A or Not A

What is it about the American psyche that causes us to see just black and white and no gray in between?  Here’s what I mean:  The right sees the left as all a bunch of freeloaders who want something for nothing from bigger government.  The left sees the right as all a bunch of greedy, heartless bullies .  Now I must say, I think these stereotypes do have a ring of authenticity to them.  But they are not the whole story.

The glitch in our thinking seems to be our inability to see what lies in the middle.  We can thank Aristotle for our binary logic.  In this way of seeing the world, you can be A or not A but you can’t be both.  So if you are progressive you must be totally against anything conservative.  If you are conservative you must be totally against anything progressive.  You must be either / or.  You can’t be both.

The recent NY congressman’s sex scandal is a good example.  If he is dumb enough to do what he did, then he must be totally dumb.  He just can’t be smart and dumb.  Just for the record, I am not judging his morals.  But speaking of morals, it’s another good example.  When someone does something immoral, is he completely immoral?  How can someone be moral and immoral at the same time?  I know.  Christians are already forgiven.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about a person who is judged to be lacking in something, can easily be judged as lacking in everything.

For example:  There’s a big fuss going on now about Sarah Palin’s emails while she was governor of Alaska.  What on earth is the fuss about, if not to find something that can prove her unworthiness to hold public office?  In other words, if her political enemies can find one or two indiscretions, they can totally invalidate her.  Remember, in our logic, she can be good or bad but not both.  And please, I’m not defending Ms. Palin.  I just think this issue is a good example of my point.  This logic also applies to all the political campaign smear ads that intermittently contaminate our airwaves.

Of course it works the other way too.  If we’re judged to be good in some way, then we must not be bad.  I saw segments of the Republican presidential debates the other day.  Almost to a person, they claimed their “goodness” by announcing how many children they parented.  If someone is good enough to be a parent then they can’t be bad – right?

You might be questioning my logic at this point.  Well, let me answer the question.  The world is a complex place.  We are complex creatures.  The question of right and wrong  is complex.  When you add all those complexities together, they grow exponentially.  Binary logic is simplistic.  It doesn’t work in this kind of hyper-complexity.  It fools us into thinking we’ve figured it out.  It can give us assurance because we can feel like we understand what’s going on.  While it gives us assurance, it doesn’t give us certainty. 

Remember, logic is a systematic method of explaining the people and events in our world.  But it can also be a systematic method that gives you confidence while coming to, what might be, wrong conclusions.  It’s a closed system that limits its own questions.

The next time you are making wholesale judgments about someone based on a position he took, or an act she committed, or a mistake they made, remember you may be using logic that gives you confidence in your conclusions.  But I guarantee that they are not a complete explanation and “certainly not certain”.  No, that’s not a typing error or glitch in my logic.  I can say with certainty, that the only certainty in our universe is uncertainty. 

Robert DeFilippis