In binary logic, any being or entity is defined by what it is not, "which would identify it as this rather than that" (Derrida, 2004, p.143). For example, an apple is defined by how its shape, color, and texture differ from other fruit, such as a banana. A fruit is either an apple or a banana. There is no in-between. Binary oppositions maintain an either/or if -then proposition and are thereby able to eliminate doubt and ambiguity and to establish a certainty of meaning.
Do you understand how this works, politically?
Try to imagine the king of the castle perched upon his heights. His is a binary world in which he occupies the position determined as superior. He is for instance, white to your black, man to your woman, right thinking to your erroneous tendencies.
Such a king of the castle has no need to expand his knowledge base. So far as he's concerned, he's already got it all figured out. He simply asks for things in a reasonable way. And however he asks for things, that is automatically a reasonable way -- insofar as he is white to your black, man to your woman, and reason to your madness or unintelligiblity. If he were to leap in crazy and gesticulating fashion screaming nastily into your ear, he is still the white to your black, still the man to your woman, still the reason that chastises your refusal to hear.
The dirty rascal sits below -- far below the place where the king and his castle reside. Metaphysically they are black to his white, woman to his man, silliness and immaturity to his well reasoned nature. Your attempt to argue with the unfairness of this situation only makes you out to be: blacker, more womanly, self-evidently lacking in good reason and sufficient common sense.
What to do about this arrangement?
My advice is not to attempt to reason with the man. Don't play the argumentative game of dirty rascal, either (that's expected of you!) Just walk away.
Binary metaphysics is actually quite weak when it cannot throw its net of mastery over the world. It succeeds in its bluff only when you look up to pay attention to the man.
But I have other things to do in life. Complex, magnificent things. So do you.
1 comment:
In a way this works. If you and your fellow blackies and women get together in solidarity and refuse to recognize the king's power and embrace your own collective power instead, the king is finished. He only has the power when you give him colonial rights to your mind.
Reminds me of an old anti-war song by Phil Ochs, "I ain't marchin' anymore."
To be sure, for this liberation strategy to work, each individual has to act in a thinking way in concert with their fellow against the king or the war powers that be. Kind of like ONE BIG UNION.
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