So. What to rant about. How about binary thinking?

Binary thinking, to me, is one of the worst crimes possible. It is thinking if...then, rather than thinking through a selection of options. Let's take an example. Really, it's random. Honest.

One of the most revealing things to me about the anti-war movement was expressed by a friend of my mother's, who, on hearing that I had taken part in the February 15th protest, basically asked if that didn't mean supporting Saddam Hussein. I nearly choked when I heard that lovely example of logic, but in hindsight, I realize that she was just a victim of binary thinking.

Thinking this way means that there's no room for shades of grey. If you're against the war, you're for Hussein. Bear in mind, I don't think the man was a pretty princess while he was in power, but that doesn't make his removal right. Especially since, because I am not bound by binary thinking, I realize that the US had a lot to do with him being in power in the first place.

There's a difference between believing that something is wrong, therefore something else is right, and believing that both things are wrong. In this specific case, it's the difference between "if Saddam is wrong, then the war is right" and "both the war and Saddam are wrong". Of course, in my case I'm a lot more likely to believe that Bush is wrong, but that's me.

But going back to the idea of shades of grey. Why would anyone, particularly anyone who was an adult, believe that the world is only black and white? We grow up, out of the simplicity of childhood, where that is true, and realize (hopefully, anyway) that nothing is as simple as it seems. Although I am wholeheartedly a fan of Bill Clinton as president, that doesn't mean that I liked everything he ever did as president - like telling the FDA to be more "business-friendly". I see the shades of grey behind the man; why can't others?

Perhaps because it's easier to believe that if there is a wrong, there is a right, or the other way around. It's easier to think that someone is only good or bad than it is to figure out what parts of them you want to accept and what parts you don't like or won't deal with. When I was much younger, I forwarded an email to my mother on the topic of "Kids' Deep Thoughts", which was a bunch of sayings in the vein of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey, and put a disclaimer on it, because I was afraid that she would think I supported such sayings as "Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he really needed them," along with such turns of genius as " Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money."

My mother, to her credit, wrote back asking why I would think that she couldn't tell the difference between a humorous email and a categorical statement of morals. In other words, she knew me well enough to know that I didn't find the first one funny but nearly died with laughter over the second, and the issue was cruelty about and to crippled people. She takes the bad with the good and doesn't see me - or the rest of the world - only in a binary opposition - if I forward jokes about cripples, I am a bad person.

I think, however, that we should all grow up and realize that the world is not black and white, and however hard we try, we're not going to make it such. In fact, our efforts often cause more trouble than it's worth. After all, who remembers that we supported Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war because we were so afraid of the Ayatollah. And who then remembers that we stopped supporting Hussein when it was evident that he was going to lose, prompting him, several years later, to invade Kuwait because Kuwait had several valuable oil fields that Hussein wanted because he needed the money to rebuild his military machine and his country. After all, as someone said recently, the borders in the Middle East were only drawn up in the twenties - they can be moved around.

But it all started with a single instance of binary thinking: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the Ayatollah is my enemy.

As Asian Dub Foundation says, "the enemy of the enemy, he's your friend...till he's the enemy again." And it's all binary thinking that gets us into these situations.

The assigning of blame and fault is binary thinking. If something goes wrong, there is someone responsible. If your car blows up, Ford is responsible - rather than, maybe it was improperly maintained by your mechanic, or maybe you didn't take it in for service often enough, or Ford didn't realize that they were using a flawed design.*

So. I'm applying to al-Jazeera as, basically, a statement of binary thinking. I don't want to work for the BBC or CNN or any other Western news agency because I don't like the propaganda that I see them producing. This does not make al-Jazeera right in all things and supreme among human works because they are not Western. The idea that gets me out of binary thinking is this recognition. They are not perfect because they are not Western.

The one thing I do believe, that is binary thinking, is that there is, somewhere, an objective truth that we can see and find and recognize, This is not the same as assigning blame or finding out the ultimate cause, because the Truth, in Spider's sense, has nothing to do with blame. Instead it has to do with the combination of factors that allowed us to get to the point we are at.

That is the Truth, and it is the one thing I am prepared to believe exists as part of a binary opposition: The Truth exists, as opposed to the lies that we believe.

And if you believe that supporting the anti-war movement, or the pro-choice movement, or not supporting the NRA means that you are for evil dictators, or killing babies, or against the Constitution, you think in binaries. And I don't.

I lead a better life for it, too. I see the world in multiple colors, in a range of choices. I don't think that, just because I'm female, for example, I have to be a teacher or a nurse or a housewife. Nothing against those who make those choices. But I can be and do anything my moral code will allow, because I don't see "female" as equal to "limited choices."

I recommend trying it. Don't think in binaries. And never, ever believe that what someone else tells you is, de facto, the Truth or right in any way.

Figure it out for yourself.

Dancing with one fist in the air,

Channon

*I've had a Ford. I can believe that Ford didn't have a clue what was happening when they built that thing. Went through alternators like they were water.