August 3, 2003

• Dualism versus Monism

  
  

  Anyone who doesn’t immediately get the joke in my title could end up at the end of this blog either getting it or scratching his head saying WTF.

  
  

  In response to my “Life is Good!” blog a few days ago, I got some comments agreeing with my somewhat reluctantly arrived-at judgment, plus a few from people who sadly disagreed, and this, from HennaBoi:

  
  

  
  

  I dont get it.Why avoid value judgements?I thought thats what we were here for.Have experiences, analyze them, judge the usefull from the non usefull, test the decision against new experiences.Well thats what I do @ least.[sic]

  
  

  That’s not only a good example of the “masculine” mind (as discussed briefly in yesterday’s blog) but typical of mainstream Piscean Age Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought.  It is a dualistic philosophical system that sets up light against dark, good against evil, male against female, etc.

  
  

  I have had a delightfully informative trip around the web this morning via google, seeing what other people have to say about it.  I’ve touched upon the topic both here as SuSu, and in one context or another at KaiOaty.  I have enjoyed thinking about it, stretching my mind around it, ever since my introduction to Zen through some beatniks I met in a coffeehouse in Wichita, Kansas forty-some years ago.

  
  

  One of the most concise and coherent definitions of the problem of moralistic dualism I found today not only defines it but illustrates it:

  
  

  
  

  “How pagans see the duality of light/dark is not the same as how the Judeo-Christian-Islamic (will abbreviate as JCI from here on) cultures see it. The JCI worldview is based on dualism where the world is broken down into two very separate and distinct parts. These parts are independent of each other and can be either complimentary or in conflict. In the case of JCI thought, light and dark are in conflict and are associated with the battle of good (light) vs. evil (dark).

  
  

  Paganism on the other hand has adopted a worldview based on monism, where all is seen as part of one encompassing whole. Dualities such as light/dark thus exist as polarities – two aspects of a whole, best symbolized as a Yin-Yang. In Paganism light/dark is no longer the same as good/evil, but rather associated with such complimenting principles as creative/destructive, external/internal, attracting/repelling, clarity/mystery, active/passive, solid/flowing, static/dynamic to name a few. The moralistic connotations that were opposed upon the light/dark dualism by JCI thought simply do not apply under the monistic approach. (Don’t confuse “monism” and “monistic” with “monotheism”, that is another issue completely.)”  [emphasis added]
  from ecclasia
  by John J. Coughlin

  
  

  

  
  

  This symbol, dear readers, is NOT a “yin-yang”, although that IS the name I tend to see used most often for it in English writings.  Mr. Coughlin seems to be caught in the dualistic trap he is defining, even though I get the impression he defines himself as a Pagan.  The symbol is the Tao.  Give it its due.  It is an ancient and clever rendering of someone’s idea of the reconciliation of opposites, the idea that All is One.  Within its perfect circle is the suggestion of constant motion and balance, and that at the heart of one extreme lies a core of the other, opposite extreme.  Seek the heart of darkness, and you will find the light.

  
  

  If anyone in this relativistic universe has ever beheld an absolute, it has not, to my knowledge, been recorded, expressed or communicated.  Everything we can perceive and express in our limited systems of awareness and communication is relative.  “Good” and “bad” are too limited, too absolute, too black-and-white to be totally real to me.

  
  

  Some of the most interesting stuff I found on today’s search was written by John Beloff.

  
  

  An exhaustive general discussion of dualism can be found in The Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind.

  
  

  

  • 4:20 pm
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