The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See by Richard Rohr

Author:Richard Rohr [Rohr, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780824520625
Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company
Published: 2009-08-31T17:00:00+00:00

REFRAMING FALSE DILEMMAS

As we said before, the human mind prefers to think by comparison and differentiation-from. It starts as a binary system, something like a computer. Polarity thinking is unfortunately a self-canceling system, a form of argumentation that merely lets both sides more deeply invest in and identify with their position. Words can always be fashioned to make our point, and even we know that it is not necessarily objectively or totally true. Ask any lawyer or judge, or honest husband and wife, if that is not the case. If truth is so obvious, why would we need a Supreme Court to resolve disputes? And even the justices disagree with one another, often vociferously!

Thus most groups divide into liberals and conservatives of some sort, thinking that by defeating the other, they will win. This appeals to our competitive nature. The truth, however, is always something other than what one side says about the other.

The creating of false alternatives to force a person into an either-or choice, which can occur even with well-intentioned people, is even more characteristic of hostile or insincere opponents, as we see the enemies of Jesus exemplify. “Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” they ask (Luke 20:22). Polarity thinking avoids all subtlety and discrimination and creates false dichotomies. If you fight dualistic thinkers directly, you are forced to become dualistic yourself. This is why, classically, Jesus sidesteps the two alternatives by telling a story, keeping silent, or sometimes presenting a third alternative that utterly reframes the false dilemma. Rhetorically, Jesus was really a genius.

Early in their struggles, all nonviolent teachers learn some form of this wisdom, which is also the wisdom of Solomon (recall his brilliant reframing in 1 Kings 3:16–28). If they didn’t, they could not be nonviolent, as we see in Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Mother Teresa. For example, I was told personally by the leadership sisters in Calcutta that Mother Teresa never tried to convert a Muslim or a Hindu to Catholicism. She told the sisters that their job was not to talk about Jesus or even promote Jesus, but to be Jesus! Is that radical “identity transplant” what we are avoiding? Or does dualistic thinking just deem it impossible?

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