Life pulsates between opposite poles

In a discussion essay we look at a matter from opposite angles in order to arrive at a conclusion. This literary genre reveals how judgments are formed in a field of tension of differing points of view. If the judgment adheres to one particular pole, social problems can ensue and the judgment threatens to be extreme.

---

What is the world like for a point? Or a line? Or an area such as a triangle? Is the perception of the world different from the point of view of a triangle than from that of a square or circle? I used to find these questions fascinating in the maths lessons at school. They opened my eyes to how differently the world, which reveals itself to all of us, can be perceived.

Then the question became more complicated: What is the world? For the solipsist there is only one authority that decides this question: their own ‘I’. For the constructivist objects are constructed only as a result of a cognitive process.

The emerging third

A view of the world that is often cited in anthroposophy describes life as playing out in a field of polarities without being one of the poles, for if that was the case, one would burn in the extremeness of this pole like an insect flying into an open flame. Life, we can therefore say, unfolds, develops, between fields of forces.

In music, a ‘third tone’ can arise when from a sequence or consonance of tones created by several instruments a pulsating-swinging sound emerges. This ‘third’ tone cannot be relied on; whether or not it appears depends, among other things, on the way the music is played; it arises from and through the playing.

Currently, we see a tendency towards polarized argumentation in the societal discourse, as apparent, for instance, in the ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ functions of the social media. This ‘either-or’ phenomenon is not something that has only come up with these media, even though it is often presented as such. In politics, for instance, one used to speak of ‘east’ and ‘west’ and does so increasingly again. In the past there were Monarchists and opponents of monarchy. Political parties in particular tend towards one-sidedness in a way that makes mediation between them difficult even in a multipolar constellation.

The polar positions take me back to the digital world. The polar logic of things being either ‘true’ or ‘false’ that permeates digital systems goes back to the allocation of unambiguous states of either ‘on’ (one) or ‘off’ (zero) in electronics. Even though technical applications are able to represent more than just polar states today, this allocation ultimately takes place.

From technology to life

I wonder whether this unambiguous ‘either/or’ thinking is an unconsciously – or more or less consciously – practised pattern of societal discourse that does not arise from the enjoyment of wrestling with questions and finding common ground, but that starts with people holding unambiguous standpoints before entering the debate. In the social sphere this principle assumes an - equally dipolar - moral dimension in which things can only be either ‘true’ or ‘false’, either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

As a consequence, anyone questioning political developments is dismissed as either prone to conspiracy theories or as ‘naïve’ with regard to the ‘real’ power games; and the designating of gender or other identities is either without alternatives or an expression of authoritative language or thinking. In this system of either right or wrong (including morally) there is no space for underlying motives, needs and deficiencies. In life, however, such motives and needs emerge and die away depending on one’s current relation to the world.

---

---