https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=rk1pjiSw_Ro
So what I’m on about today is binary thinking. And binary thinking tends to be exclusive thinking. So it’s this whole dichotomy that’s set up around left, right, up, down. You know, it’s this pernicious way of understanding things. And it fools us, right? It’s dangerous. And it’s bad framing for most things. Most things are not these exclusive binaries, these dichotomies. And so I’d like to straighten that out and see if I can give you a little more framing, a little way to understand what’s going on there and why it’s wrong and how to get out of it fairly easily, I think, as painful as that may be. And maybe I’ll even try to trace the roots of where I think this is coming from. And hopefully we can do this together. When we’re talking about this binary thinking, it’s also exclusionary. So it’s exclusively binary. We do crazy things to get to this binary thinking. One of the things we do is, for example, we’ll say, especially in the United States, that there’s two sides. There’s left and there’s right. And honestly, this is really dumb. Like, where is anybody getting this? Look at the voter rolls in the United States. There are three ways to register to vote. Democrat, Republican, and Independent. Okay, but Mark, most people are Democrats or Republicans. No, they’re not. Most people are registered independents. That means of the three buckets, there are three ways to register to vote. And the three buckets, they don’t sort themselves in either of the two buckets most people are using to describe politics. That’s weird. What is going on? That’s kind of crazy. So these people who are voting don’t identify themselves with the left or the right. But you’re doing that to them. What’s up with that? A lot of these are false framing. So there’s this discussion the other day. There’s really only one group of people that uses the term anti-vaxxer. And interestingly, they don’t call themselves vaxxers, which is a little strange. They seem to be implying that there are two buckets, right? People who take vaccines and people who are against vaccines. And irrespective of what you think about vaccines or things that people are calling vaccines that may or may not be clearly not vaccines, the fact that there’s two groups and that one of them is anti-something, which is presumably good, although again, maybe there are arguments about goodness of vaccines in general or goodness of specific things being called vaccines. It doesn’t really matter. What is this framing? Why is it like that? Why is it anti-vaxxers? Right? That’s a weird way to think of things. If you think about it, it’s like what’s going on there? This is like a PsyOps move or something. And again, it’s always one set up. You know, one runs around with a t-shirt saying I’m an anti-vaxxer. Like that doesn’t they’re not self identifying that way. But why are people identifying them that way? That’s kind of interesting. They don’t seem to have anything much in common in terms of reasoning. So, you know, do we put all the people with blue shirts in the anti-white shirt group, even though they all wear shirts that are blue for different reasons? Or do we say all the people who aren’t wearing white shirts are anti-white shirt people, even though they wear different colored shirts? This doesn’t make any sense. It’s not that it’s an invalid category, but it doesn’t seem to be useful. And if you’re anti, if you’re making them anti, that’s kind of got a negative valence on it. So this is something to watch out for. So why do we do this? What’s with this binary thing? Like, well, it allows us identification. When we’re using anti, we’re identifying against something. And as my good friend Manuel likes to say, don’t identify against a thing. It’s mostly correct. Not 100% correct, but it’s damn close. Identifying against something is probably bad. So when you’re saying anti-vaxxer or when you’re saying leftists or people on the right or something, you’re identifying against them. That may be a perfectly valid category, but it may not be useful. It may not be descriptive enough. It may not be actionable. But why we do this is because we’re taught that that’s how you get certainty. Divide things into yes or no, then you can get certainty, yes or no. And I think where this comes from is the scientific method. So the actual scientific method, not the 12 or so non-scientific non-methods that people call part of science. I’m talking about the actual scientific method. In the scientific method, what you’re supposed to do, in respect to what everybody says, you can look this up. I don’t make these things up. I actually just read them. Not that smart, so I’ve got to rely on all this other information. In the scientific method, what you do is you come up with, well, you make an observation, and then you come up with an idea about how that might work. You form that idea into a hypothesis that is testable. What does testable mean? This is where the magic comes in. Testable means you can make a determination. True or false? Now, the interesting thing is there’s a deep asymmetry in this. If it’s false, boom, it’s done. Your hypothesis is over. It’s finished. You need a new hypothesis. But if it’s true, that doesn’t mean your hypothesis is correct. It’s really not a binary in science, because science is this constant refinement. You refine the hypothesis. You make new hypotheses. You refine it, refine it, and then it comes up against other hypotheses. The one that gets knocked down never wins the prize of theory. It goes from hypothesis to theory. But that still doesn’t make it right, because science doesn’t make truth claims, at least according to science. At least proper science doesn’t make truth claims. If your science makes a truth claim, it’s not a science. So it’s this testable that creates the illusion of a binary, but it’s not a binary. It just means you can move to the next stage. It’s a gate. Do I move to the next stage? If my hypothesis holds true after my test, I move to the next stage. If it’s false, it gets knocked out right away. But there’s a difference in kind there. It’s not a dichotomy at all. It’s not a dichotomy at all, because moving forward with your hypothesis doesn’t mean it’s true. But if you can’t move forward with your hypothesis because your test said false, you’re done. I’m not saying that you have to throw out all your work and start over. Like, that hypothesis is life ends there. If it doesn’t end there, it may still end. It’s not a dichotomy. But we think of science as providing a dichotomy. And I think we’ve gotten in the habit of treating science that way and treating everything that way. Well, science can tell us all this cool stuff about material reality. Sure, maybe. But it can’t tell us everything about material reality, and it can’t tell us the most important things about reality per se. And when you get locked in these binaries, these exclusive binaries where it’s either this or that, you’re really misrepresenting the world, because the world is not like that. It’s not that clear at all. It seems to me like there’s way more bad in the world than there is good. It’s not a dichotomy. There isn’t a one-to-one mapping that you can do. It may seem that way, but it’s not that way. And we see things like this all the time. And we tend to project this identification on things where it’s totally inappropriate, like anti-vax. There might be lots of reasons why you don’t like vaccines. So all the anti-vax people don’t agree on anything, even though their actions may have the same outcome. Skepticism has the same outcome in terms of anti-vax as paranoia. Skepticism and paranoia have the same outcome in the vaccine argument. They should both end up in anti-vaccine. So it doesn’t tell you much to use that map, because you’re really not understanding other people. You’re not understanding motivations. You’re not understanding behaviors. You’re just lumping all the behaviors together. And that’s descriptive to some extent, but it’s a very limited description. And this is what we have to keep in mind when binary thinking. So we like to create these binaries on purpose so that we can know the world with more certainty. But in fact, we don’t. It’s an illusion. This binary projection doesn’t make us know more certain. This dichotomy doesn’t help us to understand what’s going on around us. It just gives us the impression that we know more than we do. That’s why it’s dangerous. So what are some other examples of this? Well, I think other than left and right and anti-vax, a lot of people also say religious and non-religious. What? Religious and non-religious. Have you met religious people from different religious backgrounds? They seem to fight quite a lot, even if they’re in the same denomination like Christianity. Those people can’t get their act together at all. I’m not sure that all Christians believe the same thing, because I don’t know what they believe. They’re too busy arguing with each other about what they disagree about. So even to say religious and non-religious is sort of missing a lot of context, a lot of nuance. Some religious people believe almost everything that the quote non-religious people believe, with the exception that they go to church. How is that helpful designation? What are you saying? A lot of religious people vote the same way the atheists vote. The only difference is they go to church. They may believe in gay marriage and all the rest of it. They may even support abortion and everything and still be religious. But the only difference is they go to church. How is this a helpful frame? I don’t understand. Religious and non-religious doesn’t seem like a helpful frame at all. First of all, you have to define what you mean by non-religious, which is tricky enough. But I don’t know what it means. I don’t know why that mapping is useful. What are you going to do with that? It’s just this false dichotomy that doesn’t help you understand the other people. And if you want to get to know other people or have conversations with them, you can’t be putting them in broad buckets like that. That’s not going to help. So there’s lots of other sorts of ways we divide things out. So city folk and non-city folk. Semi-useful designation. But usually what you’re talking about is not city folk versus non-city folk. It’s about the stereotype that city folk don’t know much about how to do things in the world, which is generally true. It’s quite accurate. But it’s not useful, right? Because if you just treat every city folk like they don’t know what they’re doing, then you never give them the chance to find out if they actually know what they’re doing, because some city folk moved to the city from the country and are perfectly serviceable outside of a city. Some city folk stayed in the city their whole lives and never became useful outside of a city. That happens, for sure. And it is the normal case. But, you know, it’s not useful framing. What’s useful framing is to know somebody’s background enough to be able to observe them and know what kind of help they need. Because even the best country person, if they’re a bit of a klutz, needs the same amount of help as the city folk. So these are designations. We make these binary dichotomous designations all the time, these exclusive binary systems all the time. And we need to stop doing it, because it’s really hurting us, because they’re very broad buckets. And they kind of have to be. That’s the only way this stuff works. But with a broad bucket like that, you’re just missing all the nuance. You’re missing all the interesting things. You’re missing all the ways that you can cooperate, that you can participate, that you can be together in fellowship. And that’s really important. We need more being together in fellowship. We need more ways to find out how we can talk. I’ve seen a number of conversations, for example, set up on the Internet and on Clubhouse and various places, where they get two people together with the promise that they have opposing viewpoints. It turns out they don’t. They mostly agree on everything, except maybe some implementation details. That happens a lot. It turns out that Republicans don’t want people not to have health care. They just have a different way to deliver cheap health care. And you may not like that way. But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. And that doesn’t make them monsters. And, you know, we like to set up these dichotomies. It’s really satisfying to be certain. Absolutely certain. But they’re so unhelpful. They just close us in. And they make us angry and resentful. Because it puts us in that political frame automatically. And, you know, I mean, I’ve talked about the political frame before on a previous video with my models. If you haven’t seen my models, you should watch all my models. They’re great. My model videos are fantastic. They start with the political dichotomous frame, this binary exclusive frame, us versus them sort of a thing, and breaks it all down and shows why it’s not helpful. But we’re stuck in that frame when we’re in this binary thinking mode, when we’re in this dichotomy, when we’re asking for absolute certainty. We’re going to end up in a political frame every time. We’re going to flame everything as me versus everyone else. Because what choice do I have? What choice do I have? I’ve got my unique views because I’m a unique person. And almost nobody matches all of those views. Maybe nobody matches all of my views. That seems likely. Now I’m pitted against every other human. And I think there’s like seven or eight billion of them. I like a good argument, but I don’t think I can argue against seven or eight billion people on at least one thing. Because, like I said, I don’t think anyone has my views because I think I’m a unique person. That’s a big burden to put on yourself. That’s going to make you angry and resentful. So don’t think of these binaries. Try to think of something better. Try to find commonalities, for example. Because any binary with a broad stroke like that is probably good enough within that group. There’s enough variation that you can find something to cooperate with about them, to agree with, you know, between you, to connect over. Right. It turns out that humans, while we have our own unique qualities as individuals, have a lot in common. Most of us seem to eat and drink. And most of us seem to like good food. Even if we disagree on what good food is, you can have your good food. I can have my good food. We can do it together and both enjoy and appreciate the fact of good food, even if the food is different. I don’t like seafood. I love steak, though. So if you have seafood and I have steak, but we do it together and we talk about how yummy the food is, we don’t have to talk about how I think seafood is stinky and should be outlawed. And you think eating meat is gross, but lobster is delicious. Actually, lobster is delicious. We don’t have to have those disagreements, right? We can find things to agree on. Even even if you eat that disgusting seafood. It can happen. It’s worked before. I’ve done it personally. Me. I do it all the time. We can agree on the beauty of flowers, even if we don’t agree on which flowers are beautiful. Right. We can agree that art is an experience that is or can be transcended to us, even if we don’t agree on which art does that. Right. We can agree on these higher principles. Right. And you know, principles are super important. I have a video on principles. You should check that one out, too. Principles are important and we can agree on them. And that allows us to move forward. It allows us to find the common ground that we need to be able to cooperate better. And it keeps us out of this binary mode, this positive and negative, this good and bad. This, you know, this whole thing around left and right, up and down, you know, it’s crazy. And there’s no reason to do it. We can re-enchant the world around us by adding in that nuance, by adding in that detail, by understanding that there’s more there than what we’re interacting with in our head. What we’re projecting in our heads. There’s more there, probably more than we can handle. But we can engage with just as much as we need to to get along. And that’s really important. We can turn our attention away from the anger and resentment inside of us, turn our attention away from the injustices that have been done to us. We turn our attention away from the excuses we have for not being as successful as we’d like. Whatever. However, we measure that. We can turn away from this reaction of binary thinking, this snap judgment, this easy, certain way of interacting with the world. And we can turn towards this way of cooperating within the world. It doesn’t require empathy or sympathy or compassion. Those aren’t even required. We can just point at the good with somebody else and discover what we think is good. And even if we don’t agree on the things we think are good, we can agree on good being better. We can agree on getting better as a process without worrying about the elements that we think make better up. We can do that. That keeps us out of this binary mode. It keeps us moving together towards something bigger than ourselves, bigger than we are as individuals. Because the only way you can build something bigger than you are is with somebody else’s help. And eventually you run into that problem where you’ve built all the things that you can build by yourself. And maybe that’s very satisfying in the moment. But ultimately, you need to transcend. You need to stop having and stop being and start becoming. Better. Towards the good. But that’s something you can do. You just have to stay away from these binary traps. Stay out of this binary thinking. Very bad stuff. Really gives us quick answers. Very bad, low resolution answers that can cause us to fight. It puts us in the political frame. The political frame is poison. The political frame is dangerous. The political frame is bad. It’s totally unnecessary. It’s never, never good enough to help us. And when you need to use the political frame, believe me, that will be abundantly clear. You will have no other frames left. But first, look for those other frames. Because the political frame makes it force. And maybe you’ll get lucky and you’ll be on the right side of that force. But probably not. So just stay away from the binary political frame. Keep the binary thinking to a minimum. That will help keep you out of the political frame. Add the detail and nuance. Re-enchant the things around you. The interactions, the people. Look for the good. Look for the principles you have in common. Enjoy the things that you can enjoy in the abstract. And maybe find things to agree on in the specific. Or things to explore in the specific. That can happen. And maybe that will make you more appreciative. Because the thing that really matters, you know, the thing that really gives us that sense of not just camaraderie, but and not just cooperation, not just fellowship, but real, connected, intimate meaning is the thing that I’m always most grateful for you giving me when you watch my videos. And that is time and attention.