Posted by Sadie from D006125.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.6.125) on Sunday, February 02, 2003 at 12:56PM :
In Reply to: Re: Ronald McDonald is running the shop? posted by Sadie from D007138.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.7.138) on Saturday, February 01, 2003 at 8:33PM :
When I wrote "bipolar", I did not mean literally "manic depressive". Rather, it is my hypothesis that many people who have been brought up in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic & some other traditions tend to phrase things in terms of opposites, especially when speaking of moral issues. "Good" vs. "evil". Bush uses these words a lot & Hollywood movies like to portray things in those terms as well - a "good" army vs. a "bad" army, a "bad" guy who turns "good", etc. It's even obvious in the *idea* behind Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - a person is split between two inharmonious & opposite personalities. This happens again in team sports - you are either "for" or "against" one team or another. & quite obviously, war-mongering nationalist rhetoric usually manifests elements of this sort of thinking - we are "good" while the "other" person, leader, country, etc. is "bad". So, many humans are taught to visualize their world as one that is composed of sets of *supposed* opposites, e.g. "male" vs. "female". However, how does this structure reflect REALITY? This bipolar way of seeing the world seems to actually prevent many people from seeing things in other ways. What if something does not fit this structure perfectly?
-- Sadie
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