Binary Investigation
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A major question that I would like to investigate/ address over the next few weeks/ months / years is

"Does the nature of human organisation naturally tend towards binaries, -such as good/evil, left/right, regression/progress-, or is that just a construction of Western society?"

This was motivated by my recent experience of student elections, (this question always comes up). I always have a nagging belief that binary ways of thinking are innately regressive and limiting to the human imagination, and our conceptions of what is possible. In addition, it leads to an 'us and them' mentality.

As a person who resents the limitations of the labels 'left and right', I am interested to discover whether or not they are unique to our era or not.

Some areas of investigation could involve

1. historicism- (the idea that history is an inevitable movement towards progress) and its many critics.

2. dialectics- (the analysis of the creative interaction of opposites in driving history and innovation forwards)

3. The two-party political system and its history

4. The history of the political terms 'left and right' and whether or not their tendencies predated the labels (coined after the French Revolution). To what extent is "left" and "right" historically related to the development of Capitalism?

5. An analysis of Western epistemology (what is seen to constitute knowledge) and its various forms- logic, empiricism (especially the scientific method) - contrasting this with the epistemology of indigenous forms of knowledge and other more circular/lateral ways of thinking.

6. An analysis of 'us and them' thinking and whether or not its prevalence is grounded in political situations of perceived or real threat from some unknown 'Other'.

7. An analysis of binary conceptualisations in the Bible and Hebrew texts.

8. An analysis of paradox and binary imagery in the expressive arts, and how this may relate to the psychological and political landscape of consciousness for the Western creative voice.

Whoa- that's a lot of thinking to be done... Anyone want to help?