THE NOBULL NEWSLETTER
Opposites and Complements
9/6/2011
I.
As a young psychologist, in my second year of practice, I worked with a young woman who taught me one of the biggest lessons of my life. In our discussions, I viewed her as taking the opposite side of every observation that I made. When I pointed out what I termed her oppositionality, she was initially taken aback. But being very bright and very thoughtful, she reflected on my comment and then said something like the following:
“I do not mean to be oppositional. It may seem like the opposite to you because we are both taking for granted the truth of what YOU are saying. In other words, I agree with what you are saying BUT because we both see that side of things, I feel compelled to point out the OTHER side, the side that we have not spoken about.”
“Yes”, said I. “That’s what I am referring to as oppositional. Always taking the opposite side.”
“No”, she responded, thus proving in my mind her oppositionality. I am not taking an OPPOSING position, I am stating the COMPLEMENTARY position.”
“Hunh?”, I responded intelligently. “What do you mean?”
“I do not see many things in the world as opposites”, she responded. “I tend to see things as complements.
“What’s the difference”, I asked. And then she taught me.
Light and Dark, for instance, can be viewed as opposites, each mutually exclusive of the other. But they may both be viewed as complements, each necessary to the existence of the other. Is it possible to conceive of the presence of light without also conceiving the absence of light. Or, is it possible to conceive of the absence of light without also conceiving of the presence of light. To know light is to know dark. And to know dark is to know light. More to the point, is it possible to conceive of Presence without also knowing Absence or Absence without knowing Presence. In short, one thing implies the other and each is necessary to the existence of the other.
Now, this was, at the time, a very novel concept and way of viewing the world. The only visual I could put to the idea to help me understand was the Tao symbol of the yin and the yang.
This symbol captures the essence of a complementary world in contradistinction to an oppositional world. The circle represents the whole and the black side and the white side are each necessary for the completion of the whole. They are not opposites but complements. And the little black circle on the white side and white circle on the black side are meant to suggest that one cannot conceive of one without the other.
Over the years of my life, I have come to see more and more of life in terms of complements.
I have also noticed that most people do not understand a complementary world, just as I did not until that bright young woman taught me. And, when the world does not understand complementarity, the world becomes a very adversarial place as people view their beliefs and those of others as mutually exclusive. Viewing the world in terms of opposites makes one focus on differences and upon raising the validity of one view over another.
Most dysfunctional about this approach is how, with an oppositional world view, people tend to polarize each other and compete rather than cooperate. By polarizing, I mean that when person A makes a statement, the response by person B is to take a strongly opposing view. This, in turn, makes person A look for more ways to differentiate and justify his view and, as time goes one, each pushes the other to the opposite pole. Neither is willing to admit that there may be some truth in what the other has to say. They polarize each other.
II.
Now THE NOBULL NEWS is not a psychology newsletter or a philosophy newsletter. It is a political newsletter. And, I am confident nearly ALL of my readers are smart enough to see the relationship between this oppositionality/complementarity and politics.
It is not by accident that we have arrived at a very oppositional state in American politics. When one realizes the preponderance in Congress of members of the legal profession, a profession based upon adversarial relationships and the winning and losing of one idea over another, it is easy to see how we have come to this. Of course, we cannot lay the blame completely at the feet of the legal profession because it is American citizens who have voted lawyers and other increasingly adversarial individuals into the “halls of power”. And, the citizenry has done so because it does not understand the notion of complementary relationships, the necessity for what appear to be opposing views to BOTH exist in order to create a whole solution.
Let me explain about “whole” solutions a little further. More than 30 years ago, I read a paper that talked about the kind of leaders that would be required in the future (which, after 30 years, happens to be now.) Much to my dismay, I cannot recall the author or title of that paper because I would love to read it again. What I recall, however, is that leaders of the future would have to be able to see both sides of a problem, consider them not as opposites but as complements, and then seek a resolution or solution by discovering another concept which subsumed both sides under one idea. An example from therapy was a couple who came to marital therapy bitterly arguing about money. One would be called “cheap” while the other would be considered “a spend-thrift”. Rather than get engaged in deciding whether one was cheap or one was a spend-thrift, after listening a while it became clear that they both had the same problem, not different problems. And their problem was “fear and shame about needing too much”. Both people had been told that their needs were too great. Each responded to the same problem differently. One partner compliantly restricted their needs while the other rebelliously asserted their needs. One lived a life that said: “see, I really don’t need too much” while they other lived a life that said: “I will make you accept my needs.” When people are engaged in defending themselves at the polarities in this way, they cannot be engaged in discussing the focal issue. In fact, each was pushing the other further toward the poles and contributing to the fear of the other. Each partner was not really arguing about money per se but about the larger issue of how much it was appropriate to need. But they never did discuss this issue or their respective fears because they were too involved in defending their own method of resolving the problem. If the problem were not being driven by the underlying fears of each, they could have and eventually did come to a reasonable accommodation.
III.
Unfortunate as it may be, our nation and its politics have become polarized just like the couple above. And, while I am not suggesting that the country needs a therapist (well, maybe I am), I do believe that we need a leader capable of seeing that those on each side of an issue are often driven by motives that are not what they appear to be on the surface.
The people of this nation, prior to the presidential election of 2008 were looking for just such a leader. And Barack Obama seemed to many to be promising just such leadership. His words suggested he could see both sides of an issue and seek a “bipartisan” solution. Many of us, however, knew better. We knew better because we did not look at what the man said but what he did. In reading his two books, it became clear to me that while Obama could, indeed, SEE both sides of an issue, he saw them as opposing ideas and did not treat them as complementary ideas. He did not look beyond the surface. And he ALWAYS chose a solution that fell on the same side, the left side, the “progressive” side. He behaved just like one partner in the marital relationship. He said: “I see your side of things, but my way is better.” Of course, this statement, when carefully examined, is proof that while he KNEW what the other side thought, he did not see any truth or validity in what the other side thought. Barack Obama was and is an ideologue. And not just and ideologue but a megalomanic ideologue who believes not only that he has the “correct” solution but also that said solution should be imposed on everyone.
At this point in his tenure, Obama is being chastised by those on both the right and the left. He and his team are representing this as proof that he is not being ideological but “balanced” in his approach. But this “balance” was nowhere in evidence during his first two years in office. It is only now, as he runs for a second term, that he tries to moderate. His moderation is not extensive and there is little moderation by his minions who operate on the far left while he attempts (rather unsuccessfully) to move to the center. And I believe no one is stupid enough to believe that, if re-elected, Obama’s last 4 years will not be much more like his first two rather than his second two.
Now the Republicans are trying to choose the candidate who will OPPOSE Obama. I put the word in caps because my fear is that in choosing a leader from the Republican Party, we are not looking for a person who will make the best president but rather are looking for someone whose views are the opposite of Obama’s views. I am reminded of many friends who, living in Michigan their entire lives, yearned to retire to the heat of Arizona. When it was pointed out how “hot” it could be in Arizona, they would always say, I would rather be hot in Arizona than cold in Michigan. We yearn for that which we do not have. And we yearn for a lot more of it than we might if we had a little of each.
I am also reminded of so many people I saw in therapy who were in the midst of an affair. When I would speak to them about their spouses, they would often say that they truly did love their spouse but that the spouse was lacking in these one or two specific qualities. And their “lover” provided just those missing characteristics. So long as my patient had the spouse, their lover was sensational and provided what they hungered for. Later, if their spouse left the picture, my patients would realize that they now missed what the spouse had provided. We tend to overlook what we have as we seek what we don’t have. But the truth is, in nearly everything, we need a little of both. Why? Because we do not live in a world of opposites and we are not creatures imbued with opposites. We live in a complementary world and we loaded with complementary characteristics. But our misguided minds force us to choose between the illusion of opposites.
So, as we consider choosing a Republican candidate, do we really want someone who is an ideologue and a megalomaniac like Obama only on the Right instead of the Left? Does that help the nation secure its blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Do we really want our side to prevail so badly that we are willing to give up our center in order to annihilate our opposite? Can we survive without the other side? Is the other side so wrong, that there is no validity to anything they say?
For example, you may agree that we spend too much on entitlements and that we have made our citizens too dependent upon government, but would you not also agree that it is reasonable to provide a safety net for the most needy among us? Would you eliminate entitlements altogether and allow the “survival of the fittest” law of the jungle to become the America you want to live in?
How about regulations? You may feel that we, as a nation, have become “over-regulated” but would you not agree that some regulations are important? Would you not want your food inspected? Would you not want your hospitals to pass some minimal standards of cleanliness?
How about big government vs little government? Are you really ready to live in an America where you never feel the presence of government in your life? Ask those whose homes have recently been flooded or destroyed by hurricanes whether they want no government.
Clearly, these choices are false choices. We are not faced with opposites here but with complements. Each is needed to complete the other. We conservatives are never just conservative. We sometimes splurge with our money. We sometimes seek change. We often are generous toward others. These are not conditions exclusive to liberals. We are people and we are filled with complementary motives and needs. We may disagree with each other and with liberals about the balance of each but we cannot be forced to choose between opposites.
So the time to choose our candidate is soon upon us. Choose carefully, my friends. Do not simply choose the opposite. Choose a candidate, pray that we have one, who sees the world in terms of complements.
