Binaries everywhere when you think about it. Up-down, in-out, male-female, day-night, light-dark, gay-straight, black-white, us-them, dog-cat, cat-mouse, one-many, well-sick, mind-body. If you have a few minutes to fritter away in childlike wonder, think about all the binaries of life.The ancient Chinese discovered binaries and called them yin and yang. Everything "that is" has yin or yang qualities, to a greater or lesser extent. The secret of a good life, according to the sages, was to find a balance of yin and yang.
Mathematicians and computer folk discovered binaries and gave us computers. The front end of my MacBook Air is a beautiful user interface—colorful, clever, amazing. But, go below the surface and everything is binary, ones and zeros. So, apparently, "yin and yang" in binary is:
0111100101101001011011100010000001Binaries, in themselves, are neither good or bad. They simply are. All that is seems to exist in binaries. It's how we make sense of stuff. However, the uses we put binaries to is a different story. Here's two ways we can make use of binaries: oppositionally or harmoniously. By oppositional I'm thinking "never the twain shall meet." By harmoniously I'm thinking "we two together."
1000010110111001100100001000000111
1001011000010110111001100111.
Religious imagery is full of binaries: good-evil, the elect-the rest, god-devil, heaven-hell, the saved-the lost, the sheep-the goats. Sadly, these religious binaries have often been used oppositionally.
Take "the sheep and goats." The idea comes from one of the stories Jesus told. The sheep are taken to be the "good guys." The goats are the "bad guys." Sheep figure a lot in scared texts. The twenty-third Psalm has given comfort to countless people: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ..." It's a favorite at funerals, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil ..." This heart warming Psalm demonstrates religion at its best; comfort and consolation when life is at its most difficult.
The shepherd and sheep image is less helpful when it is used oppositionally. In a famous passage in St. John's gospel, Jesus announces that he is the good shepherd. Christians have taken the Psalm 23 image of the shepherd and Jesus's words to amount to the same thing. But, if you read the saying in context, its use is oppositional. The opposition is "Jesus and the Jews." In the context the Jews "do not belong to my sheep." Tragically, it was this oppositional approach of St. John that contributed to centuries of Christian persecution of Jewish people in Europe, leading inexorably to the Shoah. European Christians called Jews "Christ killers" and killed, in turn, in horrible, misguided revenge. The sheep and goats binary has been used in terrible ways.
Yet binaries, in themselves, are neutral. Sheep and goats need not mean opposition, but rather harmony in diversity. Sheep and goats are different, to be sure, but difference is no bad thing. The ancient sages were wise to tell us that in everything yang there is a little yin; and every yin will change to yang. Every goat has a little sheep in it, and every sheep a little goat. When discussing sexuality, my students often chuckle when in answer to the question "straight or gay?" I respond, "straight, more or less." In every male there is female, in every female male; in every Democrat a Republican, and every Republican a Democrat. We're all a little queer.
My joy this week is to reimagine a world in which binaries are used harmoniously rather than oppositionally.
+Ab. Andy