I am frequently disappointed to see people clinging rigidly to binary positions, imagining that opposing one particular nasty militarist empire, corrupt political party or manipulative dogma automatically involves throwing one’s lot in with the rival that has been presented as its polar opposite.
Analogous to an imposed/conditioned cognitive Overton window "the Spectacle that has been constructed to deceive, divide and disempower us" = the spectrum of acceptable thought.
The denial of "essentialism" is gaslighting of the highest order.
Thanks for this essay, Paul. It is always wise to guard against oversimplification, and this is the danger of the binary in its essence. You include the yin-yang symbol without commentary. Do you mean this to represent monochromatic thought, simplistic binary...? This strikes me as unfair. The essence of the symbol is that what the binary reveals it also conceals, as there is masculine within the feminine and vice versa (the inverted dot within each half). I find this a far deeper symbol that the prevailing dogmatic metaphysics of 'information', which is another way of diagnosing the problem you expose here.
I personally have found the question of the real to be far more fraught than your final lines attest, and this in part because the truth always exceeds us, and so whenever we try to attribute the real, the true, it will always be incomplete. This makes it all too easy to shut down arguments when what you justly name "contemporary pseudo-philosophy" is deployed. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, has been systematically excised from what was once the university and thus ultimately from everywhere -beginning with the denial of metaphysics, from which we never recovered. There is a history here (actually, many histories) but it always feels to me that you aren't that interested in this aspect, and so I don't want to go there against your tide, nor am I convinced of any necessity to do so.
It sometimes feels to me that the strength of your philosophy is precisely its divorce from the historical coupled with your attention to the metaphysical. Perhaps that's why you can trace a path out of the oubliette even though I feel, as I usually do, there are other paths, including a path traced by the historical, and that we may yet need other paths, many paths... My curse appears to be to find too many paths, which perhaps makes me a better map-maker than a guide. For alas, nobody can use a map if they don't know where they are going nor even where they are. And here, your approach might still hope to escape what has imprisoned us all by simply electing to 'follow a star'.
Thanks for those thoughts, Chris. The yin-yang symbol is included to illustrate the fact that the polar difference between black and white, although apparently binary, is in fact a necessary tool in establishing the context for our understanding of holistic reality - which, in the case of the symbol, includes the understanding that the seed of one aspect is always included within its polar opposite. On your other point, I certainly do feel that the reduction of philosophy to the study and categorisation of philosophers and their theories - and, along with that, the denial of metaphysics - has been an important element in the particular wrong path that contemporary human society has taken. Maybe, indeed, the history of this process deserves further attention.
Thanks for your reply, Paul, appreciated - and well put. Surprisingly, despite the putrefaction of academic philosophy owing to the same forces that have corrupted the university as a whole, the historical dimension of philosophy survives tolerably well in the discourse of the handful of exiles paying attention to it. Whether any of this survives much longer is something of a concern because the last generation of authentic book-readers may already have been born, and the search engine or large-language model is neither a trustworthy nor even a comparable replacement.
The battlefront you have opened up is quite likely the more urgent one although I fear there are not enough folk open to the paths you are tracing to bring change in this way without some new and quite unpredictable alliances on a scale no form of anarchism has yet achieved. Still, please keep going down your path (as if you could stop!) - I think it one of very few available with a shot at going through, even if I shudder when my mind falls upon the difficulties ahead instead of grasping hold of that distant flash of hope for a future as yet unimagined.
In a binary system, we often find there is little difference between the two. Everybody is seeking some power using these apparently opposing systems. In any event, it reduces to indoctrination, mind control and slavery. Yin and yang never consider yong or yung. Opposing forces are often similar but just wear different clothes.
"The first thing to bear in mind is that there is always a third element implied by the existence of any two things or concepts, namely the relationship between them."
Usually the relationship between the two dots are purposefully arranged to polarize populations. The third element which frequently surfaces is always more nuanced and seems rational, hence it typically gains traction.
Sadly however, it often becomes co-opted triggering another set of dots that if intially had appeared you'd reject and find revolting.
Yessiree, a 2-D mental cage.
Analogous to an imposed/conditioned cognitive Overton window "the Spectacle that has been constructed to deceive, divide and disempower us" = the spectrum of acceptable thought.
The denial of "essentialism" is gaslighting of the highest order.
Thanks for this essay, Paul. It is always wise to guard against oversimplification, and this is the danger of the binary in its essence. You include the yin-yang symbol without commentary. Do you mean this to represent monochromatic thought, simplistic binary...? This strikes me as unfair. The essence of the symbol is that what the binary reveals it also conceals, as there is masculine within the feminine and vice versa (the inverted dot within each half). I find this a far deeper symbol that the prevailing dogmatic metaphysics of 'information', which is another way of diagnosing the problem you expose here.
I personally have found the question of the real to be far more fraught than your final lines attest, and this in part because the truth always exceeds us, and so whenever we try to attribute the real, the true, it will always be incomplete. This makes it all too easy to shut down arguments when what you justly name "contemporary pseudo-philosophy" is deployed. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, has been systematically excised from what was once the university and thus ultimately from everywhere -beginning with the denial of metaphysics, from which we never recovered. There is a history here (actually, many histories) but it always feels to me that you aren't that interested in this aspect, and so I don't want to go there against your tide, nor am I convinced of any necessity to do so.
It sometimes feels to me that the strength of your philosophy is precisely its divorce from the historical coupled with your attention to the metaphysical. Perhaps that's why you can trace a path out of the oubliette even though I feel, as I usually do, there are other paths, including a path traced by the historical, and that we may yet need other paths, many paths... My curse appears to be to find too many paths, which perhaps makes me a better map-maker than a guide. For alas, nobody can use a map if they don't know where they are going nor even where they are. And here, your approach might still hope to escape what has imprisoned us all by simply electing to 'follow a star'.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Thanks for those thoughts, Chris. The yin-yang symbol is included to illustrate the fact that the polar difference between black and white, although apparently binary, is in fact a necessary tool in establishing the context for our understanding of holistic reality - which, in the case of the symbol, includes the understanding that the seed of one aspect is always included within its polar opposite. On your other point, I certainly do feel that the reduction of philosophy to the study and categorisation of philosophers and their theories - and, along with that, the denial of metaphysics - has been an important element in the particular wrong path that contemporary human society has taken. Maybe, indeed, the history of this process deserves further attention.
Thanks for your reply, Paul, appreciated - and well put. Surprisingly, despite the putrefaction of academic philosophy owing to the same forces that have corrupted the university as a whole, the historical dimension of philosophy survives tolerably well in the discourse of the handful of exiles paying attention to it. Whether any of this survives much longer is something of a concern because the last generation of authentic book-readers may already have been born, and the search engine or large-language model is neither a trustworthy nor even a comparable replacement.
The battlefront you have opened up is quite likely the more urgent one although I fear there are not enough folk open to the paths you are tracing to bring change in this way without some new and quite unpredictable alliances on a scale no form of anarchism has yet achieved. Still, please keep going down your path (as if you could stop!) - I think it one of very few available with a shot at going through, even if I shudder when my mind falls upon the difficulties ahead instead of grasping hold of that distant flash of hope for a future as yet unimagined.
Remain undaunted, and stay wonderful!
Thanks. "As if you could stop". Quite!
In a binary system, we often find there is little difference between the two. Everybody is seeking some power using these apparently opposing systems. In any event, it reduces to indoctrination, mind control and slavery. Yin and yang never consider yong or yung. Opposing forces are often similar but just wear different clothes.
"The first thing to bear in mind is that there is always a third element implied by the existence of any two things or concepts, namely the relationship between them."
Usually the relationship between the two dots are purposefully arranged to polarize populations. The third element which frequently surfaces is always more nuanced and seems rational, hence it typically gains traction.
Sadly however, it often becomes co-opted triggering another set of dots that if intially had appeared you'd reject and find revolting.
3 is the built in wobble, the movement, the change.