From: kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
Newsgroups: pnw.general
Subject: Re: Dualistic vs Wholistic...
Summary: marooned on the planet Chiaroscuro
Date: 17 Aug 92 16:24:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: eskimo.1992Aug17.162439.27632
Distribution: pnw
Organization: >>> Eskimo North (206)-FOR-EVER <<<

In article <UNCLE.92Aug13120042@milton.milton.u.washington.edu> uncle@milton.milton.u.washington.edu (Milton Friedmen) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.210537.14350@eskimo.celestial.com> kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum) writes:
>
>>All I did was suggest that the concept of ownership be reexamined, and
>
>You can reexamine it all you want.  *I* know what you are talking about and I
>sympathize with your desire to do away with *land* ownership.  It would
>certainly make society different.  Once you get people to understand what you
>are talking about, however, you are still faced with the problem of explaining
>to them why it would be better.

Well, I'm glad *somebody* has figured it out.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm
speaking in tongues because nobody seems to understand what I'm saying.
Thanks for the feedback.

[...]
>>THIS IS REALLY EXASPERATING!!  Will somebody please explain about
>>symbols, referents, map-vs-territory and other concepts?  My fingers are
>>getting tired.
>
>Please be more patient.  I think I have a vague idea of what you are talking
>about but your reference to a symbolic/real dichotomy is somewhat ambiguous
>and/or cryptic.

This is the sort of stuff that ought to be part of the background
knowledge of anybody who claims to be educated, i. e., if you have
a baccalaureate degree and you don't know this, you got gypped and
ought to sue your alma mater for educational damages.

[...]
>>Discard world-views that encourage dualistic, absolutistic, rigid
>>thinking, because they are inherently restrictive and map poorly to
>>the universe.
>
>This is the bit that actually prompted me to join this topic.  I've heard lots
>of people use lots of these buzzwords and dichotomies but I've never had a
>clue as to what they were talking about.
>
>Kurt, you've done a good job of explaining a lot of your statements which I
>originally thought were hopelessly vague handwaving rhetoric.  I believe you
>actually trying to communicate some idea or set of ideas with the this
>dualistic vs. wholistic deal.  What is it?  What does it have to do with men
>vs. women?
[...]

I'm trying to say that a dualistic world-view gives an overly simplified,
highly distorted picture of reality.  The view that there are only 2 sexes,
for example, gives rise to highly stereotyped sex roles that people are
expected to conform to, ignoring the fact that sex and sexuality are *not*
2-valued, male-vs-female things but really infinite-valued.  The problem
with dualities is that they ignore all the stuff inbetween, or shoehorn
the stuff into one or the other pigeonhole, no matter how absurd or painful
the fit.

Dualities bear the same relation to the real world that a cartoon bears
to a photograph.  I complained, essentially, that people were using cartoons
instead of photographs as real-world representations.  I also complained
that both cartoon- and photograph-users confuse the *representations* they
use with the real world itself, the thing represented.  Moreover, I think
that many decision-makers are quite well aware of all of this, and know
which side their bread is buttered on.  It's much easier to rule a group
of people if they all have simple, dualistic, absolutistic beliefs that
allow abstractions and symbols to take on a mysterious reality all their
own.

I hope that things are now a little clearer :) .  As I noted in earlier
postings, the subject is inherently fuzzy and lies right on the edge of
the universe of discussable things.  Still, everybody should at least
be aware of the ideas.
-- 
kurt@grogatch.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
e-mail me at kurt@eskimo.celestial.com for a copy of Bob Black's essay,
"The Abolition of Work"