The previous version of this entry was almost unintelligible, because it was too ambitious: I was trying to explain something that I hadn't really thought through properly. So here is a second attempt. It is still about opposities, and about chosing between them, but I will leave the process of polarisation for another entry, because I realised that you cannot really understand that until you understand the nature of opposites.
But first, some examples of what I mean by opposites. Opposites include things like competition and cooperation (important in biology and economics), change and stability, action and inaction, freedom and restriction, individual and group (social life, politics), tension and relaxation (sport, music), forest and trees (knowledge). Opinions on these issues and prefernces for one or the other have varied through time and across cultures. In modern western society, most of us probably prefer relaxation above tension, and freedom above restriction, but this is only because we already have more than enough tension/restriction in our lives.
But my point is not to establish what the best choices are, but to have a look at choice-making itself. And to do that, I have to look a bit closer at the opposites themselves, because there are two very different types. The most obvious are either/or opposites: you are either pregnant or you are not, electrical appliances are either on or off, the bits of information in computers are either zeros or ones. These types of opposites are easy to deal with. And then there are the and/and opposites, by which I mean things that are opposite, but whose existence depends on the existence of their counterpart. The best examples of this is the glass which is both half full and half empty at the same time. A zero can exist without an accompanying one, but a glass that is half full is always also half empty and - as Arlo Guthrie put it - "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in".
And/and opposites are more difficult to get our heads around than either/ors, which is probably one reason we often try to project the simplicity of the either/ors onto the and/ands (probably because society is getting more complex with every day that passes, and we can't keep up), and act as if it were possible to choose one or the other, while we can't. We just have to accept the need for both sides at the same time.
And at the moment, economic theory and practice is placing so much emphasis on competition, that some people seem to forget all about cooperaton. Competition is fine for achieving short-term, individual goals (which are real and necessary) but it should not be allowed to get in the way of the long-term group goals that we can only achieve by cooperating. That would be like pretending you can have a forest without trees. And the same is true of body and mind, or nature and nuture, or style and substance: you need both, and it is not a good idea to insist on chosing one above the other.
But first, some examples of what I mean by opposites. Opposites include things like competition and cooperation (important in biology and economics), change and stability, action and inaction, freedom and restriction, individual and group (social life, politics), tension and relaxation (sport, music), forest and trees (knowledge). Opinions on these issues and prefernces for one or the other have varied through time and across cultures. In modern western society, most of us probably prefer relaxation above tension, and freedom above restriction, but this is only because we already have more than enough tension/restriction in our lives.
But my point is not to establish what the best choices are, but to have a look at choice-making itself. And to do that, I have to look a bit closer at the opposites themselves, because there are two very different types. The most obvious are either/or opposites: you are either pregnant or you are not, electrical appliances are either on or off, the bits of information in computers are either zeros or ones. These types of opposites are easy to deal with. And then there are the and/and opposites, by which I mean things that are opposite, but whose existence depends on the existence of their counterpart. The best examples of this is the glass which is both half full and half empty at the same time. A zero can exist without an accompanying one, but a glass that is half full is always also half empty and - as Arlo Guthrie put it - "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in".
And/and opposites are more difficult to get our heads around than either/ors, which is probably one reason we often try to project the simplicity of the either/ors onto the and/ands (probably because society is getting more complex with every day that passes, and we can't keep up), and act as if it were possible to choose one or the other, while we can't. We just have to accept the need for both sides at the same time.
And at the moment, economic theory and practice is placing so much emphasis on competition, that some people seem to forget all about cooperaton. Competition is fine for achieving short-term, individual goals (which are real and necessary) but it should not be allowed to get in the way of the long-term group goals that we can only achieve by cooperating. That would be like pretending you can have a forest without trees. And the same is true of body and mind, or nature and nuture, or style and substance: you need both, and it is not a good idea to insist on chosing one above the other.
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