in their foraging way of life. There is no soul
in the machine. Rather, the machine is constituted
to create the effect of a soul; the machine is so
finely calibrated that it is conscious of its existence
and its potential for nonexistence.
* * *
There
have been many efforts at synthesis – all of
them unsatisfying. In Buddhist cosmology, yin and
yang are opposing forces, similar to the old concepts
of good and evil, which comprise an overarching whole,
the Tao. Dissatisfaction and ill-health result from
an imbalance between these two forces, and happiness
is closely tied to an individual's ability to get
the balance right. Yet the basic organizing principle
of Eastern thought is plainly dualist, for harmony
requires a synthesis of yin and yang. Enter Mao Ze
Dong and his analysis of ‘Contradiction’.
Then
we have Nietzche and many ancient Greek derivatives
with their Apollonian (representing order, reason,
clarity and harmony) and the Dionysian (denoting wild
creativity, free-spirited and usually drunken) principles.
Nietzsche believed that the strong-willed could balance
Apollonian and Dionysian forces. Very few, except
the chosen ones, would be capable of such mastery,
usually effected through dedication to a particular
art or sport, and then only briefly. At those moments
of crystalline balance, the over-man would gain insight
and knowledge.
Closer
to my heart, Marxists, for all our revolutions, are
equally traditionalists in this respect. Dialectical
materialism set religion against science, capital
against labour, elevating in each case the latter
as the determining factor in any inquiry into the
structure of society. The kind of idealism Plato advocated
was useless if not misleading was it not? Rather,
society was better served by an analysis of how material
factors, such as the means of production, determine
the social and economic structure of society. Lenin
followed with his imperialism v revolutionary nationalism
and the masses v the vanguard party.
More
than ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
political theory remains stubbornly dualist, despite
the evidence that there are more than two positions
on the political spectrum. If the 20th century taught
us anything, it is that political thought cannot be
divided neatly into left and right, good or evil or
right and wrong. Indeed, the political landscape is
less a continuum than a circle, with the fascist right
and the revolutionary left staring at each other on
the dark side of an increasingly unpleasant territory
that is now adjacent to the fundamentalist domain.
Influenced
by many of my teachers, I group thinkers as either
hedgehogs or foxes: hedgehogs know lots and lots about
one big thing, while foxes know many things. John
Updike divides all humanity into rabbits and bulls.
Rabbits dart about to survive while bulls plod on,
unwavering and always certain about rights and wrongs,
e.g. the recent debate in ‘The ‘Blanket’
between Ruddy and McCann re: the Ardoyne suicides).
I
don’t believe in Platonic hedgehogs anymore,
nor do I dream of thoroughbred rabbits. Except for
the true believers, that I have learnt to distrust,
we are all mutts. Everyone, going about their daily
lives, will be both a taurine rabbit and a twitchy-nosed
bovine. A healthy society understands that there are
no pure positive and negative liberties, that free
speech means little for the starving and the exploited,
that violence is part of the human condition.
Dualism
may be hardwired into our genes. The chemical structure
of DNA is helical, two strings of sugar phosphates
wound round each other and connected by supporting
trusses of hydrogen, dangerous if detached or misaligned.
Watson and Crick understood that the binary nature
of DNA was its critical trait:
The
novel feature of the structure is the manner in
which the two chains are held together by the...
bases...[which] are joined together in pairs, a
single base from one chain being hydrogen-bonded
to a single base from the other chain, so that the
two lie side by side... Only specific pairs of bases
can bond together. ... [Since] only specific pairs
of bases can be formed, it follows that if the sequence
of bases on one chain is given, then the sequence
on the other chain is automatically determined....the
specific pairing….immediately suggests a possible
copying mechanism for the genetic material.
The
DNA influencing the way we think? Why not? Natural
selection operates upon genes, not species, so the
evolutionary success of the genes we cart around with
us -- or, more accurately, the genes which utilize
humans as a useful reproductive vessel -- may be attributable
to the kinds of thoughts they determine. Humans may
not be walking and talking dualists, but genes certainly
are.
I
accept that dualism lies at the heart of life. It
should not then be surprising that given the chance
to build the ultimate machine, we based it on zeros
and ones. Just as the DNA structure determines replication
and reproduction -- the laws of life -- computer code
controls software and, more broadly, cyberspace. As
written constitutions identify and protect values,
computer software preserves certain values at the
expense of others. Code is law. And code, at heart,
is binary.
* * *
I
accept fully, therefore, that our genetic and computer
codes may be dualistic, but I’m convinced our
thinking must not be. Dualism, which originated as
a theory about the structure of the world, has calcified
into an analytical set piece.
We must find another model. We must bring a multivalent
tool to bear on political, sociological, philosophical
or economic issues. It would be rigorously open-minded,
continuously recalibrated. It would cast dichotomies
as guideposts rather than fenced-in camps. It would
be vibrantly relational, a cross-pollinating perspective
yielding imaginative solutions rather than deadening,
zero-sum compromises.
The
desperation that dualism yields, particularly in the
political arena is a beginning. For or against Sinn
Fein? Is Al-Qaeda good or bad? It is there, in this
type of situation, that a multivalent tool would be
most welcome and useful. As states mature, political
voices accrete into major parties because they are
unable to wield significant influence outside them.
Opinions that don't advance a party's current strategy
are shunted. A broad coalition -- a big tent -- is
usually an ineffectual one. Just consider the endearing
Mr. Joschka Fischer, an old friend from the barricades,
now Germany's foreign Minister, faithfully serving
Schroeder's Social Democrats. Or the recently evicted
from power Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis –
a self- confessed terrorist bomber during the time
of the Greek colonels, a President of the EU –
just before Bertie! Did Ahern know about the hundreds
of thousanfds filched by his cronies or did he not?
Anthony’s piece on Gerry Adams still rings in
my ears. Was he or was he not in the IRA? As if that
was what mattered in Adams’ and Sinn Fein’s
current political trajectory.
In
the future, all politics will be global. Against the
empire. Before then, we must strive to draw political
issues as broadly as possible. In the short term,
this will make solutions more difficult by increasing
the complexity of any acceptable compromise. It's
always easier to cut a side deal; remember the popularity
of the smoke-filled antechamber. But the plans and
compromises brokered there don't long outlast the
cigars. Or the sparkling water bottles now that smoking
has become illegal down in the 26 Counties.
* * *
It
would be easy enough to dismiss this call for a new
way of thinking as starry-eyed idealism, but an important
piece of the foundation has already been laid. Few
believe anymore that the technological revolution
will bring peace, love and understanding. However,
we must accept that it has already yielded a freer,
more open society, one in which more people have access
to more information, possessed of the tools necessary
to both contribute to the community and succeed within
it. The Net most certainly will not change the world
-- the millennium and the millennial global village
market seems a long way behind us now -- but technology
and globalisation will make broad, relational thinking
increasingly easy to understand, even necessary.
The
need for a more imaginative mindset is pressing, even
urgent. There is no life at the poles, or at least
not much of it. The action is south of the Arctic
and north of the Southern Ocean. We live there; we
must think there as well. Just as the beauty of black
& white photography lies less in pure blacks and
perfect whites than in the 11-tone gray scale, we
must learn to think across a continuum.
The power of an Adams (not Gerry – Ansel) print
is less in the intrinsic majesty of a building that
is photographed thousands of times each day, than
in the mastery of the zone system, a rigorously calibrated
method of controlling exposure, development and printing
to maximize range and density. The zone system is
famously difficult. Adams used it to locate as many
as 25 grey tones, but most photographers have happily
abandoned the zone system in favour of the tinkering
pleasures of Adobe Photoshop – a binary image
editing software. Cheaper and more functional –
is it not?
As
global citizens, however, we don't have that luxury.
We must think broadly on an open plane. That will
require courage and, like Beckham, a sense of where
we are. We don't unfortunately think that way, neither
does he for that matter! But we should.
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