America’s deep division just keeps deepening. A new Times/Siena poll shows a stark increase in the number of people who believe our country is too polarized to solve its problems. We may not have needed a poll for this. Look around: Binary thinking (often informing binary rage) is everywhere in our country.
When Charlie Kirk was killed last month, some acquaintances of mine, people I respect and admire, went directly to work mounting a case against Mr. Kirk by finding examples of his racism, sexism, what have you. The CNN political commentator Van Jones put the situation in graphic terms: “I was very frustrated with people in my party throwing rocks at the corpse before he could even be buried.” Mr. Kirk was on the other team, and in binary-thinking America, that meant he was a foe.
At a memorial service for Mr. Kirk, President Trump cut loose. Mr. Kirk “did not hate his opponents,” Mr. Trump said. “He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.” Mr. Trump said this in his best hungry ogre voice. Mr. Trump sees nearly everything in binaries: If you’re not a friend, you’re a foe. If you’re a foe, you’ll never be a friend. Up is up and down is down.
A sociobiologist might say that this kind of binary behavior is an evolutionary adaptation. It inheres in the reptile brain. There was a time when it was incumbent on us to decide and decide quickly who was friend and who was foe. Will it eat me? Am I safe around it? Err, if you must, on the side of enmity. You don’t want to equivocate about a saber-toothed tiger. Maybe this is true, but I’m not so sure.
David Lenson, my wonderful teacher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, once gently called my classmates and me out on our predilection for binary thinking. “So,” he said, “do you think that chocolate is the opposite of vanilla? Do you think that dogs are the opposite of cats?” Are wrestling and boxing truly opposites? Sweet and sour? David thought that this hunger for binaries was a cultural matter, and overall, I do too.
Our culture is amok with binaries. We have two major parties, just two, and they are forever opposed. When a group tries to start a third party, it can be summarily disabled by the existing powers. We love sports, generally the most binary of activities. One side wins; one side loses. Root hard for your squad and the devil take the opposition. We savor debates where one side wins and one side loses.
In the larger world, we find allies and we find enemies. We are, as I say, Democrats or Republicans, realists or idealists, people of much faith or people of none. We wear our team jerseys with pride and scoff at the opposition’s colors. We indulge in what Freud called “the narcissism of minor differences” to keep the binaries alive.
Binary thinking is not always destructive. It can clarify complex situations and help us get oriented and make decisions. But when all thought is binary, we are in trouble. It can result in crude and insensitive conclusions. And it can be an inducement to conflict.
We often argue now about the gender binary. There are those who insist that there must be two pure categories, men and women, no more. But it seems to me that most of us are somewhere in the middle, neither John Wayne nor Marilyn Monroe. Insisting on purity — you must be one thing or another — will inevitably create confusion and resentment.
Jacques Derrida, the philosopher (and antiphilosopher), recognized the problem with binaries. He was an enemy of simple, dualistic thinking. His deconstruction often attempted to show how one side of a binary pair was actually informed by many of its supposed opposite’s values and assumptions. Mr. Derrida worried that compulsive binary thinking, in which one seeks opposition everywhere, could readily lead to violence. I agree with him.
If Mr. Derrida’s writing gives you a mild headache, you can try a quote from the fictional character Ted Lasso: “Be curious, not judgmental.” Mr. Derrida’s curiosity led him to affirm the free play of the interpreting mind. He called for a form of thinking that was not based on the tension of opposites but resembled an ever-expanding web of rich associations.
Freud, one of the most Western of thinkers, thought that there was a natural hostility between people. He believed that most of the people he passed on the street did not wish him well. A person influenced by the great Eastern texts, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, would be likely to see it differently. The best state of mind is one in which you can look out on all creation, other people in particular, and say to yourself: That, too, I am.
We are all part of one being; we all possess the same soul. This way of seeing does not cultivate opposition or conflict. It accepts what comes its way without picking sides and initiating strife. Jeffrey Hopkins, a scholar of Buddhism and a translator of the Dalai Lama, suggested that we approach people with a simple truth in the forefront of our minds. Not: Who is this stranger? Not, as Bertrand Russell said he spoke to himself when he met a rival philosopher: Can I take him or can he take me? No, Mr. Hopkins’s Buddhist approach was to whisper: This person is suffering. He wishes to be happy.
I’m not saying we need to give up binary thinking. It’s helped us in the West to achieve a great deal. In a trial, the two sides contend in a contest that often yields justice. The scientist brings his findings to his community and invites accord or rebuttal. But binary thinking shouldn’t be the only way we think. Mr. Derrida and the Buddhist sages can teach us that there are times when we should loosen up, take a breath, stop judging. We might even go as far as to look at our supposed foes, whether they be Mr. Kirk or Mr. Trump, and say to ourselves: That, too, I am.
Mark Edmundson is a professor at the University of Virginia.
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