binary illusions

One problem that I've noticed around the world, in so many arguments, is the tendency for ideas to be readily classified into binary oppositions. Now, in philosophy and the academic circle it is not so obvious since most works are subject to steady critiques. But in the public sphere and much of the common-thinking world, there are many examples of such binaries, that is, the tendency for things to be categorized as either this or that.

There seem to be no middle ground for many of these examples. People are predominantly either Republican or Democrat, Opposition or PAP (Singapore's ruling party), Sexist or Feminist, Pro-nature or Pro-nurture, Pro-life or Pro-choice. The list goes on.

Now, this is not a problem in itself. Such categorizations provide useful summaries of what proponents/opponents in a strand of debate argue about. It provides a generalization.

But the problem arises when the common populace, often unwilling/unable to understand the details of arguments, begin to start generalizing from generalizations. You can see where that might lead.

As a result, we have people who support a cause without knowing what it actually entails. We have parents supporting the ban of violent games because they are well, violent. All these without actually knowing anything at all about the game. A argument position (i.e. Liberalism) is a mere placeholder for a whole bunch of concepts. What we need is the Tractatus notion of concept -clarification. We must understand the basic propositions that make up the position by breaking it down and thinking it through, instead of taking the argued position for granted as a basic proposition by refusing to analyze it thoroughly.

Once we decide not to break down the argued position and instead begin to cherry-pick only the idea which we can grasp easily, we make it a less-than-holistic proposition. We dumb down the position. Republicans are suddenly all Christ-obsessed Conservatives. In Singapore, all Chinese are suddenly all rude and loud. All foreigners are smart and rich. The over-generalizations goes on.

Therein we have a conundrum: people who misconstrue what the position in an argument actually entail, and as such, pointless and stupid confusion ensues. We have people who do not understand the argument thinking that they do. This may not sound bad until you realize many of these folks are the same folks making decisions for us!

We must dispel these binary illusions. There are never only two sides to an argument. Before jumping to any debate. READ UP. Don't give yourself the chance to fall into these binary categories and delude yourself. Also, what many don't understand is that there can be space for synthesis, if only people took the time to come together and clarify their concepts, rationally pit them against each other, instead of ad hominem insults and tricks like poisoning the well.

There can be so much possibility in advancing knowledge if everyone practiced intellectual humility instead of making dogmatic claims. Knowledge can only progress when we think together because one man is only so much.

 I propose dialectics and conceptual analysis as my tools of choice, but I am always open to suggestions. Only then can we progress, no?