Dualism, Irrational Human Tendencies, and Comic Book Acid Trips
I’m wondering if we should stop asking people, “What are you smoking?”and start asking “Are you sure someone hasn’t slipped some LSD into your food?” Many people seem to be on some sort of societal acid trip. Not only are they looking at an alternate version of reality but they’re jumping up and down on the couch and calling anyone crazy who doesn’t see things their way. Perhaps worse, they are assuming we non-acid takers are evil. Many of my former first-year college students perceived the world this way. To them everything was either right or wrong. (This lower level of adult development is labeled Dualism on Perry’s Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development.) These students had trouble recognizing the complexities inherent in many situations. They would inevitably end up seeing opposing sides as 2D, comic book like characters who were either all good or all evil. Now let’s toss in a common human irrational behavior. (This was mentioned on an recent early episode of “The Irrational” on Peacock.) Humans, even smart ones, often believe that if someone else gets a portion of something — it could be cake, personal attention, or anything — that there will then be less or none left for them. This of course can actually be true. It becomes irrational when there is more than enough to go around. An alarming example of this is the recent tendency of many of those who support Israel to label anyone who is also concerned about the death of innocent Palestinians as anti-Semitic or pro-Hamas. Of course there are those who are both of these things, but caring about the Palestinian people does not automatically make someone either of these things. It is possible to have compassion for more than one group at the same time. It does not necessarily lessen the amount one feels for the other group. It is possible to want innocent people on both sides to be safe now and in the future. The trouble with dualism is that when you label everyone who disagrees with you as evil it’s easy to justify doing something evil to get rid of them.
Cinse Bonino
2023
