Duality

Duality, the existence of two and only two, is a contrast that has jaded and glared our eyes from the truth. It has sometimes scarred us beyond recognition. Duality is present in every facet of society. We see duality in conflict. In our political world, it is Democrats vs. Republicans, Liberals vs. Conservatives. In our social world, it is the New vs. the Old, Nature vs. Technology, Traditional vs. “New Age” or radical. In our social world, it is white vs. black, or white vs. any color. In everyday life, it male vs. female. In our global world, it is Democracy vs. Communism and Democracy vs. Terrorism, or Freedom vs. Tyranny. In our philosophical world, it is Religion vs. Technology and Monotheism vs. the occult. Eventually, it becomes Idealist vs. Realist and the Individual vs. the Whole. Many individuals do not necessarily agree with many of these conflicts, and yet society as a whole still perpetuates these sometimes pointless conflicts. Social psychologists would call this “Group Polarization”, the tendency for a group to take more extreme stances than those of the individual members. Gnostics would call this proof of the Demi-urge, and conspiracy theorists would blame this on an evil within government and/or the heads of society. Whatever you call it, our state of duality is our undoing. It is troubling predicament that is hindering our progress.

Some would argue that duality is necessary for us to understand our world. I agree, duality is necessary to gain an understanding of our world; however, dualistic understanding is only useful for children. For children, the truth is in black and white, right or wrong. For Freud, this was the Id, one’s basic biological urges (the unconscious) and the Superego, the values and ideals of society (lies in the conscious). The Ego was necessary to balance these two. The social connotations are evident, the Id is evil and the Superego is good, the Id is the primitive dark and the Superego is the quintessential light. It is these basic assumptions that blind our vision. What is primitive is not necessarily evil because “the values and the ideals of society” is not the quintessential light. The laws of society, every facet of it, including both government and religion, are not necessarily just. Democracy isn’t justice, just like Communism isn’t Tyranny. Humanity is stuck in Kohlberg’s second stage of moral development, conventional morality: morality that is based on trust, loyalty or understanding of social order. It is this trust that divides; we trust in what society says, and not in what our soul says. Interestingly, like the dualistic nature of the number 2, this stage of morality is the 2nd stage. The 3rd stage, post-conventional morality, is based on the understanding that laws are situational and can be changed. It is an understanding that not everything is black or white, not even just shades of grey; it is understanding that black and white are the extreme opposites on the outside and the inside, one absent of color and the other containing all color, and that the true nature of color lies in between them.


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