We Get Stuck in Binary Thinking

It’s not black and white

You hear every day about how we have to defeat them. Depending upon your political stance, you likely know just who the bad guys are, and how we must fight them.

When we read about what a racist person does, or an anti-LGBTQ+ activist, or something about the latest riot over human rights in Iran, or Brazil, we are all fairly self-righteous about knowing who is on the correct side of history.

However, not one of us agrees 100% with every opinion of one another. Nor should we.

We are too binary. Even in this. Issues are complex, they are connected to so many factors including religion, socialization, gender, and race. And much more.

We are connected to one another by the amount of cooperation and support we give one another, and when that begins to fray, the social fabric begins to be torn apart.

Know the whole

Science long ago resolved that we, homo sapiens, have just one human race. Unfortunately, a former “science” eugenics, established white supremacy and it doesn’t seem to die even when facing the fact of our shared humanity.

Racism, like sexism, is systemic and lives on through social structures that we have to take apart bit by bit. This is very difficult to do when we blame other people rather than attending to the structure itself.

When we look into the natural world around us, we see all inter-connected matter, events, and energy occur on a spectrum, or in cycles. Seasons are not opposed to one another, they fade into one another. Our gender is often assigned at birth, but there is a wide spectrum and bi-modal distribution between male, and female, persons.

Even life and death are debated, as to what they are. Everything that lives eventually dies, but DNA, which propels all lives is shared by all living beings. When life begins can be argued to be “at conception,” and death can be said to happen when a subject is “brain-dead:” Both of these positions claim to make the issue black and white. But that there is debate about all of these things proves that there are no hard and solid binary, agreed-upon answers.

For a good example, think of someone who claims your birth gender is just “biology,” as if some human beings are not comprised of biology within us and external to us. More on the biosphere later, it is very crucial to understanding ourselves.

When we talk about culture wars and defeating the bad guys, it helps to know that except for those very few who genuinely oppress, enslave, and treat others as disposable, there are no black and white bad guys, or good guys.

There is a genuine wealth and class disparity which we should examine. And, there are issues, to be sure. Yet, we have to address the whole structure and the systems that connect them to address them.

Natural outcomes

Does the global north hurt the global south? Is that racist? What about women’s rights? You may ask what do any of these things have to do with biology and the biosphere?

It is important to realize our five spheres of being: hydrosphere, geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, and cryosphere (ice) go through natural cycles, but our heating of former biosphere bits in the form of fossil fuels has disrupted all five spheres of Earth, and thus, disrupts our human race in very uneven, unequal ways.

Despite what is drummed into us, our food and energy system is not for the benefit of the whole.

To put it more simply, for some to pollute and/or plunder others, and take more than their share of resources is highly unethical. When you look at the whole you see that this is the moral issue of our time.

We can fight about race, gender, religion, or ideology forever, or we can note that these five systems of the earth, like us, are intertwined, and completely structurally dependent upon one another.

When we see how these spheres and cycles use natural systems to create life on this only living planet we know of, we should be inspired. There is the constant exchange and interactions of, temperature, gases, land, sea, and life, to create the creation we have to protect.

If we look at the whole, we don’t waste our energy warring among ourselves.

To survive, and to thrive, is a natural outcome of sharing and caring. When we think in binary, or dualistic ideology we do not serve the greater whole. It is not too hard to see that when we cooperate we do much better.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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