I have written about this before. Even though I have written, because I it is engraved in me, I made the same mistakes over and over again. Binaryness is a concept that has emerged only recently. Binary thinking has always been there, but only now we are becoming aware of it- at least more universally. Computers use binary language. That is not what I am talking about. It is about dividing the world into black and white. We divide/separate our world into two columns: right and wrong; darkness and light; truth and falsehood; conservatives and progressives; patriots and traitors. It is basically an us-them binary.
If you ask why humans do this, the answer is that if we don’t function this way, we end up in more confusion. More confusion means more brain activity. More brain activity means more energy loss. We already use 20% of our energy to run our brain, which is only 2% of our body mass. We take the easy way out because we don’t want to burn more calories than that.
All religions have binary thinking. I don’t know whether all religions have non-binary thinking in them. But I am almost certain that the Bible has strong non-binary thinking. The Bible speaks many times that everything is created by God and that God is the Creator of all the people in the world! John saw someone who was not one of them casting out demons in the name of Jesus. He reports to Jesus that they stopped him because he was not one of them. Jesus’ response was that they don't have to stop him because one who is not of them need not be against them. Paul speaks about the origin of diversity in detail. He emphatically states that all diversity comes from God. In short, the Bible unequivocally states that the devil did not create anything on earth. I don't go into that in detail now.
What we have been talking about is binary thinking. The position that one is right or wrong is not right. Some parts of a person may be less right and some may be wrong. SHe may be 10% right, 20% right, 30% right, and 90% right in certain areas. And SHe may be wrong inversely.
We always think we are right. What we think is right is only our right. It does not mean that other people's right should be the same right. Other people's right does not have to be my right also. See how we polarize ourselves in the basis of ideologies, parties, positions, right and wrong! We must admit that there is not only black and white, but also a hundred different shades of gray in between. What we don't have when we divide the world into two columns is the Truth. Because there is a lot of truth that is lost in between. We will never arrive at the Truth. Not only at truth but also at Compassion.
Look at our media - look at our social media. There are many things being discussed there. There are many people being discussed there. There are also their rights and wrongs being discussed. Either you are with him or you are against him. In this way, we rally behind people, ideas, systems, parties, ideologies. There is no need to do that at all. Either he is with us - or against us is an expression of intolerance.
Today's youth tend to be against such binary thinking. But we think that they are apolitical or areligious. They are so because they respect the subtle grey areas that lie between black and white!
