 Gautama Siddhartha- the historical Buddha- famously refused to allow his disciples to write down his words in his lifetime (of course, they began writing down everything they could remember he said the moment he died, hence the Dhammapada, and the Pali Cannon, but nonetheless). He said, "When I point at the moon, do not mistake my finger for the moon." Because, he argued, words are tricky; they entrap and ensnare us. Although we think words reveal the truth, in fact they keep the truth hidden, because we think the word is the same as the thing it represents (its referent); we trick ourselves into believing truth is black and white, when in fact truth is often gray, complex, entangled, convoluted, even contradictory. But what does this have to do with binary thinking? And how does this have anything at all to do with mankind, politics, or civilization? Binary thinking, in its simplest form, is the tendency of human beings to think in terms of "either / or." In fact, the brain is hardwired for dichotomy: this & that; good & bad; right & wrong; mastery & slavery; liberty & tyranny; love & hate; light & dark; helpful & harmful; spiritual & physical; and on and on and on... Even the nature vs nurture argument is a bad argument, as anyone with even an elementary understanding of biology and psychology should know- and yet we continue to fall into the same old trap: "Either it's this or it's that, but it can't be both." And yet, in reality, almost nothing falls perfectly into this binary system of categorization- not even reality itself. For example: Men are men because of testosterone, and women are women because of estrogen, but it would be just as false to say that men do not have estrogen or that women do not have testosterone as it would be to say there was no difference at all. The reality is more complex: Men have higher quantities of testosterone and lower quantities of estrogen than women; conversely, women have higher quantities of estrogen and lower quantities of testosterone than men- but both sexes possess both hormones in different measures. Subtlety is important; reality is very rarely binary. Oversimplification kills nuance, which degrades communication and makes us all stupid. This is no more obvious than in politics. Ultimately, politics- in the local, non-military, intra-national sense- is the art of problem-solving at the societal level. And although religion may make us human, it is politics that saves us from savagery. Politics is the end of barbarism; it is the beginning of civilization. Literally, the word politics comes from the Greek polis (πόλις), meaning "city"- that is, civilization as opposed to savagery and barbarism. Law, markets, democracy- all of these only exist because of politics. Carl von Clausewitz once argued that war is the continuation of politics by other means. True enough. However, in order to be effective, non-military, intra-national politics cannot be thought of as a grand, ideological war between opposing factions. Because this is binary thinking, and leads to war, conflict, and rebellion: "Either he is for us or he is against us!" But in reality, all the members of the political body- that is, all the citizens of a particular nation- must be united, by culture and by language, in order to solve complex societal problems. Civilization, essentially, is mankind's conquest of natural savagery. It is politics that brings peace to human beings through mutual benefit; it is politics that prevents us from returning to tribalism, to small groups of blood-related families slaughtering each other for limited resources. But when we think in binary terms- that is, when we think that a person is something simply because he belongs to [insert whatever ridiculous category here]-, we oversimplify the human being; we make the human being into a caricature of humanity. Now he is not a complex person, with a complex set of ideas and experiences unique to him; instead, he is a mere representation of a category, a caricature of a caricature of a caricature... Modern politics is littered with simplistically binary thinking, resulting in opposing axioms that often contradict one another, perhaps depending on one's political affiliation: "Men are natural leaders;" "Men are violent and dangerous;" "Black men are stronger and more athletic;" "Black men are drug dealers and gang bangers;" "Women are victims;" "Women are better and more moral than men;" "Democrats are socialists;" "Republicans are racists and xenophobes;" "Liberals are weak;" "Conservatives are stupid;" The list goes on and on and on... None- precisely zero- of these attitudes are true in the general sense (that is, true as a complete statement). They are all caricatures of reality; they all reduce the human being to a vastly over-simplified category. This results in a distortion of behavior- especially on social media, which is the ultimate in dehumanization (the reduction of the human being to a simulation of humanity, literally represented via binary code). We see this everywhere on the internet; we divide up into our camps- on Twitter, on Facebook-, and hold one another in contempt, even though we pass one another on the street day after day with perfect civility. Binary thinking is not only dehumanizing; it wreaks havoc on civilization itself. Instead of solving problems, we waste our time fighting one another, and working towards the destruction of our political adversaries- never once reflecting on the fact that we cannot destroy half our nation without destroying the nation itself. Politics is no longer about problem-solving; it is about racking up points in order to win some stupid, childish game- a game without prize, trophy, or conclusion. This is destroying us. Ninety-percent of the population of any given culture are in agreement ninety-percent of the time, excluding nations that actually do exist in a state of civil war. That is what it means to share a culture, after all. And yet binary thinking has convinced us that we are not in agreement, that we stand entirely opposed to one another; to make matters worse, actual extremists to either side of whatever political aisle perpetuate the problem by representing through their extremism all the worst elements of their more moderate compatriots. The result: Citizens that hold one another in contempt for attitudes only held by five percent of the population of either side. This is not tenable. As technology expands in scope and strength, and as civilization grows more complex, we will be called upon to solve increasingly difficult problems. For instance, we will be called upon to solve problems pertaining to our environment. This is clearly a polarizing subject- and yet environmentalists on the political left and conservationists on the political right hate one another in spite the fact that they agree essentially on the critical point: We must protect the natural world. Nobody wants the air to be toxic, or for us to ruin the oceans with plastics- but we never address these common concerns because we are too busy arguing about a single, contentious issue: climate change. Why? Because we have fallen victim to binary thinking; because we have already determined that the solution is either / or. Dehumanization follows, and the descent of the polis into war, violence, and savagery. This cannot be allowed. We must stop viewing one another as caricatures of human beings. Each of us is complex, with complex ideas and experiences. There is no reason why we must agree on everything in order to respect one another; we can disagree while still respecting one another as citizens, and more importantly, as human beings. Nothing is more difficult, and yet nothing is more necessary. ~ Joshua van Asakinda
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 Many of our modern social problems arise from the fact that there is a fundamental disconnect between the world as it is and the world as man was designed to live in it. This disconnect is nothing new; it is something of a continual obstacle for mankind to overcome. However, the degree to which this disconnect proves problematic has been growing steadily over time, and in recent generations, its rate of change has been rapidly accelerating (for reasons we will soon discuss). Now, whether we like it or not, our relationship with the world is almost entirely dysfunctional. To some extent, it is an old story. For thousands of years ago, mankind experienced its first great environmental revolution- civilization, which relocated man from the tribe to the urban center; later, it experienced its second great environmental revolution- modernization, which resulted in a shockingly rapid creation and distribution of wealth and prosperity; finally, it is now experiencing its third great environmental revolution- digitization, which has resulted in large portions of human activity being relocated into the digital realm. Each of these revolutions resulted in a social environment that was radically different from what came before, and progressively more different than that of the last revolution. The next revolution will be the stars; the last revolution will be immortality, perhaps... These revolutions created very different problems: the first, the problem of organizing individuals in order to provide and effectively distribute food, water, energy, and security; the second, the problem of managing the relationship between wealth, power, politics, and democracy; the third and final, the problem of maintaining a sense of organic connection with other human beings in a world that is becoming increasingly cold, distant, fragmented, and inorganic. And this organic connection that we are losing day by day is absolutely critical to human psychology. Without it, we lose our sense of being connected to other individuals, and with them, all sense of tribal context, which is- at least to some not-insignificant degree- the only context we are programmed to understand. Presently, we are suffering the consequences of this most recent revolution, whether we know it or not. An exhaustive list of examples would be nearly endless, but this disconnection has resulted in long-term damage not only at the cultural level, but also at the personal level and at the professional level. We lack fulfillment; we share fewer ideals with our fellow citizens; we have less of an idea where we fit in our cultural framework; we create false lives online rather than living in reality; we develop digital relationships at the expense of personal relationships; we find our work un-meaningful; we find our families lacking in organic connection; we lack leadership; we find ourselves lost, lonely, frustrated, and fragmented. And all of these problems are interconnected. After all, we were designed to live in tribes rather than civilization, and tribal life was clearer, and less multi-faceted. Our shared ancestral environment had fewer options, true; however, as a result, we had a much stronger sense of where we fit in the world. And this sense of belonging somewhere- in a particular time, among a particular people and for a particular purpose- is critical to cultivating a sense of psychological wellbeing. When we lack it, the very fabric of society itself begins to fray. The consequences of this fraying are profound: It results in crime, violence, mass incarceration, sex addiction, drug addiction, single mothers and fatherless children, not to mention a wide range of psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression, and suicide. Something must be done. The solution to the problem, however, cannot lie in moving forward without regards to the past, or to the deeply-embedded psychological patterns that form the very foundation of human behavior. We must take these patterns into account; we must turn them to our collective advantage. What we really long for is a revival of tribal dynamics in the modern world, so that we can maintain that critical sense of belonging that seems to be lacking today. And this is not an impossible dream. Difficult, yes- but not impossible. ~ Joshua van Asakinda Modernism notwithstanding, humanity is a deeply tribal species, and we misunderstand it if we understand it in any terms but tribal terms. This misunderstanding skews and distorts our worldview; it results in downstream consequences that are counter-productive to our capacity for navigating effectively the various trials and tribulations of daily life. Therefore, if we are to ensure a desirable future for our children and grandchildren, we must correct our worldview. And in this, we must be brutally honest with ourselves. The human species spent thousands of years in small, tightly-knit groups of individuals who shared virtually all aspects of culture: art, language, religion, and philosophy. These groups rarely numbered greater than 200-300 persons. Relationships were close; each member of the tribe was fully dependent upon every other member of the tribe. The tribe was more than family; it was survival and mutual sacrifice. These circumstances resulted in deeply-embedded psychological patterns that still determine our behavior today. And although we all may wish to believe that we are fully free in our decisions, most of our behaviors are unconscious- and those unconscious behaviors are driven by tribal experience, written into our DNA by evolutionary pressures spanning many millennia. Society too has been affected by these patterns of behavior, and we can see them in every aspect of social life: We see these patterns in nations; we see these patterns in families and in friendships; we see these patterns in sports and in big business and in military organizations. Wherever we look, we see tribalism- but we do not wish to see it, and so we pretend to be blind to its consequences. But there is another way. For tribalism cannot be destroyed; nor can it be suppressed without making us all sicker, dumber, and weaker (for tribalism does have its purposes). And so instead of rebelling against these tribal patterns of behavior, we could each choose to embrace them in order to turn them to our collective advantage. How could this be accomplished?
Our shared psychological tribalism ought to inform the entirety of our understanding of the world, not to mention how we ought to act in order to navigate it effectively. It ought to affect our ideas about everything: self, family, friendship, religion, politics, socio-economics, etc. And it ought to affect how we plan to accomplish not only our personal goals but also our professional goals. For when we blind ourselves to human nature, we render ourselves less efficient in overcoming the many obstacles that will inevitably present themselves throughout the course of life. Socrates famously commanded- in keeping with one of seven maxims etched across the door of the Oracle at Delphi- to "know thyself" (γνῶθι σεαυτόν). And this applies to tribalism as well. For we cannot know ourselves if we refuse to admit the central operating principle of human psychology. This kind of myopia is catastrophic; it virtually precludes us from leading successful lives. Fortunately, we can always choose the path of wisdom. ~ Joshua van Asakinda |
AuthorJoshua van Asakinda is a master-level psychological consultant, and the creator of ZenTactics, Heroic Theory, & Zenshida'i Silat-Serak. Archives
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