The Dangers of Duality in Western Civilization

The abundance of information that most of us get bombarded with on a daily basis has begun to impact the type of information that we notice and actually interact with. Because there is so much information in the form of advertising, news, and social media feeds, there has begun a trend towards extremes. This is particularly present in the traditional media outlets such as news agencies. We absorb so much information that the media has come to the conclusion that we will only read something that is completely outrageous.

If we see a news article that claims somebody got shot in West Lawndale in Chicago, most people who do not know the victim personally simply glance over this information. However, if a report comes out stating that 20 children got gunned down in a school, people read it. Of course, now even mass shootings seem to be taken for granted as just another aspect of American society.

This type of extremism comes out subtly in the mindsets of many Americans in the black and white nature of American culture that has recently taken over. Western civilization in general thinks almost entirely in dualities. For example, there is bad vs. good, right vs. wrong, guilty vs. innocent, insider vs. outsider, the list goes on. However, this type of thinking eliminates the visibility of everything in between the two extremes, which can have a significant impact on the functioning of systems in our society.

Take the guilty vs. innocent idea and ponder this: Why must somebody be either found completely guilty or completely innocent in our social “justice” system? If anybody has ever worked with children or adolescents, or has kids of their own, you know that when two kids are arguing or fighting, it is almost always the case that they were both involved in the cause of the quarrel. One kid may have said something hurtful and so the other kid smacked him. But who is right or wrong here? In fact, they may be both right and both wrong at the same time. The first kid could have been wrong to say something hurtful but who is to say that he learned how to be respectful of others when he was younger? And the second kid may have been wrong to hit the first kid, but for all we know he could have been taking shit from the first kid all year and had to put a stop to the constant heckling. In short, we are at a dilemma.

These same issues occur in the justice system today. In many cases, there is not always a clear guilty action or a clear innocent action. But the mentality is that there must be one or the other. Furthermore, the approach to one being found guilty is that he or she must be punished. But what does that do?

Take our example of two kids fighting. Let’s say the kid who hit the other was found to be in the wrong, so he was forced to sit alone in a time-out at school for the next three to five years. Would that kid come out and be a productive, happy, and successful member of society? Would that kid have really learned why he should not hit anybody? No. Instead, I would argue that he would enter the real world again very, very angry — Angry at the kid who got him in trouble in the first place, angry at the adults who stuck him in a time-out for three years, angry at the whole world. This will cause more damage to only the kid, but to society. The social cost of a punitive, dual system is significant, to put it lightly.

Overall, the duality of Western civilization and the pull of focus towards extremes has already done damage to countless individuals and our society as a whole. This must be stopped. We must remember that the natural world does not function in a dual nature. Everything is a part of a spectrum and we must take care not to remain focused solely on the ends of the spectrum.

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