Binary thinking

[m_cobweb]

We live in a binary culture. We are taught as children to think in terms of on/off, either/or, good/bad, black/white. Life, of course, is not binary. Thinking of it in those terms is unnecessarily reductionist and leads to missing out on important nuances and shades of meaning.

It didn't take all that many years for me to recognize my tendency toward binary thinking and work to expand my thinking. But it's harder for me to expect that other people have realized this too. I don't suppose I give them enough credit a lot of times.

Comments

[creatrix777.livejournal.com]

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... it is easy to feel out of step when you reach that stage of thinking.
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so true!

'thinking different' isn't normally encouraged, that's for sure (except by Apple, of course, who has targeted the intellectual l33t among us, for the purpose of selling us computers). lol.

[vulture23.livejournal.com]

Even there, though, the message is "Apple good, any other computer bad", instead of the more realistic idea that different machines have different strengths and weaknesses, and you should choose one whose strengths match your desired usage. In this case, "think differently" means only "Think like *we* tell you, not like *they* tell you" ...

The media and mass-culture definitely discourages non-binary thinking, though. Think about how many people (gay and straight) assume that there's something wrong with being bisexual -- you're expected to be *either* gay *or* straight, but being in-between is not allowed, and those who *are* in-between are assumed to be on the verge of becoming one or the other. This even applies to our political system -- you're allowed to be Democratic or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, but any position that can't fall into one of these simple categories is frowned upon and marginalized. Think of the number of jokes about "There's two kinds of people in the world..." The examples go on and on. And many binary thinkers *do* become very hostile towards those who refuse to fit into their categories, especially those who keep pointing out flaws in the categorization.